7th Circle (Hades Book 1)

by Tate James

  Zed shifted in his seat, and his leg brushed mine under the table. It was probably an accident, but a small part of my brain remembered how he used to do shit like that when Chase was in a mood and verbally abusing me. Zed would touch his ankle to mine or lean his shoulder into me, small gestures that reminded me he was on my side, that I wasn't alone.

  "You're not losing your mind, Hades," he told me, his tone serious and his gaze direct. "But that's what someone wants you to think. They're playing up your biggest fear. That worries me. Who in the fire-breathing fuck knows the only thing the big bad Hades is scared of?"

  It was a rhetorical question, but it didn't make me feel any better. No one. No one knew, aside from those I trusted: Zed and Seph. And I had a really hard time believing either my best friend or my little sister were tormenting me and destabilizing my operation.

  "Fuck it. I need a vacation." I gave a bitter laugh, and Zed grinned. It was our running joke, that we both badly needed a vacation. Like that was ever going to happen. "Alright, tell me how the Timber build is going. I saw an email from Charlotte that they had to rethink the lighting for the poker room?"

  Zed nodded, then shifted gears into his role as my group’s manager. He ran me through all the progress and changes on our new build, then gave me recaps of how all the other bars were running.

  By the time we'd finished our meals, my head was pounding with a stress headache. While Zed had talked, I'd scrutinized what felt like every single man, woman, and child within my line of sight and found no one suspicious—or everyone suspicious. But I was no closer to putting a face on my tail.

  "Are you going to Demi's for dinner tonight?" Zed asked as he paid our bill, knowing my schedule better than I did.

  I shook my head. "Not tonight. I don't want to go bringing unnecessary attention to them." I chewed the edge of my scarlet thumbnail, and Zed tugged my wrist to stop me. "I'll send Seph over, but I told Demi to book a trip with Stacey and get out of town for a bit."

  Zed grimaced but gave an understanding nod. "Maybe they should take Seph with them."

  I wrinkled my nose. "You know that's not an option." Because if my sister was halfway around the world, how could I protect her? It was why I'd never actually send her to boarding school like I kept threatening to do.

  "I know," Zed murmured, not sounding thrilled, but at least he understood. "Well, get some sleep or something. I can throw a guard on your building if you'd like."

  We'd just reached the entrance to the restaurant and handed our tickets to valet, so I turned to him with an arched brow. "I think I've got my own security handled, thanks, Zed."

  He rolled his eyes. "I didn't mean... never mind. Oh look, your boyfriend is here."

  I scowled at him in confusion, then turned to see what he was looking at. Part of me thought I'd see Lucas there, then I needed to ask why the fuck I associated Lucas with the word boyfriend. That was a train of thought I didn't want to pursue, though. But nonetheless, I was surprised to see Cass striding down the sidewalk towards us.

  "Not my fucking boyfriend," I muttered under my breath to Zed, and he snorted a laugh.

  "Hades," Cass rumbled as he approached, his face like stone. "Bad news."

  Great. Just what I needed.

  19

  Cass wasn't exaggerating when he said he had bad news. As much as I might have hoped he'd tracked me down just because he wanted to see me... that simply wasn't the case. He came bearing more information about whoever was using my name logo for their angel dust distribution.

  I didn't want to discuss business on the side of the road and I didn't want to wait until we got somewhere more private, so when my car rolled up to the valet, I told him to get in. Zed looked less than impressed—there wasn't space for him to join us in my two-seater car—but I called him and put the phone on speaker so I wouldn't need to repeat everything later.

  "The Wraith weasel that I've been squeezing for information finally cracked," Cass told me when he slid into the passenger seat of my Corvette.

  "I didn't realize you had anyone left to squeeze," I murmured, pulling out of the valet area and merging into traffic. I'd stayed out of it; the Reapers takeover of the Wraiths, after I’d shot Skate a week earlier, was nothing to involve myself in. But I had kept my ears open, and I knew that Cass and his guys had been brutal in cleaning house.

  He made a growly sound. "They weren't all two-faced, disloyal bastards. Just most of them."

  I quirked a smile at him, then realized what I'd done and turned my attention back to the road. That was one of the major reasons I'd kept my feelings for Cass to myself for so long. The second I let myself explore the possibility of a romance with him, I would no longer hold him to the same standards as all the other gang leaders under my purview.

  Then again, if I was being totally honest, I'd been giving Cass preferential treatment for years—well before he took over the Reapers from Zane D'Ath.

  "So, your snitch started singing?" Zed asked from my phone speaker, and I cleared my throat. I'd forgotten he was listening for a second there.

  "He did," Cass replied with a twist of distaste to his mouth. "But too fucking late. Couple of Skate's guys coming back to town from an East Coast weapons deal got jumped about an hour ago. Bastards never even saw it coming. Turned up to the money drop and got shot full of lead."

  "Could have been any opportunistic fuck taking advantage of the Wraiths’ dissolution," Zed offered, not sounding like he believed that for a second.

  Cass huffed. "Coulda. Except there was a message left beside their bodies, drawn in blood on the concrete." He pulled his own phone out to open a picture and held it out for me to see.

  I stomped my foot on the brake pedal, then snatched the phone from his hand to zoom in.

  "Motherfucker," I hissed.

  "Let me guess," Zed drawled on speakerphone. "Darling?"

  I was too angry to reply and instead just tossed the phone back to Cass and accelerated once more.

  "I don't know what Darling means," Cass said cautiously, his eyes glued to the side of my face as I drove, "but I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume this means something to you both."

  A slightly hysterical laugh bubbled up in my throat, and I swallowed it down, coughing lightly as I shook my head. "Yeah, something like that. Anything else?"

  Cass scowled, clearly pissed that I wasn't clueing him in. "Nothing. Just that they didn't even take the money, just shot the Wraiths full of holes, left that calling card, and disappeared. No one has any leads."

  "Of course not," I said with a sigh.

  "Text me the address," Zed ordered. "I'll check it out."

  Cass made a noise that I assumed meant "Absolutely, sending it to you now!" then Zed ended the call a moment later, leaving me trapped in a small space with Cass.

  "Where did you leave your bike?" I asked after a long silence. "I'll drop you off."

  He didn't reply for a handful of breaths, just stared at the side of my face until I cracked and glanced over at him in irritation.

  "Just pull over here," he told me in a rumble.

  I quirked a brow but shrugged and pulled over onto the shoulder. We were in a middle-class, suburban neighborhood, but whatever. I wasn't even remotely in the mood to play chauffeur, so the sooner I got him out of my car, the better.

  He didn't get out, though. Of course not, that would have been far too cooperative.

  I let out a sigh and swung my head around to face him, only to get myself snared in his intense-as-fuck stare. Like he was trying to mentally strip away my Hades shell to see what was underneath.

  "Was there something else, Cass? Because I have shit to deal with."

  "Yeah," he replied, "there is. I wanna know what you're hiding."

  I barked a sharp laugh. "You're joking, right? Get the fuck out of my car, Cass."

  He just glared. "Nope."

  My brows raised, and my glare turned glacial. "Excuse me?"

  He folded his huge arms over his chest and go
t comfy in his seat, visibly settling in for a long argument. That motherfucker knew he was too damn heavy for me to physically kick out of the car, and we'd already established the fact that I didn't want to shoot him. Not for real.

  "You heard me, Red," he growled. "I'm not getting out until you tell me what the fuck is going on."

  Anger burned through me at his demand. Who the hell did he think he was dealing with?

  "Cass—" I started, my voice like death.

  "Hades," he replied, cutting me off. "I'm not going to blow smoke and placate you here. I'm asking you to trust me and let me help. Something bad is going down, and you know more than you're telling me."

  I scoffed. "No shit. Last I checked, you're not on my list of trusted confidants, Cassiel. Just because I want you to throw me around your bedroom a bit doesn't mean I trust you. Sex and trust don’t automatically go hand in hand. You should know that." Yeah, I was taking a jab at his reputation of using women like they were disposable. I'd had more than one of my strippers sob her eyes out after catching his eye for a night, only to be sent home in the early hours of the morning.

  His dark gaze heated. Then he gave a small nod and seemed to be thinking. "Alright. Let's go. Lexington Six."

  I froze. Lexington Six was the name of the building he lived in, along with a handful of other upper-level Reapers and their families.

  "You want me to drive you home?" I was confused. Okay, so I wasn't totally confused, I just wanted him to spell it the fuck out so there was no misunderstanding.

  He gave me a droll look. "No, I want to give you what you fucking want so maybe you can start thinking with your brain instead of your cunt. Clearly you need it."

  Stunned didn't even begin to describe what I felt at that statement. So, after blinking at him like a possum in headlights for a moment, I shook my head, pulled my gun, and pointed it at his head.

  "Get the fuck out, Cass."

  He cocked one brow. "No."

  I flicked the safety off with my thumb, my stare hard and uncompromising. "Get the fuck out. Apparently, kissing you has provided you a false sense of security. I will not be spoken to like that. Not from a lover and certainly not from a subordinate. Right now you're only one of those, and you're goddamn close to becoming neither. Get. Out."

  He stared at me for a long, tense moment. I didn't blink, though, and I didn't back down. If that was how he treated women he was interested in, it was no fucking wonder he was still single.

  Eventually, though, he backed down. His gaze flicked away from mine, and he let out a heavy sigh. Then he scrubbed a tattooed hand over his scruffy stubble and muttered a curse under his breath.

  "You're right," he mumbled. "I shouldn't have said that. I apologize, Hades." His tone was all resigned professionalism that cut me deeper than his crass offer to fuck me just now.

  I put my gun away, giving a bitter laugh. He hadn't done what I’d asked; he was still sitting in my car. But he'd backed down first, and that was what counted.

  "Fuck you, Cass," I said softly. "You blow so hot and cold I can't keep up. What the fuck was all that the other day? Kissing me then backing the hell off? You're too damn old for stupid games."

  He grunted a sound of agreement. "Exactly. I'm too damn old."

  I gave him a hard side-eye. "You clearly think I'm stupider than I look if you believe I'm buying that bullshit."

  Cass shifted in his seat, turning slightly to face me. "You're right; that is bullshit. You wanna know the truth?"

  I narrowed my eyes. "No, Cass, I enjoy being lied to. It's so much more fun this way." Sarcasm dripped from every word, and he just waited patiently. "Yes," I snarled after a moment, "I want to know."

  He gave a nod. "Then tell me what that pattern was beside the Wraith's bodies. Trust me with something."

  My heart raced so hard I could have sworn it was bruising my ribs, and my palms sweated. But I didn't let any of that panic show on my face as I considered his request. He wanted me to trust him... and deep down I did want to.

  I ran a quick risk assessment of sharing that one detail, then ultimately decided there was no real risk. Sooner or later, I would need his help. I could already sense that whoever was attacking us wouldn't stop at being a small-time nuisance.

  "It means Darling," I told him after a painfully long silence between us. "It's my middle name. Zed designed it a long time ago."

  Cass's brows flicked up a fraction, then dropped into a scowl. "Why leave it beside these bodies?"

  I drew a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "It's a message to me. We think all these little attacks are somehow retaliation for Chase's death."

  Cass didn't say anything immediately, running his hand over his stubbled chin as he thought this new information over, frowning all the while.

  "Chase Lockhart?" he asked. "He died with the rest of your father's men, didn't he?"

  I jerked a nod. Cass and I hadn't met until after I’d taken over the Timberwolves; he probably had no idea just how deep the Lockharts had been mixed up with my father. He also didn't know about my history with Chase.

  "We were engaged," I admitted, then snapped my mouth shut. So much for just offering up one innocent, hard-to-bite-me-in-the-ass piece of information.

  That seemed to shock Cass more than anything. "You were only eighteen," he said, and I shrugged. I wasn't suddenly spilling my guts about my damaged fucking upbringing to him now that we were having a rare moment of open communication.

  "So?" I prompted. "Your turn. What's your deal?"

  His gaze swung back to mine, and I just knew he was going to lie to me.

  "I'm not attracted to you," he said, his voice a flat growl. "You're too young for me."

  I held his unblinking stare for a moment, my expression frozen in a blank mask to hide the way disappointment crashed through my chest. Truth or not, those words hurt more than I'd have liked them to.

  "Go work on your damage with a professional, Cass," I told him in a cool voice. "I've got enough shit to deal with." I looked away from him, turning my attention to the road ahead as I turned the engine back on.

  There was no mistaking the dismissal, and a second later Cass popped his door open and climbed out without another word.

  I peeled away from the curb before his door had even fully closed, feeling the unfamiliar and unwelcome burn of unshed tears at the backs of my eyeballs.

  Fuck that, though. No freaking way was I wasting tears on a lying man when I hadn't cried in over ten years.

  So, I did what I always did. I compartmentalized. Took those painful, barbed feelings of hurt and disappointment and rejection, then stuffed them into a little mental box, locked it, and threw away the fucking key.

  Cass could kiss my goddamn ass; I wasn't wasting another second on him.

  20

  By the time I got home, I was calm. Detached and drained, but calm. Seph's car was in the parking lot, and I let out a small sigh of relief. My little sister was such a bubbly little ray of sunshine she could make me smile no matter how sour my mood. I called in an order for her favorite Chinese food from the restaurant around the corner, even though it was still early. My lunch with Zed had been late, but the argument with Cass had left me hollow inside, so I could use the MSG in my stomach

  I could only hope she wasn't going to be gushing all over Lucas again, like she had been all damn week. As if it wasn't hard enough deleting his messages and declining his calls. To be safe, though, I'd changed his contact in my phone to something more anonymous.

  As the elevator carried me up to our floor, I tugged my hair tie out and fluffed my hair, feeling the relief from tension on my scalp.

  When the doors opened to my hallway, I kicked my heels off and picked them up to walk barefoot down to my door. The biometric scanner read my fingerprint and gave a soft bleep as it unlocked for me, and I yawned as I entered the apartment.

  "Seph!" I called out as I closed the door and tossed my shoes on the carpet near the hall table. "I'm home! I ordered
Chinese. Is it too early for dinner?"

  I glanced around, not seeing her, but figured she was probably in her room. So I went to the kitchen to pour a glass of wine.

  "Hey!" My sister appeared from around the corner, where our second living area was located. The area had a massive, ninety-inch flat screen and a huge suede couch that was way too easy to fall asleep on. "Dare, you're not usually home this early on a Friday. Shouldn't you be at the clubs?"

  She was acting weird. Her eyes were too wide and her cheeks flushed.

  I squinted at her suspiciously. "I wasn't in the mood," I replied. "Why are you..." I gasped. "Do you have a boy here?"

  Seph's brows shot up, her lips parting but no sound exiting her mouth.

  "Oh my god, Seph!" I shouted, automatically pulling my gun out. "You brought a boy home? Here? What the hell were you thinking?"

  Panic flashed over her face, but it was gone in an instant and her chin tilted up in a familiar, stubborn set.

  "I was thinking that this is my home and I'm allowed to invite my friends over just like any other teenage girl. You always go on about me having a normal life? Well normal girls can invite people home and not have their sister pull a fucking gun on them!" Her pretty face was all hard edges, and she balled her fists at her sides, refusing to back down. Fucker. She got that from me.

  I ground my teeth together, desperately seeking the patience to actually have a discussion with my sister and not just throw my scary-ass weight around. That—I knew from experience—got me nowhere.

  "Seph, you don't fucking get it," I growled. "You have no idea how dangerous—"

  "Oh my god, Dare," she cut me off, giving a bitter laugh. "Don't even start on that shit. We're constantly in danger. We have been every damn day since you killed Dad. At some point, you have to just let me live my own life and not helicopter parent the fuck outta me."