24. Hades
Hades
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I rise when the bell rings, signaling the start of another fight.
Phones are prohibited here.
None of those present are interested in showing off; they're men like me who can't deal with their inner demons and need to unleash their anger on something or someone.
Immediately after a fight is finished, the ring is cleaned, but there are always stains left from the bodies that have passed through here, and I'm sure a good portion of my blood is painted on the floor I'm stepping on, from all the times I've been here before.
There are no bets or cheering crowds, no fans. This isn't entertainment; it's a way to release pain. Just a handful of men craving blood and punching each other's faces for no reason other than to avoid going mad.
Less than two minutes later, another opponent is lying on the ground. My gloved hands are covered in blood, the metallic smell spreading throughout the room. My fists don't want to stop, but my body begs for rest.
"Another one?" one of the bodyguards asks me, smiling. He knows me well enough to be sure that I won’t leave until I lose the strength to raise my fist for the last time.
I nod, indicating yes, and he laughs, but as I wait for my next opponent, all I can think about is her, Kennedy, and how, due to an increasingly likely judgment error, I helped send an innocent woman to prison.
My woman.
My son's mother.
Thinking about it awakens my madness again.
Kennedy will hate me forever.
King will hate me when he learns the truth of what I've done.
"One more, damn it!" I shout to the guard.
The adrenaline of being in the ring is nothing compared to this emotional rollercoaster inside me.
I hated myself for loving her, and now, I hate myself for having hated her.
I'm crazy, completely insane, and as I advance on my next opponent, each punch doesn't come close to relieving the pain tearing through my chest.
Physically, I'm in the ring, but my mind spins in a whirlwind of chaotic thoughts.
Love and hate, need and anger, all mixed in a toxic cocktail, have kept me awake most of every night since Pam's murder.
In my dreams, during unconsciousness, Kennedy was mine. In the morning, reality brought me back to my purpose of revenge.
The bell rings again, ending the fight. I don't move from the middle of the ring, and when someone tries to pull me by the arm, I react with a punch to the bastard's face.
"Son of a bitch!" a man curses at me, and when I look back, I realize he's as tall as I am, with a beard. He doesn't make any move to react to the aggression. He's dressed in a leather jacket, which means he didn't come here to fight. "You're coming with me, Greek. Enough already."
"Fuck you, bastard!" The whiskey is already doing its job of numbing my brain, and coupled with exhaustion, it almost knocks me down, but I'm not willing to give up.
"My name is Roman, and I'm here on behalf of"—he approaches and speaks so only I can hear—"Beau and Odin. They're both waiting for you in a car outside."
"Odin is here?"
"Yes."
I look around and see some men watching us, probably expecting another fight. But despite my desire for blood not having dissipated, I have an even greater one: to find out if everything Odin believes Pam did is true. Because I have no doubt that if he's here, it's because he's found something out.
"There's a private bathroom in that direction." The man points. "Clean clothes, too."
"Do you work for Beau?"
"He's like an older brother to me."
"And you guys come to this place?"
"No, but if you didn’t know yet, Hades Kostanidis, Beau is as much the king of New Orleans as your cousin is of technology. Every time you stepped into this fight club, we knew."
"And you never told my brothers or cousins?"
" Cousin . I suppose you're talking about Christos Lykaios. Neither he nor your brothers knew. But as for Odin? Ask yourself that question and tell me if you believe he doesn't keep an eye on your every sneeze. Maybe he was just giving you space to deal with your ghosts."
"What the hell do you think you're doing, Hades?" Odin asks when I enter an office that from the outside looked like a warehouse.
As soon as I left the club, Roman took me to a car and said Odin and Beau would be waiting for me somewhere. I know neither of them can stand still on the street, inside a vehicle, like normal people. They both have many enemies.
Beau just greeted me when I arrived and then left this room, leaving us alone.
"Dealing with my demons. The DNA test results arrived two days ago. King is indeed mine. And it's not just that. I asked Ares to examine the drinks in my grandfather's office. If it was Pam who drugged my drink—or rather, the drinks that were in the library, because all the bottles were spiked—she never removed them from there."
"No, she didn't." He takes the phone from his suit pocket and hands it to me.
"What's this for?"
"Your grandfather had cameras inside the house."
"What?"
"I'm assuming Pam or Vina didn't know about them. Especially not your ward, since I didn't find anything incriminating the housekeeper in the recordings."
"What's on them, then?"
"What interests us: the whole event involving Pam and the drinks. And also you and Kennedy. Don't worry, I didn't watch as soon as I realized what was happening. Voyeurism isn't one of my perversions."
I still don't click on the video to start the recording. "Are you telling me my grandfather, even after he died, was still monitoring that house?"
"Not from beyond the grave." He gives one of his rare smiles. "But the service is still active, being paid for by automatic debit from the Kostanidis Group. He hired a security company to do the job. I still need to study all the footage carefully. I focused only on recordings from three years ago until now. It's a lot of footage, and it'll take a while to unravel everything."
"Why did he do that? No one else lived there."
"Because he was a suspicious bastard like us, and as he died suddenly, he didn’t ask to have the service turned off. But that’s not the important thing right now, Hades. What is important is that with a touch of your finger on the screen of this phone, you'll have answers to two important questions: who Pam, your ward, really was, and how King was conceived."