Chapter 27
Seph
The rooftop bar loomed ahead, skeletal and quiet beneath the bruised dusk sky.
Wind curled around the crumbling brick, tugging at my clothes like a warning I didn’t want to hear.
I swallowed hard and stepped through the rusted entry, boots scraping over broken tile, the scent of rain and old smoke lingering in the air like ghosts.
Every part of this felt wrong.
The empty silence. The setting sun bleeding across the rooftop. The fact that I’d come here without my phone, without backup, without Hades knowing.
But I needed answers, and she was the only one who had them.
I paced a tight circle near the edge, heart hammering. My fingers twitched at my sides, itching to do something—text him, call him, run. I hated the way this place made me feel—like I was already losing before the conversation even started.
And then… she appeared.
Callista stepped through a gap in the fencing, her frame sharp against the fading light. She looked the same—composed, crisp, beautiful in that chilling way only she could be. Her eyes met mine, unreadable.
“You came alone,” she said, like it was a test I’d just passed.
I forced a breath past the lump in my throat. “Like you asked.”
My voice was steadier than I felt. “Start talking.”
We stared at each other across the cracked rooftop, wind tugging at our hair. The city stretched out behind her, glittering and cold. Somewhere far below, life continued. But up here? Time held its breath.
She crossed her arms, tilting her head. “You don’t understand what you’re involved in, Persephone.”
“Then explain it to me.”
A beat of silence.
Her gaze swept over me, searching for something—doubt, fear, weakness. She’d always been like this. Calculating. Poised. A scalpel wrapped in silk. And yet, there’d been a time when I would’ve followed her anywhere.
That time was long gone.
“I know who he is,” I said before she could launch into whatever curated speech she’d prepared. “I know what he’s capable of.”
“And you’re still with him?” Her voice cracked like a whip. “You’re sleeping with the monster and you don’t even see it.”
My jaw clenched. “He’s not a monster.”
She laughed, low and bitter. “No? Then why do I have a folder of everything he’s done? The deals. The bodies. The women. You think you’re special? You think he won’t break you, too?”
“You don’t know him.”
“I knew him before you did.”
The words hit like ice down my spine.
“I’m not leaving him,” I said. “If that’s why you dragged me up here, you wasted your time.”
Her expression shifted. Not surprise—calculation. Like I’d said the exact thing she was waiting to hear.
“Then I guess we’ll do this the hard way.”
And that’s when I felt it.
A presence behind me.
I turned—
And saw Clint.
Callista stepped closer, wind tugging at her coat and her words, the rooftop air thick with the storm still brewing. Her eyes narrowed like she could see straight through me—to every conflicted thought I was trying to bury.
“You don’t know what he’s capable of,” she said again, her voice edged in something brittle and broken. “Hades and I were arranged. It wasn’t romantic. But it was real enough for him to use me.”
I stiffened. “What are you talking about?”
Her lips curled into a cold, joyless smile. “You think you’re special?” Her voice dropped, sharp as glass. “He needed me. And when he didn’t anymore, he discarded me like I never mattered. You think you’re different? You’re just the new girl who fits the role better.”
My stomach twisted, a sour coil of unease crawling up my throat.
“That’s not true.” But my voice lacked weight, the wind carrying it away like dust.
“Oh, but it is.”
She unzipped her bag with slow, deliberate movements and pulled out a folder. My heart dropped before it even hit the ground. Pages spilled across the rooftop like spilled secrets—photos, reports, grainy snapshots, all edged in shadow and implication.
One landed near my boot. I crouched slowly, fingertips brushing it.
Bruises. On a woman’s body. Deep purple across her ribs, down her thigh.
Another paper—redacted, stamped, blurred with something dark. A police report. It was the silence between the lines that screamed the loudest.
“Look,” she said softly, almost tenderly. “This is what happens to people who get close to him. He doesn’t build lives—he burns them. He’s violent, Seph. Manipulative. And charming enough to make you believe it’s love.”
I stood slowly; the wind kicking at the edges of my jacket and my nerves. “He’s not like that. Not with me.”
“He doesn’t love you,” she said, not missing a beat. “He owns you.”
My heart slammed against my ribs. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“He protected me!” I shouted, louder than I meant to. My voice echoed across the rooftop like a scream in a cathedral. “He’s not perfect, but he chose me. He’s kept me safe.”
Callista laughed, but there was no humor in it. “What you saw wasn’t protection,” she said, stepping closer until we were nearly nose to nose. “It was possession. And if you weren’t so blinded by how good it felt to be wanted, you’d see that.”
“No.” I shook my head, fists clenched, fury rising like heat under my skin. “You don’t know him now. You’re stuck on who he was.”
“I saw how he looked at you,” she said softly, her voice dropping to a whisper.
And for the first time… she looked afraid.
Not for me. Not for herself.
For what he might do.
“I saw it,” she whispered again, eyes glassy and wild. “And it terrified me.”
Clint stepped forward, siding with her like it meant something. Like he still got to stand behind her and pretend it wasn’t betrayal wrapped in a different bow.
“I just want to help,” he said, his hand reaching out.
I jerked back before he could touch me. “Don’t.” My voice cut sharp, brittle. “Don’t touch me.”
His hand hovered in the space between us, awkward, unnecessary. I turned my glare to Callista.
“You ran,” I said. The words tasted like ash. “You ran away. And I was forced to take your place.”
Her expression didn’t flinch. If anything, she looked… unapologetic. “I did,” she said. “And I’d do it again.”
I laughed, humorless. “Of course you would.”
“I’m here now because you’re trapped, Seph,” she said. “But there’s still a way out. We take him down. Together. You’re his wife—his weakness. And if we time it right, we can burn this whole empire to the ground. Walk away with everything.”
Everything.
The word echoed.
I crouched slowly, hands shaking as I gathered the pages that had fluttered across the rooftop like dead leaves. A face stared back at me—frozen in time, smiling.
Liam.
My ex. The one who’d ghosted me after graduation without a word. I hadn’t seen him in years. I’d assumed he moved across the country, started over.
But stamped across the bottom of the page in harsh, black letters was a single word:
Deceased.
My pulse kicked up, fast and frantic. I reached for another paper.
Kayla Jensen.
My breath caught. Her? She’d been nothing more than a teenage nightmare—mean girl royalty who’d spread lies about me sophomore year. It was petty, stupid high school stuff. I hadn’t thought about her in forever.
But her picture was here. Alongside a dated police report. Cause of death: single-vehicle crash. Suspiciously redacted.
The paper nearly slipped from my fingers.
A chill crept into my chest, wrapping tight around my lungs.
“Tell me you didn’t do this,” I whispered, my voice barely audible above the wind. My eyes darted between Callista and Clint, searching for guilt, denial—anything.
But their silence wasn’t guilty.
It was expectant.
And that was when it hit me.
They didn’t do this.
He did.
Hades.
He was the constant. The common thread. The shadow always in the corner of the room.
And those people… the ones who’d hurt me, shamed me, made me cry in the dark when no one was watching?
They were gone.
Not just disappeared—erased.
Not random. Not coincidence.
Calculated.
For me.
Oh my…
He did it… for me.
My throat tightened, breath caught halfway between a sob and a scream. I dropped the pages like they burned. Because suddenly, they did.
He hadn’t just protected me.
He’d avenged me.
And I didn’t know whether to run from that…
…or fall to my knees for it.
I stumbled back like she’d shoved me, like her words were knives instead of syllables. My chest ached, lungs squeezing against the truth I didn’t want to hear.
"You’re the key to destroying him," Callista said, stepping forward. "Don't you see that? He made you his weakness."
That line stuck in my skull, thick and cloying. My vision tunneled. My heart? It didn’t pound. It thrashed. A trapped thing begging to escape the cage I’d willingly stepped into.
And then her voice, smooth and sharp like broken glass. “That’s why we need you.”
I blinked at her, slow and disbelieving. “I don’t want to ruin him.” The words scraped up my throat, so soft I almost didn’t recognize my own voice. “I—God, Callista—I can’t.”
Her face didn’t move. No pity, no shock. Just that cold clarity that always made her terrifying. “He’ll come for me,” she said. “He always does. If we don’t stop him now—”
“No.” It wasn’t a whisper this time. It exploded out of me, ragged and desperate. “You don’t understand. You weren’t there. You don’t know how he loves. He—he cares. He protects me. He—”
I cut myself off, the image of his eyes flashing in the dark searing through me like fire. The way he’d held me when I cried. The way he’d whispered my name like it was a vow. The way the world bent when he touched me.
I’d given him everything. And he took it like he already owned it.
Callista’s expression cracked, just barely. “No, baby girl,” she said, voice so soft it felt like a lullaby. Then it turned razor-sharp. “You’ve been brainwashed.”
That word hit harder than a slap.
Brainwashed.
No. No, no, no—this wasn’t that. This was love. This was messy and real and sharp around the edges but it wasn’t fake.
Was it?
My stomach turned.
What if it was?
I thought about the bodies. The names. The way he never flinched at blood. The cold behind his smile when he didn’t get his way.
The way he made people disappear—quietly, efficiently.
I shook my head, slow and trembling. “I won’t be part of this,” I said, but even as the words left me, they didn’t feel like a promise.
They felt like a question.
Callista reached for me again. “Seph—”
I stepped back like her fingers were poison.
Because maybe they were.
Or maybe I already drank the real poison. And maybe it tasted like his kiss.
Callista crouched beside me, her eyes red-rimmed, her voice quieter now—too quiet. The rooftop had fallen still, and the storm building in the sky felt like it was holding its breath with me.
“I didn’t run because I was afraid of him,” she said. “I ran because I knew he’d never choose me.”
I blinked, confused. “What does that mean?”
Her laugh was hollow, brittle. “You still don’t get it, do you? He was never supposed to marry me. He agreed to it because it got him closer to what he really wanted.”
My blood went cold.
She stared at me, something wild and haunted in her expression. “He’s always wanted you, Persephone. Always. Even when we were kids. When you still wore braids and thought monsters only lived in storybooks. He watched you. Protected you. Followed you.”
“No—” I shook my head, heart pounding. “That’s not—”
“He killed for you,” she said, the words sharp and heavy like stones dropped in water. “You think Liam’s disappearance was a coincidence? Or Kayla’s accident? He didn’t just punish people who hurt you—he erased them. Because in his mind, they touched what was his.”
My breath hitched.
Callista leaned closer, voice shaking now—not with anger, but with fear.
“I saw the way he looked at you. Even when I was standing next to him. Like you were a flame and he was just waiting to be burned. I thought marrying him would keep you safe. That if I stayed close enough, I could control it.”
Her gaze dropped to the concrete beneath us.
“But I couldn’t. I was never the one he wanted. And I knew if I stayed any longer, I’d either end up dead… or I’d watch him hurt you. So I ran.”
I stared at her, words lodged in my throat.
“He doesn’t love you, Seph,” she said, lifting her eyes to mine. “He worships you. Obsessively. Violently. And one day… that love will eat you alive.”
Clint stood just a few feet away, the wind tousling his hair, his expression torn. Guilt warred with resolve in his eyes, and for a second—I almost believed he might step back. Let me go.
“I’m sorry. This is for your own good.” His voice was soft, almost apologetic. “You’ll thank us when you remember who you were before him.”
Before Hades.
Before the fire.
Before I felt alive.
Panic surged in my chest, sharp and cold. My instincts screamed run. I spun on my heel, bolting toward the stairs—
—but Clint was faster.
He stepped in front of me, not aggressive, not cruel—just… steady. Solid. Like he knew I’d try, like he’d been waiting for this moment.
“Move,” I snarled, the words ripping from my throat like claws.
“Seph,” he said gently, reaching for me. “Please. Don’t make this harder.”
Don’t make this harder. Like this wasn’t a betrayal. Like this wasn’t everything.
I stumbled back—but it was too late.
Callista was already behind me.
I felt the shift in the air before I saw the glint of the syringe.
“No—”
“Shh.” Her breath was a whisper against my ear, and it chilled me more than the night air ever could.
“Callista, please,” I begged, my voice cracking. “Don’t do this.”
But she didn’t stop.
She didn’t even blink.
The needle pressed against my skin—just a sharp sting, and then warmth spreading too fast, too thick, like my blood had turned to syrup.
My limbs went heavy.
My knees buckled.
The last thing I saw was her face—my sister’s face—blurred by tears she refused to let fall.
“This is the only way to save you,” she whispered.
And then everything went black.