Chapter 30 Hades
Hades
It’s well after noon by the time I get a text from one of my brothers. I feel my phone vibrate gently in my pocket but ignore it for the moment.
At the moment, I’m busy settling Persephone into the first floor ballroom of what may honestly be the most palatial estate I’ve ever set foot in.
It’s a massive four story mansion with white marble walls, rather extravagant fountains everywhere I turn my head, and a huge lawn laid with expensive, lush sod.
Penny takes a few steps inside, cocks her head, and looks back at me. “Umm… did the last tenants get evicted or something?”
I swing my gaze around, surveying the scene.
Panels of sky blue silk that once hung from the ceiling have been ripped down, left strewn over chairs and tables.
Several of the beautiful fountains, once shaped as lions and giant fish, have been cracked.
A little water still burbles in a couple of them, but the rest are dry.
Pieces of paper are scattered all over the floor, as though somebody opened a full briefcase and dumped the contents out. One of the lights flickers eerily, casting a pall over the palace.
“So it would seem.” I raise my hand to touch her back, steering her toward the ballroom. “I dinnae ken the last people that lived here.”
A short, rather squat man in a navy suit with a kerchief tied round his neck steps out from the shadows.
I start; it’s not every day a man in such shiny loafers manages to stand nearby without my noticing.
I squint at the man; his skin is scar-pocked, and complexion is ruddy.
His hair is slicked back, and he wears a very expensive watch.
This must be Ares’s friend, the tech genius.
“The Ashanis’ were chased out of here in the spring,” he says, looking pleased with himself. His Moroccan accent is strong, but he speaks perfect English, sounding perhaps as though he were educated in Cambridge.
That, or he merely has something snobby about him that I can’t quite put my finger on. I sigh, looking him up and down.
“Karim Tazi,” he says, extending a hand. “I stepped in and took over the payments in their stead. The family had apparently failed to pay their taxes for quite a number of years.”
I cast my gaze around once more. It is too chaotic a scene for them to have left entirely of their own accord. However, I get another text from my brother and I would rather talk to him than continue to find out about local politics.
“Fine,” I say, ending my sentence. “Would ye show Penny where her art supplies are set up?”
He gives a little bow, smirking. “Of course.”
Persephone presses her lips together. It is clear from her body language that should rather not leave with Karim. But there is nothing I can do about that just now, not when I feel my phone buzzing in my pocket.
I jerk my head toward the ballroom. “Go get yerself set up. Karim will make sure yer taken care of.” I step closer to Karim, giving him a hard stare. “Right, Karim?”
“Of- of course.” He flushes ever so slightly, bowing his head again. “Right this way, please…”
Penny gives me a last look as she reluctantly follows him. I yank my phone from my pocket, already answering it without looking at the screen.
“I’ll be right bloody there.”
I walk out into the bright sunlight. Shielding my eyes, I see that my brothers have driven the big tan cargo vehicles right up to the gravel driveway and parked them in front of the house. Ares slumps against the side of his truck, looking at his phone.
Eros is nowhere to be found, his truck door hanging open, the seat empty.
“What the fuck?” I ask, jogging down the stairs. “Are ye two stupid?”
Ares scrunches his face up, straightening his body. His jaw tenses and his chest swells a little bit.
“There was nowhere else that we could drive them.” He looks around for Eros, shrugging. “When we picked up the trucks, they had already started locking up the docks where they were kept. It was either take them now or when they open tomorrow.”
“Ye didn’t think that maybe ye should call me? I know at least a dozen other places in the city that ye can park a truck.”
He rolls his eyes, his expression sour. “We had to leave. We came straight here.”
Glaring at him, I shake my head as I walk around to the back of the truck. The trucks are open at the top and there is a large canvas flap at the back that I lift up, peering inside. Even at my height I can’t see much over the tall back door.
I toss the canvas back and tug at the door.
“I wouldn’t do that—” Ares starts.
The back door springs open and a mountain of dried lava beans flood out. I raise my hands to my head, my fury only growing.
And then I see the glint of shiny black gunmetal. I lean closer, my brows arching. I can just make out the outline of an assault rifle buried in the lava beans.
Rage boils over in my blood. Whipping around, I spear my brother with a furious glare.
“Jesus mother of fuck, Ares! Did ye not even check the cargo before ye drove the truck all the way here? Anybody that even glanced in the back would have seen what we are carrying!” I lash out, banging my hand against the truck’s back door.
More lava beans spew forth and one of the assault rifles slides along onto the ground.
Ares looks like he’s ready to take a swing at me. “Eros checked the trucks, not me.”
I bend over, picking up the heavy gun, and sock it back into the giant pile of lava beans.
“Sort this out, right god damn now. If it’s really Eros’s fault, maybe he can come up with a better way to hide these.
Jesus, Mary, and Josef too. The trucks have to be able to pass at least a brief inspection! ”
Penny chooses this exact moment to come running out of the building, her mouth open like she is about to yell at me.
But she slows when she sees Ares and the truck.
She cocks her head, walking forward a few paces until she sees the contents of the back of the truck.
She stills, paling a little, and darts a nervous glance at me.
“What the fuck are ye looking at!” Ares screams.
Persephone nearly jumps out of her skin, backing away from him and toward me. I step closer, instinctively raising my arm to shield her.
“Fuck off,” I sneer at Ares. “Go take yer anger out on yer brother.”
Ares cuts Penny and I both down with his gaze, stomping away with a growl.
“Fucking idiot.” I rub her upper arm, shaking my head at him. “I swear, I dinnae ken how we came out of the same mother sometimes.”
She gulps, her gaze slipping toward the back of the truck. I can tell she’s about to ask a question about it. So I turn her around, marching her back into the palace.
Over the next few days, I alternate between watching Persephone work and helping my brothers hide our cargo trucks far away from the house. Every time I get into a petty argument with Ares or an intellectual pissing match with Eros, I retreat inside to the cool chaos of observing Penny.
She has set up four folding card tables and spread her art supplies out, seemingly at random. She never seems to complete any one thing. Rather she spends an hour making folds in stiff paper, then dabs wax onto the page, then spends half an hour shuffling through a cardboard box of charcoals.
All the while, her card tables get more and more messy. A bottle of glue with no cap. A palette of earth toned shades. Multiple pieces of sheer contact paper, cut into small, jagged pieces. I look at her, glance back to the disorganized table, and start to have doubts.
What if she’s actually a terrible artist? God help me, but I’ve spent a month assuming that she was incredible. I can’t actually imagine having to tell her that I’m not going to use her work.
The pain in her eyes would be… unthinkable. I suck in my lower lip, wondering how on earth I’m supposed to do that.
If I don’t though, if I just use a bad passport in the wrong place… I’m risking my life. The lives of my brothers, too.
At the moment, Penny purses her lips as she flips through stacks of identification photos. I cross my arms and cross the empty, mostly dark ballroom.
There are bright photography lights set around her card tables. I stand under them, one eye on her.
Persephone blinks and looks up, smiling. “Hi.”
“Hi.” I nod at the pictures that she keeps rifling through. “What are ye doing with those?”
She stands up, stretching her arms high overhead.
“Looking for good ones. And by good, I mean not toooooo good. I need perfectly average photos. Nothing too flattering.” She flashes me a picture of Eros, rolling her eyes.
“Like any DMV or post office has ever taken a photo with any kind of sex appeal?” She snorts.
“The more handsome you are, the harder it is to find an average picture for my purposes.”
The thought that she might find Eros attractive is a particularly nasty one for me. Of course, he’s the standout between the three Lyon brothers in the looks department. But the idea that he could steal Penny from under my nose is… haunting.
I think it is in this moment that I realize that I’ve sort of taken for granted that she is mine. At least for right now, she is my plaything, my possession.
Until I tire of her.
I shoot her a glare. “How can ye work in all this mess?”
“What?” She blinks at me, her hazel eyes narrowing. “What do you care what my work area looks like? It doesn’t affect you in literally any way.”
I shoot a hard glance at the glue bottle, its top not just open, but its brush top drying slowly in the cool air. Penny shakes her head and tosses the box of photos aside.
“I haven’t worked with that glue before. I left it open and exposed to the air to test its viscosity every few minutes. That way I will know when the perfect time is to glue everything together.”
She circles around to the glue, picking up a paintbrush and touching the very tip to the bristles on the brush. She pulls a fine strand of glue out, sucking her teeth.
“Not yet.”
“Oh.” I run my hand over the back of my neck, feeling stupid. “I guess that’s okay.”
“I say it’s okay. And I’m the one making your fucking papers, so kindly jam a sock in it, buddy.” She puts her hands on her hips, giving me a measuring look. “What’s going on with you, Hades?”
I shrug a shoulder, touching the tip of a paintbrush. “My brothers are already getting on my nerves.”
“Ah!” Penny says. “I know that feeling quite well. It’s pretty exasperating that you aren’t allowed to strangle your little brother. Or brothers, in your case.”
“Yeah.” I frown, stroking the tip of the paintbrush. “I like to think they are a type of cosmic revenge for all the men I’ve killed.”
She starts, looking up at me. “Are you fucking serious?”
I squint, considering. “Half the time.”
Penny shakes her head, tidying up some loose papers. “You are insane. You know that?”
“I’d be lying if I said that was the first time anyone had said that to me.” I lean my hip against the table, splaying my hands wide.
She gives a humorless chuckle. “It makes me miss my own family. Not that I’m longing to be reunited with my psycho family, exactly…
But I think when I get back to the States, I’m going to try to find a place in New Orleans.
That may not mean anything to you, but that’s a measure of how nuts you sound. ”
I’m not sure if she’s teasing me or not. All I can hear is the bit about returning to the States. My jaw tenses and I shoot an accusatory look her way.
“Already planning to leave me, then?” I growl.
Her eyebrows jump up. “I don’t have a timeline. But I think it’s safe to say that I will return there…” She waves her fingers. “Eventually.”
I stalk around the table, closing the few feet between us. Penny looks up at me, watching me carefully, like I’m a mad fucking dog that’s loose in her yard.
Grimacing, I get in her face, invading her personal space completely. “Just admit it. Admit that ye are counting the seconds until ye can run away.”
Penny swallows, tensing when I grab her forearm. She tries to pull away but I’m much too strong for her. She turns those big brown-green eyes up at me, licking her lips nervously.
“Hades,” she says softly. “Why are you picking a fight with me? That’s not the way to tell someone you want them to stay.”
Grabbing her around the waist, I haul her soft body up against mine. Her face is merely inches from mine. I lift her, pinning her against the table.
I look up into her face, making her a promise. “I never said ye had a choice, lass. Ye dinnae decide when to leave me. I decide when to let ye go.”
She scans my face, her expression scrunching up. “Don’t threaten me, Hades. I’m not going anywhere. Okay?”
She says it so softly, touching my chest. In that moment, I hate her.
Hate the way she makes my insides so squishy.
Hate that I think of her as mine.
I put my arms around her shoulders, pulling her down for a kiss, and silence her on the topic once and for all.