Chapter 1

Chapter

One

ATHENA

I’ve never asked to be liked. In fact, I’d rather you didn’t.

Cold. Heartless. Bitch. I’ve heard them all, and don’t consider one to be an insult. On the contrary, if you were to call me sweet, nice, or endearing, I’d be livid because it would mean one thing.

You’d be underestimating me.

I quite enjoy being the villainess in the story.

“Look, I know you prefer to deal with my father, and you expected to be working with my brother, Apollo, but you aren’t. You’re dealing with me.” I pause for a moment to draw a deep breath and not throw the phone across the room. I’m over tip toeing around this asshole’s thinly veiled misogyny. “Let me explain how we are different. If you cannot hold up your end of this contract, my father would have burned your stadium to the ground. My brother, well he’s a little more hot headed. Apollo has yet to mellow with age, like my father. He would burn your stadium to the ground with several workers still inside.”

“Look, little girl,” the current owner of The Titans says. “Before I sell one of the top NHL hockey teams to your family company, I need some reassurance that you actually know something about the sport. The people of Seattle need?—”

“The only thing you need from me is money. My job is not to reassure you. And before you call me little girl again, I’d think twice.” I close my eyes and take a calming breath. “Like my father and my brother, I’d burn down the stadium, too. But then I wouldn’t stop there. I’d also burn down your house. And I’d have to report to your insurance company that my female intuition told me it was arson, and they should investigate. I’d let them know exactly where to find the evidence. What evidence, you ask? I’ll fabricate, then plant plenty of evidence showing you burning down your own house, and I will have you arrested for arson and insurance fraud. Like a bitch with a bone, I wouldn’t even dream of stopping there. Not until your other businesses were all ashes, your reputation in tatters, your family destitute, and you are sitting behind bars, so I know exactly where to find you in case I wanted to fuck you harder.”

I don’t know when I rise, with my hands on either side of the phone, as I bend over the desk to talk into the speaker. With another deep breath, I take my seat, leaning back into the plush leather chair as my nerves settle.

The other side of the line is almost silent. The only thing coming from the phone is his shallow breaths. I honestly hope he pisses himself, and he should.

My bite is deadly, and he had better fucking learn that.

“Don’t ever call me little girl again. Do I make myself clear?” My voice is much calmer and more pleasant now. I even put on a smile so he can hear it over the phone.

“This is not the way business is done.” His voice is shaking.

Good.

“No, this is not the way business was done, but it is how it will be from now on. I suggest you make your peace with that and?—”

“I swear I will?—”

“You will what?” Venom drips from my words. “Tell my daddy? What are you going to say? That his daughter is being mean to you? That you tried to fuck him and Medusa Enterprises over, and I wouldn’t roll over and take it? How do you think that is going to play out?”

“I—”

“I’m done letting you waste my time. Here is what is going to happen. You are going to deliver the signed documents on time. And just so you don’t piss me off, you are going to take ten percent off the top of your cost, or I will burn everything you have ever loved… with a smile on my face as I do.”

With a quick tap on my phone, I disconnect the call. He’ll come through. If he doesn’t, I mean every single word. I’ll ignite an inferno.

Staring at the Medusa Enterprises family logo on the massive sign outside my office through the large glass windows, I settle my temper. The one thing I pride myself on is not losing my cool. I’m far more lethal if I am always calm and collected.

Godwins don’t show rage.

We may feel it. We never show it.

A knock sounds on my door, and Toria Lancaster peeks her head through the partially open door. “You asked to see me?”

I motion for her to come all the way in. “We are acquiring The Seattle Titans by the end of the day. I want you to oversee the deal.”

“The hockey team?”

I don’t answer, but rather look up from my stack of papers and make eye contact with her.

“Don’t you think that Liam may be a better fit to take on this project?”

“Why?” I lock my jaw and lean back in my chair. “Because he’s a man?”

Toria’s eyes widen, and she quickly opens her mouth to reply, but pauses, recomposes herself. “No, of course not. Consider it done.”

I nod my approval and watch Toria leave my office, pleased I don’t have to fire another weak-minded woman.

My secretary buzzes in. “Your brother, Phoenix, is on the line.”

“Thank you,” I reply, prepared to take the call even though I have a million things to do today.

Phoenix hasn’t been himself lately. He’s been obsessing over these damn journals he found of my mother’s. My brother has never been stable to begin with, which makes me worry what going down this rabbit hole could do to him.

She killed herself. We need to accept that fact and move on. Actually, we should have accepted that fact years ago. But sadly, Phoenix struggles with this, and I feel I need to be his support system simply by default. My father sure as hell isn’t going to be. Our brother, Apollo, has the sensitivity of a gnat—though I’m not much better—and my other brother, Ares, is dead. So, that leaves me.

“Athena,” Phoenix says when I answer the phone.

“Is something wrong?” I can always pick up on my brother’s emotions.

“It’s Mother.” He takes a deep breath. “I don’t think she killed herself.”

I release a heavy sigh. “We’ve discussed this. Does it really matter if she was the one to jump off the cliff or if someone actually pushed her? She’s dead. And this happened a long time ago. It’s long due we let this go.”

There’s a long pause. “Athena… I think our mother is still alive.”

“Phoenix—”

“You need to read these journals,” Phoenix blurts out. “She says that Father helped her leave the family.”

“You know as well as I do, that Father would never let her go. Godwins don’t divorce. It’s some dictate our fucked-up ancestors made or something.”

“If you read these journals?—”

“I’ll look into it, okay?” I say, not wanting to tell Phoenix that I already hired a private investigator to dig more into the mysterious events around my mother’s death. Or the fact that I am scheduled to meet up with him today.

My brothers and I were never convinced that she simply jumped to her death off the cliff in the back of Olympus Manor. It’s what we were told. It’s what we were supposed to believe. But deep down not one of us truly believed it. In the darkest shadows of our hearts, we feared our father had something to do with it.

Not suicide. Murder.

“I want you to read these,” Phoenix presses.

“I told you I’d look into it, and I will, but right now, I have to go. I have a meeting.”

I hang up the phone before Phoenix can say more. I don’t have time to get wrapped up in these thoughts and emotions. I need to make decisions and act based on facts. Hard facts.

Hopefully, after my next appointment with the PI, I’ll be closer to knowing what exactly happened to my mother. She died when I was fifteen, supposedly by her own hand, but that just doesn’t sit right with me. The woman I knew was vibrant, full of life and, like most of my family, was far more likely to commit homicide than suicide.

Did she have demons? Sure. We all do. Godwins are swimming in them, but that doesn’t mean we’d jump to the crashing waves beneath a jagged cliff.

Either way, she’s dead—regardless of what latest freak-out moment my brother is experiencing. Part of me thinks that’s all I need to know, but another part says there is more to the story, and my curiosity is getting the better of me.

My cell phone vibrating on my desk pulls me out of my thoughts. Of course he is calling now. No doubt the little worm ratted me out to my father.

“Hey, Daddy,” I say when I answer.

“Athena, I hear you’re busting my favorite client’s balls.” There isn’t even a hint of disapproval in his voice. I hate how much I love making him proud.

“He thought I was going to be an easy target. I had to correct that misunderstanding immediately.”

“You threatened to frame him for insurance fraud?” There is a touch of laughter in his voice.

“Honestly, I would have done more than that. If I felt the need to get the law involved to do my dirty work, I might as well pin a few of our sins on him, too. Several birds, one boulder, all that jazz.” I have to get him off the phone fast. My next appointment is one I have been looking forward to all day, and after Phoenix’s call, a needed one.

“I know what you’re doing, and who you’re meeting with. Stop.” His voice loses all its humor.

“I’m doing a lot of things. I need you to be a bit more specific.” The lie rolls off my tongue, not giving away how my heart is racing. How did he find out?

He’s Troy Godwin. That’s how. The man knows everything.

“Your mother is dead. Has been for years. Stop digging into something that doesn’t exist.”

“If she’s dead, why does it matter if I’m looking around?”

“Because I told you to stop,” he growls through the phone.

“But you won’t tell me why, which makes me believe I may be onto something. If it’s truly nothing, you wouldn’t even be wasting your breath trying to forbid me to do something,” I bite back.

“You’re starting to act as crazy as Phoenix.”

“Family genes,” I counter.

I love my father, I even respect him most of the time, but I will never be a doormat, not even for him. My mother is gone, but if there is a chance I can get answers to questions I’ve always had since her death, then I will. And if it can help Phoenix heal his deep wounds, then I won’t question trying for a second.

“I said drop it.”

“And I said no. If you want children that will do your bidding without thought or complaint, call your sons.” I hang up, knowing I’m going to pay for that later, but fuck it. He can add it to my tab.

My phone rings again. I picture his angry eyes and square jaw with a graying beard that sharpens the harsh lines of his face instead of softening them.

I hit ignore just as someone knocks on my door.

“Come in,” I call, already knowing who it is.

“Ms. Godwin, I am afraid I have some delicate news.” The PI I hired steps into my office. His blue baseball cap is in his hands, and he is twisting the bill.

“Have a seat.” I motion to the chair in front of my desk. It sits lower than my own, not that the PI needs to be put in a submissive position. He doesn’t treat me like a stray woman that escaped the kitchen. He just isn’t worth me adjusting my furniture for before our meeting.

“I’m not really sure how to say this,” he begins.

“I have little patience,” I begin. “Get to the point.”

“Your mother didn’t die seven years ago.” His gaze isn’t locking onto anything in the room. Interesting, he is nervous, but why? For all he knows, he’s giving me good news.

“She didn’t?” My wariness bleeds through on my voice. “So she is alive?”

Jesus Christ. Phoenix is right. Am I living in a goddamn soap opera?

“No.” He stares at the ceiling over my head. “Your mother died about a month ago.”

“What?” I have no idea what to say or even feel about this slew of insanity. She’s dead. She’s alive. She’s dead.

“I think had you not hired me, someone would have still been contacting you. There is a reading of her will in a few days. Her lawyer said that you are mentioned and should attend. Only you. Not your brothers or your father.” He places a piece of paper on my desk. I don’t have to touch it to see the address on it is just outside Seattle.

“Is that the address of her lawyer’s estate?”

“No, it’s the mansion your mother was living in.”

She had a mansion in Seattle. Seattle! She was living so close this entire time, never telling any of us. Why? Why stay so close if she never came back to Olympus Manor? And if for some reason she didn’t want to return to our home on the island of Heathens Hollow, then why the fuck not reach out to us later? We all live in Seattle now!

“She’s dead,” I repeat to myself.

“Yes. She is now, but she didn’t die in Heathens Hollow like you all believed.”

I sit in silence, trying to absorb everything being thrown at me. I want to call my father. My brothers. But at the same time, I don’t. I’m not ready to ignite the bomb onto my family.

“The estate lawyer said?—”

I raise my hand to silence the PI. I don’t want to hear anymore right now.

I want nothing of hers, but maybe if I go to the reading of the will, I can speak to someone she was close to. Maybe get some answers, if not all of them.

“Okay. I’ll go to the house. I’ll contact the lawyer. See my assistant for your payment.”

“Ms. Godwin, there’s more.” His voice is stiff, like he’s trying not to run out the door.

“Make it quick.” I wave my hand at him. The reality is I’m on the verge of a meltdown, and I don’t want him to see it.

“Your father.” His words come out stronger and he meets my eye. “I have reason to believe he is the one who bought that property and banished her to it.”

“Are you saying?” Heat rises to my cheeks as an icy chill settles into my gut.

“Your father knew she was alive and where she was the entire time. He put her there and turned his back on her, faking her death to take her away from her children.”