Chapter Ninety Four

Chapter Ninety Four
Eros
Eight years later
A sharp, high-pitched scream sliced through the air, the kind that instantly made my shoulders tense—but it was the tone that caught me off guard. It sounded unmistakably like Rhea. I exhaled slowly, already bracing myself.

Here we go again.

Sure enough, Rhys’s wail followed less than a second later, louder and more dramatic, as if he’d been mortally wounded—as always. I didn’t even need to go see what had happened. I could already imagine it: Most likely, it was another one of their so-called “friendly competitions.” 

They’d probably been playing some made-up game where someone cheated—intentionally or not—and now neither wanted to accept defeat. I could already picture them: Rhea clutching a handful of Rhys’s hair while he tugged twice as hard in retaliation, both red-faced and loud enough to wake the dead.

They’d been like this since the day they were born—eight years of chaos, laughter, and sibling warfare. It was almost comical if it wasn’t so exhausting.

Rhea had never forgiven fate for making her the younger twin by five minutes. She acted like those minutes gave Rhys a throne she had to knock him off of every day. But Rhys had his own grudge. He was convinced the universe had betrayed him by making Rhea a full foot taller. 

I still remember the day he came to me, looking up with those wide, searching eyes, and asked, “Dad, will I be as tall as you someday?”

I told him yes—he might even outgrow me one day. He’d lit up like it was the best thing he’d ever heard. And from that day on, he made it his mission to remind Rhea, in every way possible, that his growth spurt was coming. That someday, he was going to tower over her. Since then, he refused to let it go.

“He may be older,” Rhea often declared with that dramatic flair she inherited from her mother, “but I’m the leader.”

To which Rhys would sneer and shoot back, “Not for long. Dad said I’ll be taller than you. So technically, I win.”

And somehow, that became the argument of the century—again.

I scrubbed a hand over my face, sighing as their voices rose in volume. Sometimes I wondered how two halves of the same coin could be so different, and yet so similar in their relentless need to prove themselves. 

Still, a part of me—one I rarely admitted aloud—found comfort in their fire. It meant they were alive, thriving, and passionate. Traits they probably inherited from me, for better or worse.

Sometimes I wondered if their constant rivalry would mellow with age. Then again, maybe not. Maybe this fire between them was how they showed they cared—too proud to say "I love you," so they wrestled instead.

But God, just one day without the screaming would be nice.

Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—I was the only one saddled with the responsibility of raising those two spirited little urchins. Rhea and Rhys, my twin hurricanes. Their mother had been… unavailable. For eight long years now.

Ever since the accident.

That damned accident that had almost stolen her life—and in many ways, had.

She survived, but barely. A heartbeat and breath, that’s all that remained of the woman I once knew. She’d been trapped in a vegetative state ever since, caught somewhere between life and death, while I was left to navigate the storm on my own.

The world looked at me and called me strong. They said I was brave, devoted. But they didn’t see the cracks—those moments in the dead of night when the silence screamed louder than my children ever could.

Sometimes I’d sit beside her hospital bed and search her face for any sign—an eye twitch, a flicker of recognition, a miracle. But she just lay there, frozen in time, while our kids grew up without her.

The kids knew about Athena. They visited her for an hour almost every day, holding her hand, talking to her like she could hear them. Maybe she could. But it was getting harder and harder to ignore the sadness in their eyes.

“Why doesn’t Mama wake up?” Rhea had asked me once, her voice barely above a whisper, like she was afraid the truth might be louder than the question.

“Does she know who we are?” Rhys followed up another day, eyes wide, almost pleading.

“Will she ever come back to us?”

The questions came like waves—gentle, persistent, eroding the edges of my resolve.

And I never quite knew how to answer.

How do you explain absence without turning it into abandonment?

So I carry on. For them. For her. For me.

Because someone has to.
\~~~~~
Eight years ago 
The call came just after midnight—abrupt, jarring, and life-altering. I’d barely slept since Athena left me, but this time, the shrill of my phone wasn’t another echo of regret.

It was real.

“Sir, your fiancée—Ms. Athena Madrigal—she’s been in an accident. She’s been rushed to Crescent City Medical. You need to come now.”

I didn’t remember grabbing my keys or leaving the house. I just remembered running. The drive was a blur, a storm of panic and headlights, my grip iron-tight on the wheel. By the time I burst into the hospital, my heart was hammering so violently I thought I might collapse.

“Eros Belmonte?” a nurse called out.

“Yes—where is she?” My voice cracked. “Athena Madrigal. She’s—she’s pregnant. Please.”

After her divorce from Lysander was finalized, Athena made the decision to change both her surnames. She let go of Sanderson-Carmichael entirely, choosing instead a new name—Madrigal. 

She told me it had been her maternal grandmother’s maiden name, a name that, in her words, felt more like home than any she’d ever carried.

Her eyes softened, but her tone was firm. “She’s in surgery. There was internal trauma. We need your consent to deliver the twins now. Thirty-two weeks. The babies are in distress.”

“Do whatever you have to,” I said, grabbing the pen and signing the form with shaking hands.

I dropped into a chair, elbows on my knees, hands buried in my hair. I couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. All I saw was her face. Her eyes when she looked at me for the last time before walking out of my life.

She had every right to.

I kept the truth from her—that my father, Leonardo Belmonte, was responsible for her twin sister’s death. I thought I was protecting her. Instead, I broke her. She left Belmonte Group, left me, and even when she found out she was pregnant, she refused to marry me. “For the babies,” she said. “Not for us.”

But I still loved her.

I never stopped.

“Mr. Belmonte?” The nurse returned hours later. “They’re stable. A boy and a girl. They’re in the NICU now for observation.”

My knees went weak.

“They’re okay?”

“They’re fighters,” she said gently. “Born early, but they’re doing remarkably well. Would you like to see them?”

Nothing could’ve prepared me for the sight.

Two tiny miracles. My son. My daughter. Monitors beeped softly. Tubes. Oxygen. Fragile, but fighting.

The nurse gently guided me closer. "This little guy weighed 3.7 pounds. His sister’s 3.4. They're strong, Mr. Belmonte. Born early, but very much alive."

Each in their own incubator, wrapped in white blankets, little fists curled near their faces. They looked so fragile, but they were breathing. Alive.

I placed my hand against the incubator. My heart cracked open.

“Hi,” I whispered. “I’m your dad.” 

My throat clenched. They were perfect. So impossibly small. So real.

God, I didn’t deserve them. I didn’t deserve any of this. But they were here. And Athena… Athena had given me this gift even when she couldn’t look me in the eye.
\~~~~~
She never saw it coming.

Months after she took her father James Carter down—and after she killed Lysander in self-defense—Lysander’s father snapped. His rage was volcanic, the kind of fury that doesn’t burn out until it destroys everything in its path.

He’d followed her car on a narrow cliff road outside Merrivale and rammed into her bumper once, twice—until she lost control.

He didn’t survive the crash.

But Athena almost didn’t either.

A passing truck driver and his wife saw the smoke. They pulled her out just before the car exploded.

She was conscious when the ambulance came. Her last words before blacking out were about the babies.