Chapter One
“Perhaps the freedom of flying in the boundless sky is but a lonesome fall through nothingness.”
~Emily Patras
Thirteen Years Earlier
“Where were you?” Isadora called from the foot of the grand staircase, stilling her younger brother’s fleeting steps. She held onto resolute hope to get to the bottom of his recent rebellion.
Shirttail askew, Lucian turned with a penetrating scowl that, had she not been anticipating his defiance, would have taken her a step back. “You’re not my keeper, Isadora.”
Her heart stammered in her chest, his words cutting to the shabby roots running beneath their family tree like corroded veins. Tangled and rotted, an abandoned place since their mother had passed away eight years ago.
Daunting men had always overshadowed the little authority Isadora assumed, and her younger brother’s independence was rapidly dwarfing hers. But she was still his guardian, and as such, it was her sole duty to protect him—even from himself.
“Don’t walk away from me, Lucian.”
“Then say what you have to say so I can go to bed.”
Of all of the Patras children, Lucian was the most intrepid, but despite his innate audacity he was far from invincible. No amount of pain seemed to slow his instinct to rise. He loomed over and around anything that stood in his way, growing taller and faster than all the rest. And the bigger he grew the less he answered to anyone .
His shadow was sometimes a cold and lonely place in which to stand, but Isadora had survived worse and wasn’t about to be bulldozed by an eighteen year old boy. Holding her ground, she inwardly praised herself for maintaining a steady voice as she craned her neck to meet his scowl.
“It’s four in the morning, Lucian.”
“Then I still have a shot at getting some sleep.” Putting an abrupt stop to further scolding, he turned and continued up the stairs at a less skulking pace.
A chill filled the grand foyer as she locked her jaw, authoritative ground slipping out from under her.
“The rule was two o’clock,” she reminded. It was a generous curfew, a bargaining chip she hoped would end the exhausting pissing match they’d entered over his incessant need to push boundaries.
“ Your rule,” he growled, disappearing down the long hall.
A nerve pinched close to her heart. Her own father had marched that same path, ignoring her words as her little voice once called to him, a quiet plea for the attention she’d thought she deserved. Lucian was literally following in their dad’s footsteps and the distance between them was growing so vast, she feared it would soon be impossible to bridge.
The tighter she tried to hold onto her younger brother the harder he resisted, but she couldn’t let go. She’d once been his equal, his ordinary sister, despite the five years that separated them. But when she became a legal adult and his caregiver their relationship changed. And now, as he entered adulthood, her role was transforming once again, into something undefined that filled her with an orphaned emptiness.
Her shoulders jerked as his bedroom door slammed. If she didn’t ease off they might never resolve their differences and find the closeness they once shared.
On cue, Antoinette’s door creaked open and Isadora straightened her posture, setting her features into the mask of a composed and secure woman—a façade at total odds with the uncertainty warring inside of her.
Antoinette’s slippered feet shushed over the oriental runner until her sprouting body came into view, eyes bright as an autumn moon with irises of a whiskey hue instead of the typical Patras black. Although Isadora would never know the true color of her sister’s eyes or anyone else’s, she could always tell a pretty set despite being color blind. Her little sister had bright, curious eyes that often shimmered with mischief.
After a rapid growth spurt, Toni was tall enough to be mistaken for a teen, but head-on she still held an honest show of innocence that faded with each passing day. She planted herself at the top of the stairs, delicate fuzz showing on her shins where her nightgown rode to just below her knobby knees. Wild chestnut curls spun in disarray around her pudgy cheeks pressed with sheet prints. She yawned with cub-like magnetism that softened Isa’s mood.
Toni was getting so big, already in double digits, and soon she, too, would be walking away. A sharp ache cinched Isadora’s heart. The problem with raising her siblings was that if she did the job well, they’d grow up to be independent and self-assured, with little need for her.
That was the goal, wasn’t it? She should be happy that both Lucian and Toni possessed the self-assured Patras charm she never quite mastered. The most Isadora could do was enjoy the present and try not to get too consumed with worry for the future.
Tightening the satin tie of her robe, she forced a smile. Switching off the light, she met her sister at the top steps and held out a hand. “Come on. It’s too early to get out of bed.”
“But I’m hungry. What time is it?”
“Not breakfast time.” And her sister was always hungry. The joys of feeding a growing child. “Back to bed.”
“Can I sleep with you?”
Toni talked in her sleep. She also turned like a propeller and kicked. But there was something sacred about being wanted by one sibling when the other wanted nothing to do with her. “Sure.”
Despite Toni’s hunger, she was half-asleep, and lurched down the hall toward a bedroom. Isadora pulled back the duvet and her sister clambered onto the mattress with the grace of a three-legged calf.
“Your bed’s so much comfier than mine,” she groaned into the pillows. As Isadora slid under the covers Toni curled into her side, too young to grasp things like personal space. “Is Lucian in trouble?”
She turned, seeing her sister’s eyes were closed, but her mind fighting to stay awake—curiosity for what the “grownups” were discussing being one of Toni’s guiltiest pleasures. The truth was, Lucian had more of a grown up life than Isadora.
Shutting her eyes, she drew in a breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t know, Toni. Try to go back to sleep.”
“He should be in trouble.” Her sweet breath teased Isadora’s shoulder. “He’s been late every day this week.”
“And you’ve been nosy.” She kissed her forehead and shut out the bedside lamp.
“Daddy would punish him.”
Isadora stared into the shadows, only briefly tripping over excuses for their father. In the end she sugarcoated nothing. “Daddy isn’t here.”
Their father hadn’t been there in so long it was a wonder Antoinette could recall a time he was present. Though it didn’t surprise her that Toni remembered their father’s temper, especially when it came to their brother, who usually caught the brunt of the man’s cruelty.
Exhausted, mentally and physically, Isadora shut her eyes. “Shh… Sleep.”
“I wish Claudette would come back,” her sister murmured, words slurring.
Claudette had been the head of their household staff, but over the years she took up the additional role of nurturer, despite their father’s objections. It was a tearful day when the maid left for France. No one wanted to see her go and she didn’t want to leave, but their father wrote the checks and told her she had a job in Europe and only Europe, so they couldn’t blame her for following him.
“She’d yell at Lucian.” Toni’s groggy words came with little inflection.
“I don’t think Lucian needs another person to yell at him.”
Toni snorted. “He needs his butt whooped.”
Isadora turned to face her sister. She looked unconscious, but somehow managed to keep talking. “Antoinette, you worry about you and I’ll worry about Lucian. Go to sleep.”
“He’s not as cool as he thinks he is,” she informed, getting in the final word before falling into a rhythm of softly cooed snores.
Sleep wasn’t as easy for Isadora. Her mind continued to wander and worry—a well-practiced habit of hers, which came with little rest.
Lucian’s college career was right around the corner, something she never personally experienced. Her brother, however, was enrolled to leave in six weeks. The three of them living in this house together had been a consistency they took for granted and she feared Toni didn’t quite understand the finality of their brother going away.
Although he was still young, Isadora’s gut told her once he left he’d never come back. Lucian had always been a forward moving force and going backward was against his nature.
Despite her sister’s snoring, Isadora whispered, “You should try not to fight with him. Soon he won’t be here and then who will you pick on?”
When Lucian’s college search began, they all had questions that needed answering. Lucian’s revolved around where his friend Slade Bishop was applying. Isadora’s were mostly concerned with their father’s promise to pay the tuition and any additional costs. Toni, although the youngest, always asked the most difficult questions.
“Isa, how come you didn’t go to college?” Toni wondered aloud just the other morning, casually depositing the sensitive topic into an unassuming moment of bran flakes.
Isadora had not consumed enough coffee for tough questions and, as Toni dribbled a good bit of milk down the collar of her nightgown, Isadora bought some time by passing her a napkin. “If I went away to school who would take care of you?”
Toni shrugged. “Daddy would send people.”
As replaceable as a stranger.
Her sister was too young to understand how offensive her quick solution sounded. The irony was that Toni automatically excused their father from the job. Assuming—if in a pinch—their father would find yet another au pair. Even their little sister was wise enough to know the man was not a suitable parent—under any circumstances, including the emergency sort.
“What’s so special about college anyway? I’m not going,” her sister had announced with all the finality and assuredness a naïve ten-year-old could muster.
“Some people never get to go to college, Toni. Either they can’t afford the time or they can’t afford the tuition. You should be grateful you have such opportunities ahead. There was once a time when women weren’t even allowed to read. Some places in the world are still like that.”
She hoped her sister would take advantage of the few benefits that came from being Christos Patras’s offspring. While Lucian already possessed an obstinate knowledge of the world, the female family members always seemed less…essential or significant. She was determined to make sure Toni got every opportunity their father provided his only son—even if Christos put little consideration into what his daughters might someday become.
She smirked, a strange and comforting thought coming to her. Soon it would just be the two of them living in the house. Two sisters. No boy stuff dumped in corners of rooms. No sports gear or sweat stains on the furniture. Just the Patras females holding down the fort.
As much as their emancipation from the overbearing Patras men scared her, it also pleased her. In some strange way, she found the idea empowering. Her brother’s approaching absence was triggering her own liberation. She couldn’t help anticipating the disappearance of his overwhelming sense of authority—which was debatable authority anyway.
Isadora was older, yet she deferred to Lucian in many instances because he possessed the inarguable confidence of every other Patras man. Despite his lack of years and experience, he somehow used stature and arrogance to make up for any shortcomings. Plus, he was a control freak who always assumed his opinion was the one that mattered most.
She loved her brother very much, but he owned every room he entered, leaving little air for others to breathe. He was a prince born to be a king, determined to not just fulfill his birthright, but also annihilate any obstacles in his way.
Sometimes, while the kings of the world moved about, shifting obstacles this way and that, the smaller people sacrificed as much as pawns. She’d always been a pawn, maneuvered to serve others’ needs.
But sometimes pawns managed to push past the ranks, patiently traveling one tiny square at a time. And if they made it to the other end of the board unmolested, they were promoted to queen.
With the king preoccupied by other endeavors, she might finally be able to make some advances of her own.