by Vivian Wood
“I remember.” She doesn’t have Meg’s poise. She’s obviously been crying, and though she moves as if she’s not injured, she’s plainly terrified. Instead of coming into the building, Aurora bolts. I don’t need to follow her path to know her destination. The hospital where her mother is on life support.
I speak without looking away from the cameras. “Send two of our people to watch over her mother—and her. When she’s ready to come back, escort her.”
“Yes, sir.”
A hand emerges from the backseat. “Come along.”
“I don’t think I will.” She takes a step back. A red light appears on her chest. A tiny little dot, its significance sending ice cascading through my veins. Meg looks down and freezes. “Impossible to claim you came in good faith when you have a sniper in a nearby building.”
“I had a feeling you’d be difficult.” A deep laugh. “Get in the car or the next person who’s on the wrong end of my sniper is that old bastard.”
Meg hesitates, but only for a moment. She steels herself and takes the man’s hand, letting him draw her into the car. The door shuts and it veers away from the curb and into traffic.
No.
“How long ago was this?” I barely sound like myself. Even without seeing inside that car, I know exactly who it contained. Zeus. I took his son, and even if that doesn’t begin to balance the scales of what he did, he still sees the injustice of it and is determined to punish me just like he did all those years ago. I thought he’d come for me when he was furious enough. It never occurred to me that he’d get to Meg first.
“Thirty minutes.”
“He’s going to take her to Olympus. Beyond our reach.”
“No. Fuck that.” Hercules glances at Minh. “Could you excuse us for a minute?”
Again Minh hesitates, but he finally nods and slips past us out of the room. Hercules barely waits for the door to click shut before he grasps my shoulders. “Get your fucking head in the game, Hades.”
I blink. My thoughts move slowly, the past, the present, and the future melding together into one unforgivable emotional blow. “We can’t save her. It’s too late.”
Hercules gives me a hard shake. His blue eyes are twin flames of fury. “If he wanted her dead, he’d have shot her right there in the street. He wants to punish us, and that means we have time.”
“She trusted me to keep her safe and I failed.”
He shakes me again, harder this time. “If you’re going to go maudlin and defeatist, you don’t deserve her. Choose now, because I’m going after her.”
I could lose them both.
The thought staggers me. I close my eyes and try to focus, to think past the memories trying to claw me down to hell. “He’ll take her to Olympus,” I repeat. It’s several hours’ drive. He has barely a half hour head start on us. I nod and push Hercules back. “We go after her.” I give him a long look. “You will follow orders, no matter how unsavory you find them.”
His jaw sets like he wants to argue, but he nods. “As long as we leave now.”
I call Minh back into the room. “Tell Allecto to meet us in the garage. She gets three people—her best.”
He nods, but I’m already moving. I stride back into my office and collect the gun I keep in a locked drawer in the desk. Hercules doesn’t blink as I withdraw a hostler and shrug into it. I take a moment to check that the gun is loaded and the safety is on. I prefer not to use firearms. They’re so incredibly clumsy and blunt when it’s just as easy to accomplish my will with words and careful manipulations. I don’t have the luxury of that now. I don’t have the time.
I hold Hercules’s gaze. “It may come down to your father or Meg.”
“I know.” The pain written on his face isn’t only for our Meg. Zeus is a monster, but he’s still the father of the man I care deeply for. Killing him will hurt Hercules. It may even take our potential future together and damage it beyond repair.
Even knowing that, if it comes down to a choice between them, I know what I’ll choose. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. She’s the important one.”
We detour to his suite long enough for him to throw on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and then we’re off, rushing down to meet Allecto in the parking garage. She takes one look at me and her mouth tightens. “That bad.”
“Zeus has Meg. If he makes it to Olympus with her, I can’t guarantee we’ll be able to get to her. He has roughly forty-five minutes on us.” I scrub a hand over my face. “I expect he’ll pick the most direct route, but I’m not sure.”
Allecto takes it in stride. It’s one of her strengths—seeing the battlefield as a whole before she ever takes the first step. She turns to the three women at her back. “You three take one car. We’ll take the other. Keep your damn phones on because we’ll need to coordinate carefully to drive them off the road and we have to catch them first.” She glances at us. “You two, with me.” Allecto stops short. “But if you’re going to be wringing your hands and distracting me, you can damn well stay here.”
Hercules bristles, but I touch his shoulder. “We have it under control.”
“You had better. We don’t have room for error on this.” She turns on her heel and marches to the nearest car. “Get your ass in the backseat. We’re doing this.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Meg
Fear is a strange thing. I thought I’ve known it in the past. Walking into the Underworld at twenty-six and bargaining away my future for the man I thought I loved was scary. But even then, I must have seen something in Hades and known that he wouldn’t hurt me in any irreparable way. Like recognizes like, after all. A broken heart is one thing. But my body has always been safe with him.
I don’t have that assurance with the man lounging in the seat across from me.
No, Zeus will hurt me and hurt me badly. Nothing personal, of course. He simply intends to send a message to the men I love, the kind designed to bring Hades to his knees.
It may be easier to stomach if he looked like a villain, but he’s got the same golden boy perfection that Hercules possesses. The carved jawline that translates to strength for those who don’t know better. The big, broad shoulders and wide hands. The blond hair and beard that have the faintest sprinkling of gray in them. He’s Hades’s age, but where time has honed Hades to a fine blade, it’s done something different to Zeus. The laugh lines around his eyes probably inspire trust. Just a good old boy, someone people want to sit down and have drinks with.
I haven’t moved since I took this seat, and though the silence wears on me, I haven’t spoken either. Zeus scares the shit out of me, but I’ve played longer games than this with Hades. I don’t always win with him, but I’m determined not to break first now. I occupy myself by counting down the seconds.
“I’ve heard about you, Megaera.”
I slowly turn my face from the window to look at him. I may have won the standoff, but it feels petty now. What difference does it really make? I’m in over my head and there’s no rescue in sight. I give him a blank look. “Funny. I haven’t heard a single thing about you.”
Oh, he doesn’t like that. His blue eyes that seemed so similar to Hercules’s a few moments ago light up with a rage that leaves me breathless. He leans forward and props his elbows on his knees. “Loyalty that’s purchased with a deal is hardly loyalty at all. Your first man threw you away as soon as he was done with you and didn’t look back. Hades has done the same now that he has my son to occupy him.”
It’s my worst fear given voice.
I don’t believe for a second that Hades would bargain me away, not like my ex did. But I can’t stop myself from reacting to his words. I swallow hard and my head spins a little. “I’m here. You’ve got what you wanted.” A calculated risk on my part. Even if he didn’t shoot me, the sniper would have had a clear shot of Aurora fleeing down the block.
Then there was the threat to shoot Hades. I can’t let that happen. I don’t know how I’m going to stop
it, but getting in this car was the first step. I should have stopped, should have talked to someone, should have done anything but react emotionally, but the threat to Aurora put me on autopilot and panic drove me. Stupid. So fucking stupid.
Allecto would have found and removed the shooter before they became a danger to Hades. She just needed time to work and a knowledge of the danger. But time was the problem. We didn’t have any. We still don’t.
“I’m only getting started.” He grins suddenly. “Hurting you is as good as hurting him, but don’t worry, I have no plans to kill you.” He pulls out his phone and begins typing something on it.
That doesn’t reassure me nearly as much as I’d like it to. I’m a connoisseur of pain. I know exactly how a person can draw out the pain until it’s a symphony. The difference is that I only play with the willing and Zeus isn’t talking about kink. He’s talking about torture.
I am so sorry, Hades. I really fucked this up.
Headlights over Zeus’s shoulder draw my attention. My heart leaps even as I tell myself that it’s a lost cause. I know those headlights, the ridiculous blue tinged lights bright enough to blind the unwary. Allecto has a thing for lights, and she’s pickier about them than I am about my floggers. I’ve had to sit through countless conversations where she gushes about the new technology and her plans to install them in the Underworld’s vehicles. Still…
The car behind us closes the distance and switches lanes, revealing a second nearly identical one behind it. What are the odds of having two cars with the same headlights? I blindly reach for the seat belt and secure it. “You’re going to regret crossing Hades a second time.”
“Am I?” Zeus shrugs without looking up. “He’s weak, Megaera. You’d recognize that if you knew true strength. He takes every hit lying down and when he tries for revenge, it’s laughably pathetic. Seducing my son?” He snorts. “As if Hercules won’t come crawling back to me the second he realizes I have you.”
“I won’t let that happen.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
The cars are closing the distance fast. I don’t know what their plan is, but I grip the seat belt tight against me as the closest one edges near. I swallow hard. “I think you’ll find that I do.” I have a moment to tense and then the car nudges the passenger side of our car, right near the back tire. For one second, I think it won’t do anything, but then our car begins to spin.
We hit the edge of the highway and barrel down the embankment. A rumble of impact and then I’m weightless, the car rolling with a violence that leaves me breathless. Or maybe that’s the seat belt slammed against my chest, holding me immobile. We land right side up, and I let loose a sob and scramble for my buckle. It gives with a pop, but the pressure in my chest doesn’t abate.
Through the shattered window, I see the other car screech to a halt. The doors fly open and there’s Hercules and Hades.
They came for me.
Hercules sprints to our car and damn near yanks the door nearest me off its hinges. He starts to reach for me and hesitates. “Are you hurt?”
I try to find words, but a sob rips free and I throw myself into his arms. My chest hurts. Ribs, I think distantly. “I’m… I’ll be okay.”
He holds out a hand. “Can you get to me, Meg?”
My fingers brush his when a hand closes around my throat and I’m jerked back against a big body. Something wet coats my back, soaking through my dress. Zeus’s voice sounds more animal than human. “You always were a fucking traitor.”
Hercules goes pale. “Let her go.”
“Move back or I wring her neck.”
Hercules takes a step back and then another, his hands held up in front of him. Each increase in the distance between us spikes my panic. I struggle, but Zeus wraps his other arm around my waist and squeezes. The pain nearly makes me black out and I can’t stop a shriek.
Zeus shoves us from the crumpled vehicle, dragging me over broken glass. I barely feel the cuts over the symphony of agony that is my ribs. He stops just outside the car and my vision clears to see Hades bearing down on us. Zeus, the bastard, laughs. “I thought taking her was good enough, but you’re right. This is better. You can watch her bleed out and know that it’s your fault.”
Hades draws a gun and points it at us. “Release her.”
“Is your aim good enough to hit me and not her?” Zeus laughs again. “I don’t think so.” He hefts my body up until my knees don’t touch the ground, using me as a human shield. “Move back.”
“I don’t think I will.”
“Come now, Hades. Release Hercules and I hand you back your woman. She’s even mostly whole.” He laughs, the bastard. “You’ve had your fun.”
“No.”
Zeus goes tense behind me. “You can’t get out of this without losing one of them. Her or him. Choose.”
“There is no choosing, Zeus. I love them both.” Hades hesitates and then his eyes go hard as they meet mine. “Head wound, Meg.”
I don’t think. I can’t afford to. I reach back and punch blindly over my shoulder, ignoring the screaming of my ribs. My fist makes contact with Zeus’s head. It wouldn’t be enough if he was healthy and whole, but the blood soaking me must be his because he shouts and drops me. I hit the ground and press myself down as a gunshot sounds. Too loud. Too close.
Then Hercules is there, gathering me carefully up and rushing back several steps to put distance between us and his father. I lift my head enough to see Hades standing over Zeus, who’s bleeding from a gunshot wound to his shoulder. Not fatal. Not by a long shot.
Hades trains the gun on Zeus, and I’ve never seen him look so cold. “If you or your people set foot in Carver City, your life is forfeit.” He gives a slow smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “You’re lucky I care for your son or I’d empty this clip into you.” He glances at me—at Hercules at my back. “A gift to you, little Hercules. Your father’s life.”
Hercules starts to move forward, aggression in every line of his body, but I clutch his shirt. “It’s the right choice.”
“He took you. He was going to hurt you.” His eyes go hard, and he’s never looked more like his father than he does in this moment. “There’s only one way to guarantee that he doesn’t do it again.”
“No.” I look between my men and put more force into my voice. “No.” I want nothing more than to take that gun from Hades’s hand and pull the trigger several times. I hate that Zeus made me afraid, I hate that the fear will cling to me like a spiderweb for days and maybe weeks to come. It doesn’t matter. I put a little wobble into my voice, and it takes far less effort than I want to admit. “Take me home. Please.”
For a moment, I think it won’t work. Hercules hesitates and then finally takes another step back. “If that’s what you want.”
It isn’t. I want this man dead at my feet. I want to rip him to pieces with my bare hands and then scatter his ashes to the wind. But Hades has always seen things clearly enough for both of us. He’s right. If Zeus dies today from our hand, Hercules will eventually grow to hate us. He won’t be able to stop himself, no matter what he’s feeling in this moment.
If there’s a choice between love and revenge, I choose love.
Today, for the first time since I’ve known him, Hades does, too.
Hercules doesn’t stop until we’re on the other side of the car from Zeus. He sets me carefully on my feet and then Hades is there, running his hands gently over my body. His fingers graze my side, and I wince. “Ribs,” he says, echoing my thought. “Get her into the car before someone calls the police.”
Hercules opens the door and carefully guides me inside. Allecto turns around as I settle in the middle seat. “You’re alive. Good.”
“No thanks to you.” I’ve never heard Hercules sound so dangerous. “You could have killed her with that stunt.”
“I had things perfectly under control.”
“No, you fucking didn’t.”
I clear my throat. “Children.�
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Hades opens the other door and takes a place on the other side of me. I’m safe. My brain may register that, but my body hasn’t quite got the memo. I can’t stop shaking. “You shot him.”
“Yes.” Hades leans forward. “Go, Allecto. We’ve lingered too long.”
“Yes, sir.” She veers into traffic heading back toward Carver City, as reckless as ever behind the wheel.
Hercules shifts me until I’m leaning back against Hades’s chest with my legs over Hercules’s lap. They hold me carefully. Gently. Words bubble up inside me, but I know better than to speak them. Not yet. Allecto is trusted above all others, but she’s not part of our relationship, and I’m not willing to spill those secret parts of myself while she witnesses. Still, I can’t help saying, “You came for me.”
“Yes.”
Hades’s hands tremble a little as he smooths them down my arms. “We’ll always come for you, love. You’re ours.”
“You’re fucking irreplaceable.”
I can’t stop shaking. The impact of the last few hours hit me in waves. There was no time to process before, just to act. “Are you sure it will work? Banning him?” He made it to the Underworld before. Just drove right up to it without the slightest hint of difficulty. I shiver.
“Yes.”
Hercules looks over my head at Hades. “How can you be sure?”
“Every single territory leader in Carver City graces my doorstep at one point or another, and most of them regularly.” The cold satisfaction in his voice warms me in a strange way. “If they want to continue to have access, they will bend to my will in this one small thing.”
If every territory in Carver City ceased to be a welcome place for Zeus and his people, it would create that many more hurdles he’d have to get through in order to reach us. No one wants to fuck with Hades, not when he offers such a particular service. Neutral ground. The sex and kink and everything else, yes, but the true value of the Underworld is the sheer number of deals made beneath its roof, facilitated by Hades’s enforcement of neutral territory. It might actually work.