Chapter 34 #2
Not the woman who fed people because grief shouldn’t come with worrying about returning a dish.
Not the woman who wrapped Rhea in compassion without asking for a goddamn thing back.
Not the woman who opened her home to strangers during a time of grief, who loved her monster of a dog and treated chickens like tiny citizens.
She was too sweet. Too loving. Too fucking soft.
Except she wasn’t. Not all the way.
I’d known from the first moment I saw her standing at the edge of Kronos’ funeral, light pooling around her like a halo and darkness tucked beneath her skin.
I’d kissed her on her porch and felt it thrumming between us.
I’d walked into her kitchen and watched her make tea like every movement carried intention.
I’d seen the iron gate behind her house, locked and hidden in all that green.
A garden inside a garden. A secret garden where she grew plants for her potions.
My stomach clenched. Fuck. No. I shoved the thought away because there was a difference between knowing plants and killing people with them.
Then I remembered.
Me, doubled over and sweating, cursing and emptying my guts because I’d disrespected her.
She hadn’t denied it. Hadn’t apologized either.
Then Echo, bent over a toilet because she’d put hands on what belonged to Lettie.
The club whores had called it poison. Lettie had smiled that sweet fucking smile and played innocent with eyes that were anything but.
But that wasn’t the same. That had been personal. Echo touched what was hers. I’d earned my punishment by being an arrogant asshole.
Those weren’t deaths.
Those weren’t bodies.
Those weren’t calculated executions carried out across towns against predators and abusers. They were acts of petty vengeance. A warning. A queen slapping hands away from her crown.
Not murder.
A thought slid in, quiet and deadly.
Pegasus.
He’d been assigned to follow Rhea on her trip. To protect her, yes, but also to report back to Zeus where she went and who she spoke to. His job was to spy on Zeus’ mother.
Rhea had lunched with Lettie the day before she left. Had Lettie given Rhea something to hurt Pegasus? To disable him and keep him from following her?
My fingers curled against the armrest. Rhea wasn’t stupid.
If she wanted to disappear, she would’ve known Zeus would never let her walk away unprotected.
She would’ve needed help. Lettie would’ve given it because Rhea asked.
Because Lettie understood cages. Because my queen knew how to open doors no one else could see.
Fuck.
Fuck.
“Hades.”
Zeus’ voice cut through the room. I looked at him. “What?”
“You got something to add?”
Every eye was on me. I’d gone too quiet. That was never good in church. Never fucking good.
I leaned back, forcing my face into the bored expression I wore when the world was coming apart and I didn’t want anyone knowing which piece had cut me. “No.”
Apollo kept staring at me. That son of a bitch was too perceptive for his own good.
Zeus’ eyes narrowed. “You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“You look like you just swallowed glass.”
“Maybe I’m sick of hearing about dead predators and nobody doing shit until somebody started dropping them.”
Ares grunted. “Can’t argue with that.”
“No,” Zeus said. “But we need to know who the fuck is doing it.”
“Why?” Hyperion asked.
Zeus turned on him. “Why?”
“Yeah. Why?” Adonis leaned forward. “So far, they’re cleaning trash off the street. I’m not seeing the problem.”
“The problem is, they’re killing in our town without permission,” Atlas said.
“Our town?” Apollo asked quietly. “Or our conscience?”
The room went tight. Zeus slammed a palm on the table. “Don’t start preaching at me, Lo. I’m not in the fucking mood.”
Apollo’s mouth twisted. “I wasn’t preaching. You’d know if I was.”
“What happens when they decide one of us needs to be taken out?” Atlas cut in. “You still not seeing the problem then?”
“We don’t hurt innocent people,” Hermes said.
Ares let out a humorless laugh. “We run guns and drugs, Hermes. Innocent people get hurt from that shit whether we like it or not.”
Silence settled heavier than before. My chest felt too tight.
Coeus cleared his throat. “There’s another problem.”
“Of course there is,” I muttered.
“If whoever’s doing this is using plant toxins, they’re either making them or getting them from someone who knows what they’re doing.”
There it was. The exact thought I didn’t want spoken aloud. The exact fucking thought.
Zeus looked at Asclepius. “How hard is it to make this shit?”
“Depends what you mean by make,” Asclepius said. “Some plants are dangerous as they are. Others have to be prepared. Dosage matters. Delivery matters. Some are absorbed through the skin. Some have to be ingested. Some are fast. Some are slow.”
“Could someone buy them?” Atlas asked.
“Some, yeah. Online, if they know where to look. But that leaves a trail.”
“Not if they know how to scrub it,” Hermes said.
Coeus shook his head. “I’d find something. Maybe not the buyer, but I’d find the path. So far, no online trail.”
“So they’re local,” Ares said.
“Or they grow their own,” Apollo said.
My teeth clenched. Apollo didn’t look at me this time. He didn’t have to. The implication hung in the air like smoke.
“I want a list,” Zeus said. “Every nursery, garden center, herbalist, florist, farmer, freak with a greenhouse. Anyone who grows, sells, or studies plants within a fifty-mile radius.”
“Already started,” Coeus said.
My phone felt heavy in my pocket. I wanted to text Lettie.
No, I wanted to ride to her house, walk through that iron gate, and ask what the fuck she grew behind it.
But that was a lie, too. What I really wanted was to ask if she’d made something for Rhea.
I wanted her to look at me with those soft eyes and tell me the truth.
Wanted to know if my queen was exactly as dark as I suspected.
Because if she was involved, if she was the one systematically removing the filth from Texas, then I needed to know. Needed to protect her before anyone else connected the dots. Before Coeus added her name to that list.
The darkness in her called to the darkness in me. The way she moved. The way she spoke about justice like it was personal. The way she’d poisoned Echo without hesitation or regret.
Could she do this?
Could she be this?
God help me, I wanted her to be.
Zeus’ voice dropped. “Coeus.”
“Yeah, Prez?”
“Keep digging on the victims. I want everything. Backgrounds, connections, anyone they crossed.”
The room stayed tense. No one spoke. My pulse pounded in my ears.
Zeus met my stare. “We’re missing something. I can feel it.”
My hand flattened on the table. “Then we find it. But we don’t start throwing names around without proof.”
Zeus’ eyes hardened. “No one’s throwing anything. We’re building a picture.”
“Then build it right.”
The two of us held each other’s gaze across the table; years of brotherhood, blood, death, and loyalty stretched tight between us.
I loved Zeus. I’d kill for him. Die for him.
Walk through hell with him. But this felt different.
This felt like standing on opposite sides of a line I couldn’t see yet.
Apollo broke the silence. “We focus on what we know.”
Zeus’ gaze snapped to him.
Apollo’s face was pale but steady. “Plant toxicity. Different sources. Someone with knowledge, access, and patience.”
“Yeah,” Zeus said slowly. “That’s what we’re looking for.”
Apollo didn’t blink. “Then we stick to that.”
The room settled into a quieter tension. I sat there with my pulse pounding in my ears, the conversation echoing against everything already circling in my head.
Plant poison.
Missing girls.
Rhea in the wind.
The locked garden gate.
Apollo’s haunted eyes.
My queen.
My old lady.
It was impossible. Had to be. But the thoughts didn’t stop. Didn’t quiet. Didn’t leave me the hell alone.
The underworld had always been mine. But Lettie Foster had just opened a door beneath it, and I had no fucking idea how deep it went.