A few long silent seconds pass with no reaction from Nico. I think he’s waiting for me to burst out laughing.
Won’t happen, bro.
“She’s not in jail, so...” he starts out slowly, his tone reserved as if he knows it’ll take one wrong word for me to snap.
“Ask mewhoshe allegedly killed.”
There’s a subtle change in his expression, as if he’s starting to make sense of my shaking hands and clipped tone, but before he opens his mouth, were interrupted by a loud knock on the door. Great timing.
“Come in!” Nico yells.
Logan enters first, closely followed by Shawn and Jack, each with a bottle of whiskey. Nico must’ve given them a heads up about the situation over the phone because they pat my shoulder without a word.
“I’ll bring you up to speed.” Nico crosses the room to get three crystal glasses from the liquor cabinet. “Thalia told Theo why she spent time in jail. She was accused of murder.”
“Murder?” Logan mouths, eyebrows pulled together as he takes his baseball cap off. “Who did she kill?”
“Allegedly,” Nico clips, filling their glasses. “I think we’re about to find out.” They grill me with expectant stares. “Who?”
Muscles in my neck and arms bunch again. The words taste like an old piece of gum. “Herhusband.”
That piece of information gets to them faster than the murder accusations. Their expressions match the mayhem inside my head: confused, surprised, shocked. Logan’s face twists with recognition too, as if he suddenly realized why I’m pacing the room, steam whistling out of my ears as if I’m ready to kill someone myself.
“She wasmarried, and she didn’t tell me.” I plop down on the couch, my shoulders sagging. I’m a bit lighter now that it’s out in the open. I’d like to say calmer, but that’d be a blatant lie. “What am I supposed to do now?”
“What did she tell you about the murder case?” Shawn asks, the police officer in him taking the reins. “The charges? Why was she a suspect?”
I shake my head, glaring at the ceiling. “Who cares? She’s here, so the charges must’ve been dropped. She wasmarried,Shawn.Thatmatters. She had to love the guy to marry him, right? She must’ve thought he was the one. What the fuck does that make me? Second best choice?”
“You do realize those are questions you should ask Thalia, not us, yeah?” Logan asks, toying with the glass in his hand. “What else did she tell you? How long were they married? She’s only twenty-four, so it couldn’t have been long. What if it was a drunken night in Vegas type of thing? Or what if it was one of those arranged marriages?”
“Arranged marriage in Greece?” I scoff, my temper flaring. “Not likely. What if she really loved him?”
“Lovedwould be your clue,” Jack says, gunning me down with a pointed stare. Of course, he’s on Thalia’s side. She can’t do no wrong in his eyes. He’s basically her bestie. “Past tense.”
Nico grabs his iPad, places it on the coffee table, and starts tapping the screen.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Asking Google.”
“What I should do?”
He chuckles, shaking his head. “I worry about you sometimes, Theo. I’m trying to find any articles about the murder trial. You know the husband’s name?”
“Vasilis. Thalia’s from Thessaloniki, and her last name is Dimopoulos.” I squeeze the glass tighter, seeing red all over again. Fuck this shit. It’s probablyhissurname, not hers.
“We sure could use Thalia’s help with translating,” he says, but a beat later, he opens another tab in the web browser and lets Google Translate work its magic. “I’ve got something,” Nico says after a bit of back and forth between translating from Greek to English.
He pushes the iPad my way, taking my empty glass to refill it while I read a translated version of the article aloud, so we don’t waste time waiting for everyone to catch up.
A murder investigation has been launched after Vasilis Dimopoulos, aged 34, the Mayor of Thessaloniki, philanthropist, and presidential candidate, was found dead at his property late last night (Tuesday).
Police responding to a concern for welfare call-out shortly before 10p.m. discovered the body. The victim’s wife, aged 22, has been detained for questioning.
Detective Nikolaos Balaskas said: “We cannot speculate at this stage about what took place. We are working very hard to establish the circumstances of Mr. Dimopoulos’s death. We cannot rule out any possibility at this stage.”
Detectives investigating the murder are urging people to come forward to help them piece together the circumstances.