15. Meg
MEG
A s much as I love the late nights in the Underworld, mornings are my favorite time of day.
The entire building feels like it’s a slumbering dragon, and I’m the only one around to witness it.
The cleaning crew comes through before I’m up, so everything glistens and shines and feels brand-new.
Part of my job is ensuring they didn’t miss anything, but I enjoy walking the empty lounge and back rooms without the bustling energies of people filling it to the brim it feels like… mine.
Mine and Hades’s, though he stopped doing these quiet walkthroughs with me years ago.
It doesn’t stop me from looking for him every single fucking morning. I should know better by now, but my stomach still drops a little when I don’t find him waiting for me in the lounge.
I circle the bar that gleams in the low light and then check all the booths.
Our cleaning crew is the best, so this is mostly a formality.
Next is the public playroom behind a locked door.
When the Underworld is filled with patrons, this door is usually manned by Allecto or one of her people.
I push through, putting my disappointment into movement in an attempt to exorcise it from my body.
The public playroom holds a little bit of everything.
There are spanking benches and St. Andrew’s Crosses and various racks for suspension play.
Scattered throughout the room, there are also couches and other furniture for people to observe or fuck or do whatever they want to. The only limit is consent.
Everything is as it should be. The room smells faintly of citrus and I inhale deeply.
It doesn’t completely banish the sick feeling in my stomach, but it dilutes it.
All my complicated feelings for Hades don’t make a difference when I’m in this room.
Knowing I’m responsible for the people who work here, that they depend on me for guidance and safety.
It’s a heady sensation. Hades might have paved the way for me to take this position, but I earned their trust on my own.
Next are the back rooms. They’re all themed, from a mundane bedroom to a study to a doctor’s office to a stable. During the day, the viewing wall is transparent, so I don’t have to enter the rooms to check them. Clean. Perfect. Ready for tonight.
By the time I finish my walkthrough, I’m steady enough to focus on the office work that comes next.
First up are spreadsheets and the reports from the staff who worked the night before.
Sometimes it’s just a simple record of their scenes with clients.
Sometimes they have gems of knowledge that were dropped during pillow talk.
All are filed and brought to Hades. He likes to hold all the cards when it comes to negotiations, and one never knows who will want a deal, so he has files on every major player in Carver City.
There are a lot of them.
The city is hacked up into slices,? 1 each ruled by a different faction.
Some of them are stable. Some are significantly less so.
All have the ability to endanger the careful balance we have if they go rogue.
By creating a neutral territory in the center, we ensure that nothing will happen without us knowing about it first. While Hades doesn’t intervene without a deal, knowledge is power. And power is everything in Carver City.
The door opens, and I speak without looking up, “What are you doing here, Tink? I thought you had the day off.”
“Tink does have the day off.”
I freeze in the middle of typing. Even as I tell myself that Hades wouldn’t be that much of an asshole, when I look up, Hercules is still standing in my doorway. “What are you doing here?”
“Reporting for training.”
Oh yes, Hades and I will have words about his high-handedness.
He may technically be my boss, but I am in charge of managing the club.
Up until this point, he’s allowed me to do that as I see fit.
Forcing Hercules into my presence is a test, and I resent him for it.
Why is he so determined to rub this man in my face?
It’s like he knows that Hercules got under my skin, keeps getting under my skin, and wants to…
That’s the problem. I don’t know what Hades wants. I can’t begin to guess.
“Did our dearest Dom tell you what he intends?” I don’t have much faith in it, so I’m already turning back to my computer when Hercules answers.
“I guess I’m training for Tink’s job?”
That bastard . I close my eyes and take a slow breath.
It’s not Hercules’s fault that Hades continues to play games.
Whether this one is aimed at me, Hercules, or Tink doesn’t matter.
All that does is display his willingness to use the club as his conduit.
“Sit.” I grab my phone before I can think better of it.
This is best left to when we have some privacy, but if he’s determined to shoehorn Hercules into every aspect of our lives, then he’ll just have to deal with the man overhearing our conversation. I push the button to dial his office.
For once, he doesn’t make me wait. “I trust Hercules arrived promptly.”
“Hades, what are you doing?” I take in Hercules for the first time since he’s walked into my office.
He looks like a different person this morning.
I don’t know if it’s the expensive clothes that appear tailored to him or that he’s just more at ease in his own skin than he was the first night I met him.
In the end, it doesn’t matter. Hades’s endgame is what matters.
And I don’t know what it is.
He lets the silence spin out until my heart is beating too hard and I’m ready to scream my frustration down the line. Finally, he says, “Tink’s contract is almost finished.”
“Yes, it is. And she’s considering staying on afterward.”
“She won’t.” He says it with such confidence, I almost believe him.
Almost. “Funny, but that’s not what she told me yesterday. Do you know something I don’t?”
“I know a lot of things you don’t. However, this is just a feeling.”
Just a feeling. Right. I strive for patience, not to let my frustration show.
“I don’t deal in feelings, Hades. I deal in facts.
Until Tink tells me otherwise, I’m going to operate like she’s not leaving, which means I don’t need to fill her position.
” More silence, an invitation for me to back down.
I won’t. Most of the time, I will submit to his pleasure.
Not in this. Not right now. “Just tell me why,” I whisper.
“He’s a gift, love.”
He’d said something to the same effect the night he sent me to fuck Hercules. I frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Report to me once you’re finished with him today.”
Click.
I take the phone away from my ear and stare at it.
He just…he just hung up on me. I carefully set it back in its cradle and take an equally careful breath.
This isn’t Hercules’s fault, but it feels like it’s his fault.
If he’d just shown a little more restraint, just asked me what I wanted, then we wouldn’t be in this situation to begin with.
“Apparently I don’t have a choice.” I don’t realize I’ve spoken aloud until he answers.
“I’m sorry.”
I glare. I want to shake him until something akin to sense blossoms in that pretty head of his. “You’re just a tool, Hercules, and a blunt one at that.”
He blinks and then bursts out laughing. “Wow, Meg, tell me how you really feel.” Just like that, some of the tension eases in him and he slouches back in his seat. “You didn’t have a problem with me last night.”
Of all the — “That was different and you know it. A scene is its own little world.”
He shrugs. “I won’t pretend I’m an expert in what a scene entails, but we have a connection. You can’t fake that.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him that I can, in fact, fake that.
I close my eyes and strive for control. Cutting him down might feel good for a moment, but it’s like kicking a puppy.
Unnecessarily cruel. He made a mistake in bargaining his life way.
That’s punishment enough without me verbally stabbing him every time he brushes against one of my many emotional wounds.
“Just because we have a connection doesn’t mean I want you underfoot. ”
“I won’t be a burden.”
I open my eyes. “Before you were a waiter, what was your job?” If Hades is determined to have him here, I suppose I should treat this as professionally as possible. As if I wasn’t coming on his tongue a few short hours ago.
He looks away, a faint blush coloring his cheeks. “I, ah, didn’t work. After I graduated college two years ago, I took a year off and then I was supposed to start in my father’s business, but life got in the way.”
Life got in the way. Likely the same life that resulted in him ending up in Carver City. I want to judge his life of privilege, to cut him down out of spite because I’m hurting, but he’s trying. I can try too. “Okay.”
Hercules looks back at me, all youthful promise and hope. “I’m a fast learner.”
I raise my eyebrows. “I suppose we’ll see, won’t we?
” There’s no point in fighting this. I might as well put him to work.
I brace myself. “Okay, first things first. Work is work and fucking is fucking. When you’re on the clock, especially during office work, I need you focused on paperwork instead of pussy. ”
He grins. “You mean you don’t want me to climb under your desk and eat you out for hours?”
My body flashes hot, and I give myself a full three seconds to enjoy the fantasy. Despite my best intentions, I find myself returning his grin. “Maybe later we can play that out.”
“All work and no play.” His blue eyes shine with mirth. “You know what they say about that.”
“That is why it’s called work , Hercules.” Though now that we’re talking about it, it’s sounding like one hell of an idea. I shouldn’t start breaking rules the second I lay them out. I really shouldn’t.