It’s good to be alive, Athena thought. And even better to be waking up here, in the house that Makis Alexiadis built. She felt like a conquering empress, or a goddess atop Mount Olympus. Powerful. Protected. Reborn.
Leaning back on one of Makis’s ultra-modern sun loungers (some of the furniture would have to go; she would speak to Dimitri Mantzaris later, have one of her people send through a list of changes), Athena gazed down at the glorious manicured gardens that spilled in terraces down the cliffside until they seemed to merge with the tranquil blue of the sea. There was no doubt about it, this was an incredible house, and a fitting center of operations for the rebirth of an empire.
It pleased her that Dimitri had bought it for her. That, despite her new face, new life and new identity – Athena Solakis, as she would henceforth be known – she would still maintain some links with the past. Her affair with Dimitri felt so preposterously long ago now. And of course, it was. Dimi had been president then, a powerful, virile man in his mid-fifties. Now he was old and fat and walked with a cane, crippled by an arthritic knee, sustained only by memories of past glories.
His race is run. But mine isn’t. The fates have not yet finished paying for what they did, for taking Apollo from me.
The ancient Egyptians believed that ‘true’ death came only after your name was forgotten, no longer written or spoken out loud. By branding the letters of her son’s name onto the bodies of her victims (P on the Japanese woman who’d followed her to London, L on the migrant child, As and Os on countless others’), Athena had made sure Apollo lived on. She had vented her anger, hit back at the fates, and created a memorial to her darling baby, engraved not in stone but in the flesh of her enemies. Spyros’s old calling card had inspired her, helping to obfuscate the true meaning of Athena’s coded message. But the longer it took the world to figure it out, the longer Apollo’s soul would live on. Athena would keep writing his name until she, too, had left this world. Until her son’s spirit and her own were finally reunited, never again to be torn apart.
Sipping her coffee, the strong, black Turkish blend that Spyros had got her hooked on twenty years ago, Athena contemplated the day ahead. This morning she must talk to all her South American suppliers about the unconscionable hikes in cocaine prices, and pay bonuses to two of her top enforcers in the Czech Republic for securing a valuable piece of commercial real estate from a ‘reluctant’ seller. After that she had two hours of physiotherapy with the local girl she’d hired to take over where the indomitable Nurse Mary had left off in Burgundy. Sweet Mary. Athena had far preferred Peter’s English nurse to Helen, the sullen, shaven-headed Mykonos girl that her private doctor, Farouk, had recommended to help her combat the limp in her left leg, a hangover from the helicopter crash that remained the last, telltale giveaway to Athena’s old identity. To Athena’s eyes, Helen seemed deeply distasteful, all puppy fat and attitude. But apparently she had a stellar reputation as a physio, renowned for fast and lasting results. And now, at the moment of her rebirth, that was all that mattered.
Draining the last of her coffee, Athena turned to go back inside. Catching sight of her reflection in Makis’s gleaming glass doors, she stopped and did a double take. This last week at Villa Mirage had helped not just to heal her bruises but to tan her face a light nut-brown. Her newly dyed dark hair, cut in a feathered bob, framed her face beautifully, and though she would never again boast the radiance of youth, her green eyes shone with hope and the promise of great things to come. Her figure, of course, had always been excellent, slim and toned and with none of the middle-aged spread that other women her age succumbed to so meekly, relinquishing their last vestiges of attraction or claims to male sexual interest without so much as a fight.
Not Athena. You’re beautiful again, she told her reflection. Her legendary allure, in hibernation for twelve long years, was coming back to life like a delicate snowdrop tentatively unfurling its petals in the first thaw of spring after a long, hard winter. Perhaps, once the hard work of regaining her iron grip on Spyros’s empire was complete, she would consider finding a lover? Someone younger, perhaps, but not so young that they couldn’t challenge her. A world of possibilities awaited.
The physiotherapist walked into the kitchen, her sneakers squeaking and squelching in an irritating rhythm with each step.
They were only halfway through the physio session, but already Athena felt drained, not so much by the monotony of the repeated exercises and stretches, but by the young therapist’s almost comical lack of personality. Helen wasn’t rude, or at least not to a point where one could reasonably object to her manner. When Athena asked her a question, she answered politely. And if Athena exhibited any pain or exhaustion with a certain exercise, the physio instinctively paused, waiting uncomplainingly for her patient to regain strength. Yet despite this, almost everything about Helen irked Athena, from her butch hairstyle and gait, to her ugly, shapeless clothes – loose green scrubs hid what Athena could only assume were fat legs, if the blubber rolls around the girl’s belly were anything to go by. Her face might have been pretty, even though most of the time it was half hidden beneath a mannish baseball cap. The only really striking feature was her oddly wide-set eyes – familiar eyes, Athena thought, on the rare occasions they made direct contact with her own. But Helen was nothin
g if not professional, and made a point of focusing most of her attention on the motion of Athena’s left knee and ankle, rather than on her newly beautiful features.
Perhaps that was what irked Athena the most: the fact that this uniquely un-compelling young woman should find her, the legendary Athena, uncompelling too. No more noteworthy or interesting than any of her other charges.
‘What are you doing in there?’ Athena demanded now. Perched on the edge of one of Makis’s ornate, silk-covered footstools, she gingerly stretched her aching leg out in front of her.
‘I’m getting you something for the pain,’ replied Helen, in her grating island accent.
‘Don’t bother. I don’t do painkillers,’ Athena called out bluntly from the other room. ‘I need a short break, that’s all.’
‘No need to worry,’ said Helen. As if she, this young nobody, possessed the ability to worry Athena Solakis. ‘This isn’t an opiate or anything addictive. It’s a homeopathic powder I use with all my clients. I mix it with fish oils for overall joint health and a custom blend of multivitamins for energy. It works.’
Athena grunted gracelessly, still unsure why she felt so annoyed. This was the most she’d heard Helen speak during their time together, and if her magic powder really did work, it might escalate her recovery. The pain in Athena’s leg was mild but it was persistent, no doubt a contributor to her present bad mood.
‘All right, but hurry up,’ she commanded. ‘I have a busy schedule this afternoon and we need to get these stretches finished.’
‘Of course, Ms Solakis,’ the girl said obediently. ‘I won’t be long.’
A few moments later, she emerged, waddling in with a glass of unappetizing-looking sludge-brown liquid fizzing in her hand.
Frowning, Athena reached for it.
‘What? What’s the matter?’ she snapped. As her long, bony fingers wrapped themselves around the glass, the girl’s pudgier ones refused to let go. Almost as if she didn’t want Athena to drink it. Their eyes locked, and for a moment Athena could have sworn she saw something searching in Helen’s gaze. An unspoken question. A hesitation, but with a hint of something deeper. Fear? Pleading?
‘Nothing,’ said the girl. But she was still holding on to the glass. ‘Nothing’s the matter.’
‘In that case … may I?’ Athena looked slowly from the girl to the glass and back again. Those wide eyes were beginning to haunt her.
Finally, as if released from a trance, the physio released her grip. ‘Of course. It doesn’t taste very nice I’m afraid.’
Raising the noxious-looking liquid impatiently to her lips, Athena downed it in two swift gulps, grimacing as the last bitter drops descended into her stomach.
‘Revolting,’ she muttered. ‘But I think I’m OK to resume now. Shall we go back out to the terrace?’
Helen had turned away. When she spoke her voice sounded different. Less grating, somehow.
‘I’d give it a minute or two if I were you,’ she said softly.
‘I don’t want to give it a—’ Athena began, but her words were cut short by a strange, cramping sensation in her stomach. It was swiftly followed by a tingling in the tips of her fingers and toes that was hard to describe but was distinctly unpleasant, like a sort of burning numbness.