by Vivian Wood
Genie moves around behind Persephone and starts to work something out of her hair. Flower petals, dried up and dead. My house killed them for her.
“Damn it, Hades, listen to me.”
“Fuck right off,” I tell him genially, even though my heart has gone frozen and still. Someone in my staff is going to die for this. Someone must have seen us get off the train and leaked the news to Zeus somehow. This place is crawling with rats.
Or... is it, really? My livelihood depends on making deals with people who desperately need them, or at least people who desperately need me to not kill them. Is it fair? No. But the need to live doesn’t decrease for them. And I have them watched, of course I do. I’d know if there was a mole here. A traitor.
“This is a serious question.”
“No, it’s not.” I let him hear every moment of my long-suffering sigh. “You haven’t even told me who you’re talking about. If it were that urgent, you’d have gotten straight to the point.”
“Demeter’s daughter is missing.”
“Oh? What a terrible pity. The little slut probably ran off to the city. Like mother, like daughter.” My pulse presses out against my veins, the blood too thick for the space it occupies. It’s an obnoxious distraction from both things I’m trying to focus on. Like Genie leading Persephone over to a waxing table, and her eyes getting wider and wider as Genie explains what she’s going to do. I get to my feet and pace over to the window, swallowing hard. Half of me wants to run in there and throw all their hands away from her. Mine, I would growl, loud enough to scare the shit out of them. The other half is relishing her embarrassment and fear, even from here, and certain of one thing. She’ll know better than to trust the people who work for me.
I am also listening to Zeus. I can almost hear his pathetic mind trying to decide if I’m only dodging the question or if I really have nothing to do with this. The moment lingers, expands. I’m going to die of a fucking heart attack, and that will be a great loss to everyone who still owes me. Zeus sure as hell won’t make their lives any better. They might think he will. They’d be wrong.
Genie is a professional, but Persephone shakes so badly the older woman has to call the other women to hold her down. To spread her open so she has the access she needs. Genie must guess that there’s a window, because I catch the flicker of her glance in my direction. She must know that I watch her to ensure the job is done correctly.
To ensure it takes perhaps longer than necessary.
Persephone’s chest rises and falls, quickly, quickly, tears leaking down her cheeks. Genie applies the wax, the strip, and waits.
A heartbeat. Another heartbeat. She says something to Persephone then rips it away.
Persephone arches on the table, biting down on her lip. It takes all of them to keep her in place. She lifts her head, and I can tell by the wide-eyed look in her eyes that she’s begging.
But Genie is a good employee. She knows better than to cross me. We have to keep going, her lips say, silent.
Persephone squeezes her eyes closed.
More wax. Another strip.
I am desperate, fucking desperate, to go into the room right now and shove my fingers inside her. She’d be soaked, no question. Those red cheeks, those nipples—everything about her gives her most private thoughts away, as if she said them out loud.
The third strip.
She turns her head into the palm of one of the women holding her down and weeps.
But she doesn’t close her legs.
Fuck.
The scene draws all the blood down from my brain and into my cock, splitting my concentration in a very unpleasant way. I have to turn away from the window to finish the conversation. Conor stirs on the low bed in the corner and lets out the beginning of a whine. He thinks something’s going on, that I have to get out of here. I do, but not for the reason Conor thinks. I signal him back to his rest. I’m still fucking fine. Mostly.
“I’m far too busy to stand here listening to you breathe in my ear, Zeus.”
“She’s very upset,” he says, voice sounding far away. What I can’t figure out is why he cares. Zeus doesn’t care about anyone. That’s the core of his personality. That is why he has bastard children all over the city and even a couple settlement agreements with women who had nothing to lose when they went after him. I’m sure he’s only biding his time when it comes to them too. People flock to that man, because they confuse beauty with trustworthiness. A smile with a kind heart. He slips those disguises on and off like a comfortable jacket, whenever and wherever it suits him. They can call me what they want—a killer, a monster, a sadist—but no one can ever say I hid it from them.
“It’s not my concern if she’s upset because her brat ran away.” Concern. Who cares about concern? The only thing that matters to me is the deal I’ve made with Demeter. And she’d never go back on that, because she can’t. I don’t renegotiate.
That, and Persephone.
A prickle of unease wakes in the back of my mind. Demeter wouldn’t go back on our agreement. Would she? Demeter’s daughter is no longer a child. She can’t possibly have expected to keep her locked away in her home until she dies. And anyway, it’s too late now. I have her here. Unfortunately, turning away from the window has only made it harder to think. Imagining what’s going on a few feet behind me makes my heart pound. I turn my head and steal a glance. Genie has Persephone in the most humiliating position I could have imagined on the waxing table, and her face is such a delightful red color that I wish I could capture it in a painting. Her lips form one word over and over. Please, please, please.
“What the fuck was that noise?” Zeus sounds disgusted. “Are you fucking someone?”
“You’re the only one rude enough to take phone calls when you’re using a woman,” I shoot back. But something else is happening behind my breastbone, something very unexpected. Lying about Persephone feels like a cousin to protecting her. Protecting her, as if she means anything to me. The thought of her name on Zeus’s lips makes me want to drive my fist through his face, and he hasn’t even said it yet. I lean hard on the sill of the two-way mirror. I can’t take my eyes off her. A screeching alarm sounds in the heavy silence of my thoughts. A weakness, it cries. She is your weakness.
Fuck.
He sighs, irritated. “If you come by any information, you’ll tell me?”
I give him a pause to make him think I’m considering it. “Fuck no,” I spit into the phone. He’s still trying to talk to me when I stab my thumb down onto the button to cut off our connection. It falls to the floor with a loud clatter. I crush it under the heel of my shoe again and again and again until the plastic casing splinters and the wires inside come apart. What have I done, and what am I doing? What does this instinctive lying say about me now? In the end, I sweep the shattered phone into one corner with the toe of my shoe, rage hardly spent.
Yes. Fine. I’ve created a small problem, a dangling thread that will irritate me until I cut it off at the neck. What the fuck do I do about Demeter? The question pales in comparison to the issue of Persephone. Because I can’t live without Demeter and what I buy from her.
And I can’t live without Persephone.
It’s an absurd thing to admit, even in the privacy of my own mind. It doesn’t suit me to feel this way about anyone or anything, even in some dim, vague way that disappears as soon as I look at it head-on.
On the other side of the window, Persephone sits up on the table, breasts heaving with every breath. And as I watch, she turns toward Genie, my name on her lips.
Chapter Thirteen
Persephone
Genie slips a dress that’s more of a slip, a nightgown, over my head, eyes sharp and lips pursed. She reaches down and tugs the hem into place. It barely covers my ass. It was made to barely cover my ass. I don’t bother asking if there’s a bra and panties to go with the set. Clearly, there’s not, and clearly, her orders came from Hades himself.
“Good.” She gives the rest of he
r team a crisp nod. “I’ll be back in a few minutes to assist with cleanup.” Genie flips over her wrist, and her eyes widen at the time. “If you’ll come this way....”
I follow her without a word, because what’s the point? I’m officially nothing. My own embarrassment has burned me so many times it’s surprising to discover, at every new moment, that I’m not just a pile of ashes. Sweep me up with a broom and set me free on the wind. But again and again, every heartbeat reminds me that I’m still here. In this body that’s been waxed and stripped and buffed until I’m not sure I have my original skin left. They put lotion on my stinging flesh, every inch of it, and worked out all the tangles from my hair. I’ve never been so sensitive and so numb in all my life.
“This way,” Genie says, tone urgent. I pick up the pace. I’ve been staring at the floor, the polished marble beneath my feet.
“Where are we going?” The question comes more out of resignation than anything else. I don’t expect her to answer. I think of Hades’ fingers in my hair and how Genie probably heard me screaming and didn’t do anything about it. Nobody will ever do anything about it again.
And how maybe, maybe….
No. I can’t let myself think that way, otherwise all my sacrifice will have been for nothing. It’s not a sacrifice if some twisted part of your soul enjoys it. And I don’t. I can’t. He’s evil, and he’s done so many horrible things already. I’m... I’m in shock; that’s all. It’s been a shocking turn of events. It’s not my fault that makeover session made me think of him. I hated him then too. I hate him now, and I love Decker. I say a silent prayer for Decker, to Decker, and let the memory of him standing in the fields carry me through one breath then another.
“To meet with Mr. Hades.” Genie’s voice breaks into my memory.
“To... meet with him?”
“He wanted me to prepare you for a meeting with him.”
I laugh, the sound surprisingly... real. Genie raises her eyebrows and picks up the pace.
“Is that what he calls it? He’s a very proper man.”
“He likes things to be a certain way.” Her silver hair bobs behind her in its bun.
The hallways of Hades’ house are proof of this. Every one of them gleams with a kind of blank perfection that makes the weird quality of the light seem less unsettling. That can’t possibly be for other people, so there is a man underneath that cruel facade that has feelings one way or the other. There must be. Genie takes me this way and that until I’ve lost all sense of where that prep room was, and then, abruptly, she makes a sharp right turn off the hallway, almost colliding with a woman in a black dress and white apron, one of the maids.
“I’m on my way in,” says Genie in a low voice. “Anything I can take for you?”
The maid nods, lips pressed into a serious line. “This.” She hands Genie a small silver tray with a phone, shiny and sleek, in the center. “Thank you.”
Genie waits until the maid has scurried off down the hall to push open the door with one elbow.
It’s an office.
Hades’ office.
Genie goes directly to his desk and puts the tray down on the far corner, getting out of the way as fast as she can.
Hades sits behind an enormous desk, Conor off to one side, head bent over a stack of papers. The office... it’s too normal for him, all dark wood paneling and low lights. I feel like I’m seeing him stripped down to nothing in a room like this. The rotunda in the entryway of this... fortress is meant to impress people, but this looks like a truly private room.
“Mr. Hades.” Genie glances around for me then gestures me forward into the pool of light surrounding his desk.
Hades looks up from his papers.
His eyes land on me like ice water, cold and assessing, and an answering heat sears through my lungs, down to my belly. My body doesn’t know how to react to him. My stomach twists then relaxes. How can I be glad to see him? How can any part of me be glad to see him? His eyes travel slowly from the top of my head down to my still-bare toes, and when they meet mine again, the frigid stare has slipped away. It’s darker now. Hotter. The hairs on my arms stand on end.
“Go now.”
Genie nods and leaves, shutting the door behind her with a soft click that is the loudest sound on the planet.
I’m alone with him now. Heart hammering. Legs trembling. For all I’ve gone through, he still makes me shake and shiver. The skimpy dress isn’t helping. All the possible things he could do rush through my mind. Will the dress survive? Will I survive?
No matter how many times I tell myself it doesn’t matter, it still does.
Hades seems to take up every spare inch of the room. There isn’t a single breath that’s not suffused with him. And he smells... clean. Like leather and cinnamon and a lungful of cold air. I resist the urge to fold my hands over my chest. It won’t hide anything from him. It’ll only make him notice me more, and now that Genie’s done with me, there’s more to... notice.
A blush creeps across my cheeks.
“Stop staring and sit down.”
There’s more than one chair in his office, and that familiar panic crawls up the back of my spine and shakes the base of my neck. Move. He must mean the chair in front of his desk. Easy enough. Breathe. While I pad forward and take a seat, he lifts the phone from the tray and flicks it on then puts it down on the edge of the desk closest to him.
He watches me for far longer than is necessary. He must be able to see me from where he sits, with the wide desk separating us and nothing else. I bite my lip. It’s strange that he’s not bending me over it, fisting his hand in my hair. Isn’t it? Or are things different in his fortress?
Hades curses low under his breath, narrowing his eyes. “Fuck. I can smell you from here.”
My stomach sinks, and I curve forward, wanting to disappear underneath the desk, underneath the floor, and underneath the earth itself.
“I didn’t…. I don’t….”
He leans forward. “It’s making it difficult to proceed with our task. Don’t hunch over like that, Persephone. It doesn’t suit you. If I want you humiliated, I’ll do a better job than that; I assure you.” A shake of his head like he’s clearing his thoughts. “With a pussy like that, you’d think someone would have laid claim to you already. Not that I care about other people’s claims.” This last bit is soft, almost like he’s talking to himself. “It does explain why your mother kept you behind lock and key.”
“She wanted to protect me.” We cannot be talking about this. My face will superheat, and I’ll never recover. The question hovers at the tip of my tongue, but I don’t dare ask what the task is. “She thought men might want to hurt me.”
“I won’t hurt you.” A fleeting grin. “Very badly, at any rate.”
He will. He will. He already has. But it could get worse. That’s what he means, isn’t it?
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do. I won’t hurt you enough to kill you.” Hades glares at me from across the expanse of wood. “How much time are you planning to spend on these ridiculous questions?”
He sounds... different. Like something happened between when he handed me off to Genie and now. A mask. It reminds me of slipping on a mask.
“What’s our task?”
“Finally.” He pushes the stack of papers across to me, and I try to get control of my breath and my mind. “It’s time to formalize the terms of our agreement.”
“Formalize them?”
“With a written contract, yes.”
None of this makes any sense. He already has me here. He’s already... made me over to his specifications. He’s made it so clear that I’ll never leave. What difference could it make for me to sign a paper?
“But why?”
The corner of his mouth rises, and he shakes his head. “What kind of operation do you think I’ve built, sweetheart? One that runs on a person’s honor? Hardly. Everyone signs their name to their promises here.”
It’s the hardest
thing I’ve ever done, scanning the words on the papers. They all blur together, the letters switching places and taunting me. But there it is, in black and white. Decker’s name. My name. The offer I made. In the contract, he’s written submission without limits. I think of my terrified “I’ll do anything” and wonder how he could have described it like that. Submission without limits. I bite my lip and read it again then again. It doesn’t sound like something I should want, on any level.
And yet….
If I sign this paper, I would never have to question what my life would be again. There would be no more making plans to get away. No more wondering if Decker could really hack life in the city or if I’d end up running back to my mother. No more worrying about running into dangerous men on the street. The most dangerous man would be here, right where I could see him at all times.
I crave it, that relief. My hands tremble around the paper. I’m not supposed to be this way. And I didn’t come here because I wanted someone to tell me what to do; I didn’t. I wanted to stop being told what to do. I wanted to be free, and now...
Now, I don’t know what I want, with my skin still humming from all the contact and every part of me leaning closer in to get another breath of him. It doesn’t make sense. I want to scream.
But I swallow that scream and try again to order my thoughts.
“What happens if I don’t sign?”
A brief fantasy touches down like a lightning strike—a ride on the train, and then slipping back into my bedroom in time to pretend I only wandered out into the fields for the night. That I’d momentarily found myself wishing for air and space, so I went out and slept under the trees.
My mother would never buy it.
And Decker....
“You exchanged your life and submission for that useless fuck’s life,” Hades says simply. “If you decide not to keep your word, then I won’t keep mine.”
My heart stops then starts again.
“Then…” Every thought is like a statue carved from stone. It takes forever for the shapes to be revealed. “Then he’s still alive?”