Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Hades
The next day, Alex walked into church scared as hell and lying through her teeth.
My jaw clenched as I watched her performance.
Forty-five minutes of calculated, rehearsed bullshit.
Every answer measured. Every pause deliberate.
The story about Derek and the bad breakup didn’t hold water.
It was thin as piss, transparent as glass, and she expected us to swallow it whole.
She was terrified, but not of us. Of whatever she’d run from.
I could see it in the way her eyes darted to the door every few minutes.
The way her hands trembled before she clasped them together in her lap.
The way her breathing hitched when Zeus leaned forward.
She was prey, and something out there was hunting her.
Something that made facing a room full of violent men seem like the safer option.
Pathetic.
Zeus assigned Abyss to shadow her. Ordered Coeus to dig into her background. Demanded Poseidon get the truth out of her.
When the officers filed out, only Poseidon remained.
“What if we can’t save her?” he asked quietly.
“Then we make sure whoever’s coming for her regrets it,” Zeus said.
The next morning, she was gone.
Again.
I stood in the main room beside Zeus as Poseidon beat the hell out of Abyss.
My hands curled into fists at my sides, knuckles white, nails digging crescents into my palms. We’d woken this morning to find Alex’s room empty.
The prospect had gone to bed, leaving Alex unsupervised.
Stupid fucking kid thought following orders meant doing the bare minimum and hoping for the best.
Coeus checked the cameras and confirmed she never stepped into the hallway. But when he checked the outside cameras, there she was, slinking through the night with her backpack. Moving like smoke. Like she’d done this before. Like running was second nature to her.
She fucking ran.
Again.
“Enough!”
Poseidon took one more shot, and Abyss crumpled to the floor. Blood sprayed from his mouth, painting the concrete in dark red droplets. “You were supposed to be watching her!” he snarled at the prospect sprawled on the ground.
“She was in bed,” he cried. The words came out wet, garbled through split lips and broken teeth.
“Obviously fucking not!” Poseidon bellowed. Ares and Kraken stepped forward and pulled him back before he killed the kid. Their hands locked around his arms, muscles straining as they dragged him away from the bleeding prospect.
“Abyss, what did I tell you?” Zeus asked, his voice calm, almost sounding bored. That tone was worse than screaming. That tone meant someone was about to die.
“To watch her,” he answered.
“And?”
“Not to let her out of my sight.”
“And?” Zeus pressed, his voice climbing an octave.
The kid stared at Zeus, and I could see the wheels turning in his head. Blood dripped from his chin onto his cut. His eyes were already swelling shut. “And protect her.”
Zeus looked at me. “Is this the best we’ve got?”
I sighed and shook my head, crouching down in front of Abyss.
The metallic stench of blood filled my nostrils, mixed with the kid’s sweat.
I glanced around the room. Every brother was here.
Every prospect stood lined up against the wall.
Abyss would prove to be an example for them all.
An example of what the fuck happened when you disobeyed your president.
“What did you forget, Prospect?” I asked, my arms resting on my thighs as I balanced on my toes. Crouching there, staring into the kid’s soul, I saw it.
Defiance.
The stupid fuck still thought he was right. Still thought he’d done his job. Still didn’t understand that following orders meant using your goddamn brain, not just checking boxes on a fucking list.
“I did what I was fucking told. I watched the bitch everywhere she went. The kitchen, the fucking bathroom, the grounds outside, the fucking 7-Eleven. I had to walk my fucking bike back.”
“And why was that, Prospect?”
“What?”
I stood up and walked away from him, letting Zeus take over. My blood was heating, rage building in my chest like pressure in a boiler. The kid was digging his own grave and didn’t even know it.
“Why did you have to walk your bike back?”
“Because you can’t ride a bike at the same speed someone walks, you’ll tip the bike,” he answered, still not getting it. “Shouldn’t you know that, Prez?”
The men groaned. The prospects watching this spectacle closed their eyes. They knew Abyss had fucked up. First, by letting Alex run. Second, by questioning his president.
“Where was Alex’s bike?” Zeus asked, his patience wearing thin. Through clenched teeth, he pressed, “Why the fuck didn’t she ride her bike back?”
“She said she wanted to walk.” The prospect pushed his hands under him, trying to stand. Zeus’ boot landed on his chest, slamming him back down. The crack of ribs echoed through the room. The kid wheezed, struggling to breathe.
“You didn’t think to mention that a girl you were assigned to watch, to protect, to report back to me anything out of the ordinary, would leave her fifteen-fucking-thousand-dollar motorcycle in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven? And walk back to the clubhouse?”
We all saw it.
The kid’s eyes widened the moment he realized what he’d done. How badly he’d fucked up. What his stupidity and arrogance had cost this club. Cost a patched brother, an officer of the club he was trying to join. The color drained from his face. His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
Zeus pulled his gun from his holster and shot the kid in the head.
The gunshot cracked through the room like thunder.
Sharp. Final. The back of Abyss’ skull exploded outward, brain matter and bone fragments spraying across the concrete.
The smell of cordite and burnt powder flooded the air, mixing with the copper stench of fresh blood and the acrid smell of piss as the kid’s bladder released.
Then Zeus turned to the other prospects, his arm still extended. Smoke swirled from the barrel. I had to give them credit—they didn’t flinch. Didn’t look away from the corpse bleeding out on the floor. Didn’t show weakness even as their brother’s blood pooled at their feet.
“Any of you too stupid to learn from this lesson? Tell me fucking now, because I’ve got too much shit going on to babysit fucking children who can’t use their fucking heads.”
Pegasus stepped forward, and my chin dropped. He was a good kid, a solid prospect. He’d make a good brother, someone who could be trusted. But seeing him step forward had me questioning my assessment. My hand moved instinctively toward my piece.
“Prez,” Pegasus began. “We understood the cost of prospecting. Each of us knew what we were signing up for. We won’t let you down the way Abyss did.”
The others behind him straightened, nodding their agreement. Zeus’ arm fell to his side. “Clean up this fucking mess,” he ordered.
They moved fast, scattering in different directions.
Pegasus kneeled by the body and stripped the cut from Abyss. Amphion and Memnon lifted him off the floor, the kid’s head lolling back to expose the gaping exit wound. Thanos and Cycnus appeared with mops and cleaners.
They worked as a unit to clean up after their president.
None of them spoke; instead, the room filled with the sounds of their labor.
The scrape of mops against concrete. The splash of water mixing with blood.
The chemical smell of bleach trying to mask death.
Atlas stood beside me, and we watched the prospects work swiftly and efficiently.
“His control is thinning,” Atlas whispered so only I could hear.
“I know.” My jaw clenched so hard my teeth ached.
“The kid didn’t deserve to die.”
“I know.” I sighed, the weight of it settling in my chest like a stone. “He’s got a lot of shit on his plate, and now this mess with Reggie.”
“The mess with Reggie is only going to get worse. Poseidon will be pissed when Zeus tells him we aren’t chasing Alex down.”
“I’ll talk to him,” I promised.
“He needs to tell Rhea the truth, Hades. The guilt is eating him alive, and we’ll all suffer for it, eventually.”
“What the fuck do you want me to do, Atlas? He knows his father was a monster, but until he deals with that, he won’t listen to anyone.” My hands curled into fists. The rage was there, simmering just beneath the surface. Always there. Always waiting.
“Then we make sure he deals with it. Where is Eros?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted, walking to the bar. Atlas moved around to the inside and pulled two beers from the fridge, handing one to me. The cold glass felt good against my palm. Grounding. Real. He stood across from me and waited.
“Let me talk to my father again and see if he’s remembered anything.”
Atlas nodded, but he didn’t move. He leaned his elbows on the bar and twisted the beer bottle against the surface.
“What’s this I hear about you getting a woman?”
My eyes snapped up to his. “What the fuck?! The only person I told was Zeus. You two sitting around like old church ladies gossiping about my sex life?”
“Yeah.” He grinned and took a pull from his bottle.
“Well, that’ll have to wait,” I said, and the beer soured on my tongue. The thought of Lettie made my chest tighten. Made my cock throb. Made me want to burn the whole fucking world down just to get back to her. I wasn’t sure she’d even speak to me again, let alone let me get my mouth on her.
Zeus had given Poseidon seventy-two hours to look for Alex, and not a minute more. He wouldn’t waste resources on a spoiled brat who refused to accept the help she was offered.
I’d spent those hours with him. Riding through the night. Checking every contact. Following every lead that went nowhere. Watching my brother fall apart piece by piece as he realized his sister was gone. Really gone this time. And there wasn’t a goddamn thing he could do about it.