Chapter 29
Seph
I woke with a gasp, my whole body jerking against cold, unforgiving metal. Pain bloomed instantly—sharp and hot where my wrists were bound to the chair. The pressure made me wince, and when I tried to move, the restraints dug deeper, biting into my skin like they had a personal vendetta.
My head throbbed. Every heartbeat slammed behind my eyes, blurring the edges of the room as I forced them open. The air was thick, heavy with rust, gasoline, and something moldy. It curled in my throat, made me want to gag.
The space was dim, broken only by slivers of light bleeding through cracks in the boarded windows. Peeling paint flaked from the walls, and the floor was a mess of dirt, broken glass, and dried-out footprints. Everything screamed abandoned. Everything screamed wrong.
And then I heard her.
Footsteps. Light. Measured. Familiar.
“Persephone?” Callista’s voice sliced through the dark like a knife. Cool. Controlled. Too calm.
“Callista?” My voice cracked from dryness and disbelief. “What the hell is going on? Why am I tied up?!”
I heard her before I saw her. The rhythm of her pacing was uneven. She was nervous. Good. She should be.
“Keep your voice down,” she hissed. “They’ll hear you.”
“Who?!” I fought against the restraints again, the chair screeching against the floor. “What are you talking about?”
Silence answered me first—thick, suffocating. Then she stepped into view.
Her face was pale, her lips tight, eyes too bright. I’d seen her like this before—right before she ran. Right before she abandoned me.
“I didn’t want it to go like this,” she whispered.
“You kidnapped me.”
“It’s for your own good.”
My blood ran cold. I stared at her like I didn’t know her. Maybe I didn’t anymore.
“You knocked me out. Tied me up. What part of that is ‘good’?” My voice rose, ragged with panic and fury. “You’re supposed to be my sister!”
Callista didn’t flinch. She looked almost… tired. “And I’m trying to save you.”
No.
No, this wasn’t salvation. This wasn’t care.
This was betrayal wearing my sister’s face.
I stared at Callista like I didn’t even recognize her. Maybe I didn’t.
Her words echoed in my ears, cold and heavy. "I was supposed to marry him."
My stomach turned.
She took a step closer, her eyes glinting—not with malice, but something more dangerous: belief. “It was arranged. Before either of us were born. Our parents wanted to tie our families together, and Hades was the golden ticket.”
I opened my mouth to laugh—some reflex of disbelief—but it caught in my throat when I saw Clint shift in the background, saying nothing. Not denying it.
Callista’s lips curled, not in a smile, but in something brittle. “He never looked at me. In fact, he broke things off, got engaged to someone else. But she left, and then he came back to me. Bastard thought the grass was greener.”
“Then why—why are you doing this?” My voice cracked under the weight of it all.
Her eyes burned as she spit the words like venom.
“Because he was obsessed with you. Always. You walked into a room and he’d stop breathing.
I’d be in the middle of a sentence, and he’d forget I existed.
Why do you think his other fiancee left?
He thought it’d be easier without you in his life. Apparently, he was wrong.”
My breath hitched.
Memories slammed into me—how his gaze always found mine, even when we barely spoke. The way his presence shifted when I was near. I had mistaken it for curiosity, maybe protection. I hadn’t dared to believe it was more.
Callista looked like she was shattering piece by piece as she went on. “I tried. God, I tried to make him want me. I played the perfect fiancée. But he wouldn’t even kiss me.”
She laughed bitterly, and it made my skin crawl. “He told me, ‘I won’t touch what isn’t mine.’”
I flinched.
A beat of silence passed between us, filled with every truth I didn’t want to hear. Every reason why this betrayal cut so deep.
“That’s when I knew,” she whispered, her voice going cold. “I couldn’t beat him. But I could break him.”
“You thought I’d help you destroy him?” I asked, stepping forward despite the ache in my chest. “You thought I’d play bait?”
“You were already halfway there,” she hissed. “You fell right into his arms.”
I clenched my fists, heat burning behind my eyes. “I’m not a pawn in your obsession, Callista. I’m not your revenge story.”
She looked at me, eyes full of fury and heartbreak. “No,” she said softly. “You’re his.”
And that, apparently, was the worst thing I could be.
The world tilted, like the ground beneath me had shifted without warning. My pulse thudded in my ears, too loud, too fast, too real.
“You can’t be serious,” I whispered, the tremor in my voice betraying how hard I was trying to keep it together. “You think you can just… end this?”
Callista stepped closer. Her eyes, once soft and familiar, were hard now—resolute. “I have to protect you from him, Seph. You’ve been blinded. You don’t see it. You can’t.”
“Then why do I feel safe with him?” I snapped, the words tumbling out like broken glass. “Why does it feel like I can breathe for the first time in years when I’m with him?”
Her laugh was sharp and bitter, cutting through me like ice. “Safe?” she echoed. “You think this is safe? You’re in the eye of the hurricane and you think the silence means protection? He’s dangerous, Seph. He’s always been dangerous.”
She paced the space like a caged animal, her fury building with each step. “This isn’t some tragic romance where love saves the monster. He’s not broken and waiting to be fixed—he’s a predator who’s gotten exactly what he wants.”
Her words struck deep, but they couldn’t erase what I knew. The way Hades looked at me like I was the only thing tethering him to sanity. The way he held me like letting go would kill him. The way he touched me with reverence, like every inch of me mattered.
“He would never hurt me,” I said, but the echo of my own doubt bounced back, hollow and unsure.
Callista stopped pacing. She looked at me with something like pity and rage tangled together. “He already has. Maybe not in ways you can see—but he’s taken everything from you. Your freedom. Your choices.”
I shook my head, but the panic was creeping in, slithering under my skin.
“If I can’t save you from him,” she said, voice quieter now—calmer, but colder, “then I’ll end it myself.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, even though I didn’t want to know. My heart beat faster, like it already knew the answer.
She took a step back. “I tried to do this the gentle way. I thought if I could just make you see—” Her voice cracked before she pulled it back into something sharper. “But you’re too far gone.”
“I’m not—” I tried to say, but she cut me off.
“You are.”
The words landed like a slap.
Her gaze burned into mine. “And if this is what you call love? Then I’ll burn it down before it devours you.”
I stood frozen, pulse thundering as the air thickened—like the walls themselves were holding their breath.
This wasn’t protection anymore.
This was a threat.
And for the first time in my life, I realized: my sister wasn’t here to save me.
She was here to destroy him. And if I didn’t find a way out?
She’d take me down with him.
Panic punched through my ribs like a battering ram the second Clint hesitated. His gaze ping-ponged between me and Callista, like he couldn’t decide which of us he was supposed to save. Like he thought there was still a version of this where we all walked out alive.
There wasn’t.
Not with her.
Callista stepped forward, unnervingly calm, like we weren’t standing in the middle of a goddamn nightmare. Her fingers curled around a gas canister, and she dragged it out from the shadows like it had always been waiting there. Like this had always been the plan.
“No!” I screamed, my voice tearing raw from my throat. “You can’t—Callista, stop!”
But she didn’t even blink. She unscrewed the cap and began pouring it out like she was watering flowers, graceful and terrifying. Gasoline splashed onto the concrete, swirling into sick little puddles around her boots. The stench hit me hard—chemical, caustic, final.
“Callista, please!” I twisted against the restraints cutting into my wrists, steel biting into skin.
The chair groaned beneath me, but it didn’t budge. Smoke slithered in from the back of the warehouse, curling like it was already tasting the air for heat.
“Clint!” I shouted his name like a lifeline, like maybe if I said it loud enough he’d remember who the hell he was. “Do something! Stop her, please—we can’t let this happen!”
He didn’t move. Just stood there like a statue with regret carved into his face.
Callista flicked her hair off her shoulder, lips set like stone. Then she struck a match.
That tiny flame danced like it knew it was about to become something more. Something monstrous.
“No—no!” I screamed again, voice cracking as I thrashed, heart hammering so hard it felt like it might shatter my ribs. “We can talk. We can fix this!”
Callista looked back at me, her smirk painted in cruelty. “There’s nothing left to fix, baby sister.”
Then she dropped the match.
Fire erupted.
It devoured the floor in seconds, wild and ravenous, flames spiraling up like they’d been waiting to be unleashed. Heat slammed into me, suffocating and furious. My body jolted, instincts screaming, adrenaline flooding every nerve like liquid lightning.
“Clint, please!” I shrieked. “Help me”
But he just stood there—watching me burn.
The flames surged, the roar of it loud as a jet engine, and I realized this wasn’t just fire.
This was Callista’s revenge.
And I was the offering.
The fire screamed around me. Not crackled—screamed. Like it knew what it was doing. Like it wanted me. Heat licked up my arms like greedy hands, clawing, claiming. My lungs burned with smoke and panic, but I held on. I had to. I couldn’t fall apart—not yet.
Then—boom—a metal door slammed open, hard enough to shake the flames.
And there he was.