AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Today, I needed them more than I wanted to admit. A slight touch from them would soothe the turmoil churning inside me.
They were my lovers, my protectors, and the only men I trusted. They comforted me on a level I hadn’t known I needed. They were my safe place.
But some part of me worried I couldn’t give them what they needed, what they wanted from me. Maybe it was the fact things weren’t the same level of intimacy as we had before. Xander and Theo wanted each other. I saw it when we were together, I felt it, but they wouldn’t act on it. Something held them back. And now it made me wonder whether I would be enough for them.
No, that was my fear rearing its ugly head. I wanted what they offered, and if I took it and something came and stole it away like last time, I’d survive.
I was a survivor.
I shook the thoughts back and refocused on the priest.
It was time to harden up and play the role of the Angelos widow and the new head of Angelos Shipping and Syndicate.
Besides Stefano, who held my umbrella, my row remained empty. And it was probably a good thing.
This position helped me fight back against the figurehead role I knew I’d have to battle. No matter what Xander and Theo believed, no one would respect my position until I met with the local heads and established my presence. Saying I was the Angelos meant nothing when Xander and Theo had run the organization under Andraius’s reign.
“Let us pray for Andraius’s soul, that he may?—”
I tuned Father Christianos out again, not wanting to hear any of his false, loving words and the long-winded sermon about the devil he cared for so much.
Fucking bastard. He was one of the reasons I’d nearly lost all faith in God.
He was Andraius’s priest, and his church was not the Greek Orthodox Church of my family.
This man despised me for the woman I was to the core, mainly because I refused to follow what he believed was God’s decree to let my husband lead our faith. Which for him meant his church with his rules and principles. What he truly wanted was the Angelos tithing, a lucrative windfall he couldn’t get unless I claimed his sanctuary as my church home. That wouldn’t happen since I attended regular service with Father Michael at the church down the street from my house.
I avoided being in Father Christianos’s presence whenever possible, and the only other religious service I’d attended where he presided was the day he allowed Andraius to force me to marry him. He’d stood there as if everything was wonderful, that I was a willing bride, that he wasn’t part of the conspiracy leading to the deaths of so many people.
He’d watched when Andraius took his marital rights, supervising, as he worded it, to ensure consummation. Then he’d held me down when the demon in the casket carved whore onto my stomach. He’d approved it and considered it a fitting punishment for my sins.
I would love to carvehypocriteandliarall over his face.
“Would you like to say anything, Nerine?” Father Christianos asked, shaking me from my brooding.
I stared at him, trying to comprehend his words.
As they clicked in my head, outrage engulfed my body.
Was he kidding me? This jackass who thought a woman’s only place in the world was below men actually wanted me to speak about my dead husband.
The challenge in his dark gaze said all I needed to know. He wanted to push me, put me in my place, make me little in the eyes of all the families attending the funeral.
I sensed Theo and Xander shifting behind me, picking up on my irritation. I slightly shook the hand I held at my side to indicate I’d handle it.
If this was the first battle I faced, so be it.
As a man of God, he wore a cloak of protection, keeping him from retaliation for his part in the coup. But his time in a position of power ticked by just like the grains of sand poured through an hourglass.
During a conversation with Mama, I’d decided he wouldn’t die by an order from me or means of any Angelos connections. Instead, we would send information about his dealings to the church’s higher-ups and allow them to handle things. Disgrace among his peers was the best punishment for someone like him. To live out his life exiled and shunned was the perfect revenge.
The Angeloses were significant donors to the archdioceses in Boston and throughout Greece. The last thing the church wanted was to look the other way when evidence showed one of their own waded in piles of corruption.
Holding Father Christianos’s gaze, I asked, “Are you sure it is appropriate? Aren’t you a proponent of a particular mindset on women’s participation in religious services?”
He smiled and spoke loud enough for those in attendance to hear. “It is only fitting for Andraius’s widow to address all those who came to pay him respects.”
Oh, he was diabolical.
