by Penelope Sky
I knew Hades would get rid of Maddox. I had no doubt he would give me the revenge I deserved. I just needed to be patient a little longer, accept his absence a little longer. This would come to an end soon, and we would never have to think about it again.
After he pressed a kiss to my forehead, he released me and stepped back. “I’m gonna shower and get some sleep.”
It was almost noon, so he’d been up for almost two days. I wasn’t surprised by his exhaustion.
He stripped off his jacket and tossed it on the chair for Helena to grab later. His watch came undone, and he set it on the nightstand instead of in his special drawer. He wore the same watch every single day…the watch I gave him.
Our relationship had changed so much, and he never put me down for feeling differently. He reciprocated my affections and never made me feel stupid for putting my heart on the line. That made me more secure, made me more loved. “Can I join you?”
He lifted his gaze and looked at me, his jaw tight but his eyes soft. “Always.”
We sat in the doctor’s office and waited for the results to come in. I sat in the chair with my hand on my slight stomach, unafraid of what we would find out. I knew my son was alive and well inside me. I could feel it; I could sense it.
I could also tell my husband was stressed.
He sat in his jeans and jacket, his eyes on the opposite wall without really looking at anything. His eyes were open and unblinking, and it was clear he had a million thoughts on his mind. He hadn’t been very affectionate or talkative lately. I knew it had nothing to do with me, but I worried anyway.
“Andrew is fine.”
When Hades heard my voice, he slowly turned to me and met my gaze. It took him a few seconds to process what I’d just said. “I know, baby.”
My hand moved to his on his thigh. “Then why are you so upset?”
He faced the wall again. “I’m not.”
“I can tell something is on your mind.”
After a few seconds, he sighed. He slowly turned back to me. “I don’t think a doctor’s office is an appropriate place for this conversation.”
“No place is appropriate.”
He was quiet for a while before he answered. “I expected to hear from Maddox by now. I hit his distributors hard and took out most of his men.”
“He’s probably just stubborn.”
He shook his head slightly. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
I squeezed his hand. “I’m sure he’s running out of options, and he’ll surrender soon.”
His hand finally came to life, and he slipped his fingers through mine. “Let’s not worry about that now. This should be a happy moment for us.”
“It is.” I leaned into him and rested my face on his shoulder. “Our son is healthy, and you’ll be getting rid of Maddox soon. We’ll have the life that we want…soon enough.”
He turned his head my way and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Yes, we will.”
Hades was out of the house, so I texted Damien. How are you? As time went by, I heard from him less and less. He used to be a big part of our lives, and now he’d ceased to exist. He wasn’t just a friend of my husband…he was a friend of mine too.
Shitty.
I could hear the sarcasm in his reply. Damien, I’m being serious.
So am I. Shitty.
Are you with Hades right now?
No.
I picked up the phone and decided to call him instead.
When he answered, he was just as annoyed. “Did you need something?”
I ignored his assholeness. “I just want to see how my friend is doing.”
He sighed loudly. “Tensions are high. Shit is taking forever. I’m not getting laid. So yeah, I’m not doing too well. And since Hades and I are enemies, that means you and I are enemies too.”
I refused to take that literally. “No matter what’s going on between the two of you, it doesn’t make us lesser friends. And you two are not enemies.”
“When this is all over, I doubt I’ll ever see him again. I doubt I’ll ever want to see him again. And I know that feeling is mutual.”
It was crazy to see how far they’d fallen. I used to think this whole thing would blow over, but now I realized it was here to stay. Hades couldn’t forget what Damien did, and Damien grew resentful of his best friend’s coldness. Things seemed to be getting worse by the day, not better. “I hope you two find your way back to each other.”
“This isn’t a fairy tale. This is real shit. It’s not going to change.”
25
Hades
When I walked through the door, I could feel the hostility in the room. I’d been living with my wife for almost a year, and I could read her moods like words on a page. I could feel her joy in her smile, feel her rage in her posture. I took one look at her and knew an unpleasant conversation was about to follow.
She stood in jeans and a tight t-shirt, her slight belly stretching the fabric right in the front. Her eyelashes were thick with makeup, and her lips were plump from the shade of lipstick she chose. She was so beautiful, it was sometimes easy to forget she was angry.
“Looks like I did something bad.” I walked up to her, unintimidated by the ferocity in her eyes. Instead of being deterred by that look, I was intrigued. Nothing she did could scare me off. Every action she made only made me want her more.
Her arms were across her chest, and she loosened them and placed her hands on her hips. “I’m only going to say this one more time. I hope you listen to me because you’re running out of time.”
I already knew what she was going to say.
“Make things right with Damien. This isn’t worth losing him over.”
Maybe she didn’t understand how much I had suffered. Maybe she didn’t understand I’d cried myself to sleep every night she was gone. I was still haunted by what happened to her, and twenty years could pass and I’d feel the exact same way. Damien could have stolen from me, and I wouldn’t have cared. In this line of business, nothing could be personal. Everything was business.
But my wife was different.
My soul mate was different.
She studied my gaze, disappointment flooding her features when she read my stubborn look.
I didn’t need to give a verbal response. The look on my face was more than enough.
She dropped her gaze and gave a slight shake of her head. “Fine.”
I truly hoped that was the end of this conversation.
“You’re going to regret this, but I obviously can’t change your mind.”
I was sitting at the bank when one of my guys called me. There was a production issue in the lab, so all processes were put on indefinite hold. The cause of the delay was unclear, and since I was so involved in every aspect of my business, I wanted to participate in finding the solution.
In my black suit, I walked down the hallway and entered Damien’s office. We both had become experts at silent hatred. We retained a sense of professionalism, but we constantly showed our distaste for each other through our gazes. I still looked at him like his betrayal had just happened yesterday. “Production has been shut down at the lab.”
“Yeah, I just got the call.”
“I’ll go down and take care of it.” We hadn’t decided how we’d split this business when this was over. It belonged to us equally, but it would be impossible to divide a business in two. It would also be impossible to run it without seeing each other on a weekly basis. I could barely stand to look at his face now. He looked like he wanted to punch me every second of the day. We couldn’t do this much longer.
“I’m going too. Sounds like a shitshow down there.”
I didn’t argue because he could do whatever he wanted. I turned away because I wasn’t waiting for him. We were going to the same place, but we would take separate rides. We were business partners on paper but adversaries in real life. It was sad that our lives had ended up this way, but there was nothing we could do to change it. He stood by his decisions, a
nd I would stand by mine.
When I stepped off the elevator and entered the lab, I immediately knew something wasn’t right. Damien was already there, standing with sagging shoulders with his head tilted to the ground.
All the lab equipment was turned off, and the usual steam that rose to the ceiling was nonexistent. It ordinarily smelled like chemicals, but that potent smell was absent because production had been halted for hours.
My men were on the opposite side of the room, huddled together like livestock on a farm. A couple men circled them, keeping them quiet without drawing their guns. There were a lot of foreign faces in the space, people who had no business being there.
One of those faces belonged to Maddox.
It quickly dawned on me that this was all a setup. My men lured both of us here so there would be no witnesses, not a single sound anyone could hear. It was a perfect place to provoke me…on my turf, where I would least expect it.
My heart rate quickened and there was a shot of adrenaline in my blood, but I didn’t cave to the fear. I kept a blank stare like I didn’t give a damn that Maddox was there at all. It was obvious Damien had been blindsided too.
I stepped farther into the room and discreetly counted the number of men I was up against. There had to be several dozen, all armed and all loyal. All I had was a knife inside my suit jacket. Damien usually had a pistol on him, but that was pretty much useless at the moment.
My eyes moved to Maddox as I approached the center of the room. Without all the apparatus working, it was actually really quiet down here in the basement. No sounds from the outside world to puncture the concrete walls. We were underground and far away from civilization.
Within seconds, I felt the hostility rip me from the inside out. The vein in my forehead enlarged as more adrenaline was released into my system. My heart started to pound so sporadically, I thought I might have a heart attack. There was so much pain inside my chest, so much unspent rage that I didn’t know what to do with it. Looking at those blue eyes made my hand shake and my shoulders go rigid.
All I could see was red.
This man did unspeakable things to my wife…the woman I loved…the mother of my child.
I wanted to kill him with my bare hands, rip out his eyeballs, and shove them up his ass. The longer I stared at him, the less I could resist the urge. Damien and I were outnumbered and we needed to use logic to talk ourselves out of this mess, but all I wanted to do was rip out Maddox’s throat and step on it.
I continued to move toward him, lost in the blood lust that had taken control of my body.
Maddox smiled like this was exactly what he wanted. His blue eyes were charismatic, and his boyish smile made him look innocent. He was a psychopath, using my hatred as fuel for his amusement. “You clean up good, Hades.”
My feet moved quicker, and I launched myself at his face. My hand balled into a fist, and I punched him so hard he flew backward and landed on the concrete with a skid. My knuckles ached as I smashed into bone. I could feel his blood drip on my hands because the impact had been so profound. I never knew my body could unleash such vigorous force. I thought I’d lost my innate strength, but my body seemed to put itself together just for this moment.
Maddox stayed on the ground for a moment as his body absorbed the shock of the hit. Blood dripped from his cheek and his nose, down his chin onto his neck. He wiped his nose with the back of his forearm and admired the red liquid that leaked from his body. He released a light chuckle even though that must’ve hurt all the way down to his core.
I lunged at him again, but his men grabbed me and pulled me away. I fought against the restraint because I cared about his death more than my own life. It was a biological compulsion, a desperate need to snuff out his life like a flickering candle.
Maddox got to his feet slowly, rejecting the help from his men. He straightened and wiped away another river of blood. “Let him go.” His shirt was stained from his wounds, but he continued to smile like this was all a joke. “He’s not gonna be able to focus until he gets this out of his system. Let him do what he wants.” He waved to his men. “Come on, he deserves it.”
After a few seconds of hesitation, his men released me. They slowly backed away and took their time, like they expected Maddox to change his mind.
He should change his mind.
Maddox raised his arms at his sides and beckoned me forward with his fingers. “Take your shot.”
This seemed like a trick, a setup to get me where he wanted me. It seemed too good to be true, but then again, Maddox was unpredictable. It was one of his strengths. There was no way to anticipate any meeting with him because you never knew what to expect.
Damien came to my side and gently placed his hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but don’t fall for it.”
I shoved his hand off my shoulder. “Too late.” I lunged at Maddox again and let my fists beat him like a punching bag. I slugged him in the stomach, slammed his face down into my knee, and then punched him in the face so hard, one tooth came loose. His defeated body continued to hit the floor, and I was the one who had to pull him to his feet so I could finish the job. Every hit was an outlet for my agony, a kind of therapy my entire body needed. But I knew the one thing I needed above all was his death.
But I knew he wouldn’t give that to me.
Maddox got to his feet again and stepped back with his hands raised. “All right, enough.” He grabbed the bottom of his shirt and wiped it across his face to get rid of all the blood. He’d taken a serious beating but shrugged it off like nothing happened. He was just as coherent as ever. “We’re even.”
Smoke almost exploded from my ears. “Even? No, asshole. Not even close.”
Maddox walked closer to me, not the least bit afraid because all his cronies were ready to pull me off if I launched another attack. “Well, we need to get down to business. Your little vendetta can wait.”
“Business?” I had no business with this fucking lunatic. The only business we would ever have would be buying a plot to put his body. “The only business I have with you is my vendetta. If you came here expecting me to surrender, I won’t. I will not stop until you pay for what you did.”
He placed his hands on his hips. “Well, I guess I could pay you for your wife’s time.”
Within a single snap, I lost my shit. I sprinted into his frame and grabbed his head so I could snap his neck.
He was lucky his men pulled me off so quickly. If they hadn’t, I would’ve gotten him.
“Will you calm the fuck down now? Do I need to let you wail on me a little longer so you’ll listen?”
Two of his men held me back by the arms because I could no longer be trusted to stay sane. “If you really want me to listen, let me kill you.”
He slowly walked toward me with his hands on his hips. “In my experience, the dead don’t say much, and they listen even less. I’m sure you noticed that after you killed my brother.” He mentioned the murder of his brother like it was no big deal, like he didn’t need vengeance for what I’d done. He was so disassociated from reality. He seemed to operate on a completely different field.
“I hope you aren’t expecting an apology.”
“I hope you aren’t either.”
I tried to free myself from my restraint, but it was no use.
Maddox held up his hand, like the gesture was going to soothe me. “This is what we’re gonna do. You successfully put me out of business.” He brought his hands together and slow clapped. “Congratulations. Now, I need a new partner, someone who has channels all over the world. The Tuscan Rose is really impressive because it’s the perfect place for such a complicated network of distributors. I think it’s the perfect place for me to settle.”
I stared at him with a blank face, unable to process what he was saying because it was so ridiculous. “You really are out of your mind, aren’t you?”
“No, you are. What did you think was going to happen when you stripped everythin
g away? You know what they say, destroy one monster and you make a bigger one.” He raised both arms and gave a shrug. “I think you and I could work well together. I’ve always admired you. Why do you think I’ve kept you alive so long?”
I pushed his men off of me and continued to look Maddox in the eyes. “I’d rather die.” I wouldn’t work with a man who’d raped my wife. I wouldn’t form an alliance with the man who’d nearly beat me to death.
Maddox’s face slowly turned serious. “You know what they say. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. You and I would no longer be enemies, and if we aren’t enemies, we all get along real nicely. Your wife is safe, your kid is safe. Sounds like a win-win to me.”
“I’d. Rather. Die.”
His eyes shifted back and forth as he looked into my face. He held the look for a long time, oscillating between all the different emotions that occupied his body. His hands slid into his front pockets, and his chin tilted toward the ground as he considered my response. “Then I guess I’ll have to kill you and Damien right here…and then have some more fun with your wife.” He lifted his chin to meet my gaze again, this time his look threatening. “After I kill your son, of course.”
I couldn’t process the million shocks of rage that flooded my body. Like being electrocuted with a bolt of lightning, my body could barely handle the voltage. I wanted to kill this man more than anything else in the world. I was so livid, I actually couldn’t speak. My life meant nothing to me, but my wife meant everything. And my son…I couldn’t even go there.
Maddox continued to study me. “Good. You changed your mind.”
Once I was reminded of the stakes, I couldn’t defy him. I had too much to lose. Provoking him like this was another mistake to add to the pile. I had to protect my family above everything else, even if that meant I had to swallow my pride.