Chapter Sixty-two
Nadia
The newspapers called it a mining collapse. Some blamed the gangs. Others blamed illegal weapons trafficking. A few conspiracy forums swore Stonebridge sat on top of a government bunker that exploded beneath Blackwater Falls. Nobody guessed the truth. Good, let Olympus rot nameless.
Three days after the Styx collapsed, the mountain was still burning underneath. Smoke curled through the trees surrounding Blackwater Falls while police and federal investigators flooded Stonebridge trying to make sense of tunnels that no longer fully existed.
I handled the physical records, chasing investigators away when they asked too many questions. Kendra wiped every surviving Olympus server forty-two minutes after we escaped the cavern.
Forty-two, she timed herself. By sunrise, half of the financial records belonging to Hades’s sector were gone, and the other half had been anonymously leaked across every encrypted forum she could find.
Human trafficking.
Weapons routes.
Offshore accounts.
Stonebridge woke up to discover the gods beneath its streets were monsters. And suddenly the Kingsmen started eating themselves alive. Turns out
loyalty disappears real fucking quick when your leader is exposed as a child-trafficking psychopath.
Who knew?
But just because Hades was gone, didn’t mean Olympus fell with him.
I sat cross-legged on the floor of Pop’s living room, staring at old Olympus maps spread around me while Riven slept on the couch behind me, one arm hanging toward the floor.
Dark circles marred his under eyes, making him look both dangerous and vulnerable.
Like he’d left part of himself down in the Styx beside my father.
I understood the feeling. He looked exhausted. We all did. None of us had really slept since the mountain. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw black water swallowing Anton whole.
Well done, Nadezhda. The words still made me sick. A laptop slammed shut nearby. Kendra groaned loudly from the workbench.
“I swear to God, if one more Kingsmen accountant uses the password ‘ares123,’ I’m becoming a terrorist.” Despite myself, I snorted softly. Progress. Kendra pointed at the screen.
“These idiots buried half their laundering accounts inside construction permits.” She looked genuinely offended.
“Do criminals not believe in cybersecurity?”
“Most criminals are stupid,” Shane answered from the doorway.
“Fair.”
The house smelled like cigarette smoke and stale coffee.
Outside, the sun shone against the East side streets while Stonebridge slowly tore itself apart trying to survive Olympus’ collapse.
The gangs were already splitting territory.
Not violently, which was surprising. Turns out discovering you’ve all been manipulated by a secret underground death cult for decades puts things into perspective.
Deck walked into the room carrying a cardboard box full of old files.
“Found more records in the west tunnel office.” I looked up immediately.
“Trafficking?”
“Mostly shipments.” He tossed a folder onto the table.
“And names.”
Names.
My stomach twisted. Victims, missing people, and children. The reality of what Olympus truly was somehow kept getting worse. Riven stirred awake behind me the second I went quiet. Always aware of me. Even asleep.
“You okay?” I wasn’t. I hadn’t been okay since I was twelve years old. But I understood the question now.
“I’m functioning.” He sat upright slowly, rubbing a hand down his face.
“That bad, huh?” I looked back down at the folders.
“There are hundreds of names.”
Silence ensued, rightfully so. Nobody knew what to say anymore when it came to Olympus. There wasn’t language ugly enough. Riven stood, sauntering into the kitchen and retrieving an ice pack for my bruised ribs.
Handing it to me, he pressed a tender kiss to my forehead, reclaiming his seat and pulling me between his thighs.
I relished the cooling sensation, watching Kendra hack through Olympus financial records one-handed while balancing Rhys against her shoulder.
Rhys was chewing aggressively on the corner of a USB cable.
“Rhys,” Kendra muttered distractedly, pulling it from his mouth while typing.
“Cybercrime first. Electrocution later.” Rhys glared at her.
Shane snorted quietly from where he leaned beside the window, smoking while Deck searched through stacks of Olympus paperwork spread across the coffee table. More than usual. Kendra suddenly went still.
“Oh, my God.” Deck looked up immediately.
“What?”
“These offshore accounts?” She spun the laptop slightly.
“Olympus was funding political campaigns.” Shane exhaled smoke slowly.
“Of course they were.”
“No, I mean senators.” Kendra looked genuinely horrified now.
“Judges. State police.” She looked back toward me.
“Nadia, this wasn’t just Stonebridge.”
I already knew that. Anton practically confirmed it. Olympus wasn’t dead. Hades was. There was a difference. Rhys made a tiny angry noise before smacking Kendra in the face with a toy car. Deck laughed under his breath.
“Kid’s got aim.” Kendra looked at Rhys with betrayal.
“He takes after his siblings,” Rhys responded by trying to eat her hoodie string.
The front door creaked open suddenly. Pop stood there holding a small package in weathered hands.
The second I saw his face, something tightened painfully in my chest. Pop looked tired lately.
Not physically, but bone-deep, soul-tired.
Like Anton coming back from the dead ripped open old wounds he spent years trying to bury.
“Nadia.” He said quietly. The whole house went silent immediately. I got off the floor carefully, ribs protesting.
“What is it?”
Pop crossed the room slowly before handing me a package. Brown paper, old tape, and water stains around the edges. My name sat across the front in sharp, familiar handwriting. My entire body went cold.
No. No fucking way. I knew that handwriting. Anton. Riven stood immediately the second my breathing changed.
“What is that?” Pop rubbed a hand over his jaw.
“It arrived after your eighteenth birthday.” His voice sounded rough.
“No return address. Just your name.” I stared at the package without touching it.
“I didn’t give it to you,” Pop continued quietly.
“You finally had stability back then. Family. Friends. Racing.” Pain flickered briefly across his face.
“You were finally starting to smile again.”
“I thought whoever sent it would ruin that.” My throat tightened painfully. Riven moved beside me slowly but didn’t touch me yet. Like he was waiting to see if I’d break first. I picked the package up carefully. Inside sat a sealed envelope. And a necklace.
A silver sixteen-point dharmachakra hanging from a delicate chain.
My breath caught instantly. It was my mother’s necklace, the one she wore every single day until she died.
I remembered sitting in her lap playing with it while she sang in her native language.
A sharp ache split straight through my chest.
“Nadia,” Riven said softly. I opened the envelope with shaking hands. The words blurred almost immediately.
Nadezhda, if you are reading this, then I failed. Your mother would hate that I’m writing this letter instead of standing before you myself. She always believed love should be spoken directly.
By the time you receive this, you are likely building a life away from me. Good. That means I succeeded in giving you time.
Not freedom. Never freedom, but time. My stomach twisted violently.
You will not understand my choices now. One day, perhaps you will. Olympus requires sacrifice. Legacy requires survival.
God, even dead he sounded monstrous.
Your mother loved you more fiercely than anything I have ever seen in this world. Even me.
The tears came suddenly. Hot and immediate, but I didn’t dare let them fall. He didn’t deserve my tears, not after he spent my whole life telling me how weak they made me. Besides, I’d cried over Anton long enough. I kept reading anyway.
You have her heart. That is both your greatest strength and your greatest weakness. If Stonebridge has not yet destroyed that softness, protect it. Because Olympus will try to carve it out of you.
My hands shook harder. I wanted to hate him.
I did hate him. But beneath the manipulation and madness, there was something almost worse.
He genuinely believed this was love. The realization hollowed me out.
This time, I couldn’t stop the tear sliding down onto the paper.
Followed by another. And suddenly I couldn’t breathe right anymore.
Riven took the letter gently from my shaking hands before it crumpled.
“Nadia.”
“I don’t understand him,” I whispered brokenly. The confession slipped out before I could stop it.
“I don’t understand how someone can love you and destroy you at the same time.”
Everyone went quiet. Even Rhys stopped babbling. Riven looked at me for a long moment before quietly saying.
“Because people like him don’t know the difference.” Something inside me cracked completely. I turned away immediately, wiping angrily at my face.
“I’m fine.”
“Nadia.”
“I said I’m fine.”
“You’re crying.”
The words weren’t cruel. That somehow made it worse. My shoulders shook once. Then again. And suddenly Riven was there, pulling me against his chest while years' worth of grief tore out of me all at once.
My mother. Rainer. Rhys. Anton. The crash. The tunnels. Everything. I cried so hard my ribs screamed. Riven just held me tighter. No jokes or teasing. No trying to fix it. He was just there. Eventually the room quietly emptied around us.
Kendra took Rhys upstairs, Deck dragged Shane with him, and Pop disappeared into the house. Until it was just us. The wind whistled softly outside while I sat curled sideways against Riven on the couch, emotionally hollowed out. Neither of us spoke for a while.
“You know I never signed them, right?” I frowned slightly.
“What?”
“The divorce papers.” Oh. My stomach twisted instantly. I remembered sitting alone in that Miami apartment crying while signing them.
“I sent them because I thought you’d hate me.” Riven barked out a humorless laugh.
“Hated you so much I ripped them apart after winning Daredevil.” I blinked.
“What?”
“I threw them out the window doing a hundred down Blackridge Road.” Despite everything, a tiny laugh escaped me. Riven looked down at his hands.
“I couldn’t sign them.” His voice lowered.
“Couldn’t even pretend to.” Emotion clogged painfully in my throat.
“You should’ve moved on.”
“No.”
The certainty in his voice wrecked me instantly. He looked at me then. Really looked at me. Saw every broken and ugly part of me and loved me anyway.
“I don’t care how long you disappear for.” His jaw tightened slightly.
“I don’t care how fucked up we are.” His fingers brushed carefully against mine.
“You’re still my wife.” My eyes burned again immediately.
“Riven-”
“And before you say anything,” He cut in quietly.
“I’m converting the inside of the clocktower into an apartment.” I stared at him.
“What?”
“The old top floors.” A faint smile tugged at his mouth.
“Thought we could finally make it livable.” The image hit me instantly. Us above Stonebridge. Together. Home.
“You were planning that before I came back.”
“Yeah.”
“Why?” Riven looked almost confused by the question.
“Because you were always gonna come home.”
That did it. I kissed him hard enough he nearly dropped the letter still sitting beside him.
Not desperate like before. Not angry either.
This was certain. His hands slid into my hair immediately while years of distance and pain and grief collapsed between us all at once.
When we finally pulled apart, foreheads pressed together, I whispered the truth I should’ve said years ago.
“I never stopped loving you.” Riven’s expression cracked open completely.
“Good,” He said roughly.
“Cause I was gonna spend the rest of my life with you anyway.”