Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Hades
“She didn’t fucking run,” Poseidon growled as he slapped a piece of paper against Zeus’ chest. “Well, she did,” he corrected, “but she isn’t running now.”
Zeus scanned the paper Poseidon handed him, then passed it to me. The words blurred together at first, my mind still half-focused on golden hair and soft skin and the way Lettie’s pussy had felt grinding against my cock. Fuck. I forced myself to focus on the email.
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered. “Are you sure this is real?”
“It’s real. I had Coeus trace it.”
“What do you think she did?” I asked, scanning the email again, searching for any clue in Alex’s words. My fingers tightened on the paper. Another fucking crisis. Another goddamn problem pulling me away from what I actually wanted. From who I wanted.
“With her, it could be fucking anything,” Zeus muttered. He looked up at Poseidon. “What do you want me to do?”
“I can’t leave her there,” he said. “She’s my fucking sister. She could kill Satan himself, and I wouldn’t leave her in hell.”
Zeus stared at his enforcer. His hand rubbed the back of his neck, and then he sighed.
The weight of leadership pressed down on him like a physical thing.
I could see it in the tension of his shoulders, the tightness around his eyes.
The man was drowning in responsibility and guilt, and Alex’s bullshit was just one more anchor dragging him under.
“OFFICERS, IN CHURCH!”
He spun around and walked off. Poseidon turned to me, his eyes pleading for an answer I couldn’t give him. Alex had become a liability. A fucking time bomb waiting to explode and take us all down with her. We’d found her bike behind the 7-Eleven.
We didn’t find Alex.
She loved that bike. Alex had literally become hell on wheels once she learned to ride it.
When she left four years ago, she took off on her bike.
We assumed she would this time too, but when we found it abandoned, I figured she’d left another way.
A way that made tracing her impossible. It pissed Alex off when Zeus assigned her a shadow.
It was just like her to say fuck you to all of us because we tried to help. Tried to protect her.
Now I realized how wrong we’d been.
The church room smelled like stale beer and leather and the lingering ghost of my father’s violence.
Blood had been scrubbed from the floor, but the memory remained.
The stain of it. I took my seat and tried not to think about Lettie’s mouth.
The way she’d tasted. The soft little sounds she’d made when I made her come.
Fuck. Focus.
“Alex had a little help disappearing,” Zeus said, passing the email around the table.
“Fuck,” Atlas cursed. “When are we leaving?”
“We aren’t.” Zeus locked eyes with Poseidon when he said it.
“She’s my fucking sister.”
“I understand, but I can’t send the whole fucking club. We can’t handle another war, especially with the Brotherhood.”
“So what are the options?” I asked. My voice came out rougher than I intended, impatience clawing at my chest. I wanted this meeting over. Wanted to get on my bike, ride to Lettie’s house, and bury myself so deep inside her she’d forget her own goddamn name.
“Poseidon goes to get her.”
“Alone?” Ares asked, sitting up straighter.
“No,” Zeus answered with a sigh. “Take Kraken with you. He’s a big motherfucker. My mother may think he’s a fucking marshmallow, but he’s your best bet.”
Kraken was over seven feet tall and all muscle. A few years younger than Zeus and me, we’d considered him for enforcer when we took over.
He turned us down.
Rhea wasn’t far off, though. Kraken was a fucking marshmallow until you hurt someone he loved.
He didn’t find enjoyment in beating the shit out of someone the way Poseidon and Ares did.
Didn’t get hard watching bones break and blood flow.
But when someone crossed the line, when they threatened his people, he became something else entirely. Something brutal and unstoppable.
He loved Alex like a little sister. Spoiled her the way Poseidon did. It was only fair that he back Poseidon up and bring home the brat they’d created together. The spoiled little princess who’d never faced a real consequence in her entire fucking life.
“Do you think he’ll let her go?” Asclepius asked.
“I think... I hope he’ll be reasonable.” Zeus turned back to Poseidon. “Without knowing what she did, I can’t in good conscience put my men in the line of fire. At some point, Alex needs to learn that actions have consequences.”
“Zeus,” I warned. Poseidon’s eyes had darkened, and he stood and faced off against his president. The air in the room shifted. Thickened. Violence hovered just beneath the surface like a shark circling in dark water.
“She is my sister,” he ground out between clenched teeth.
“And she’s a product of what you made her. Her entire fucking life has been a series of fucked-up decisions that put her and every member of this club in danger.”
“So you leave her to the fucking wolves?”
“That’s not what I’m doing.” Zeus let out a slow, frustrated breath. I watched the wheels turn as he worked out how to make Poseidon see the truth.
I hated to agree with him, but Alex had always lived like no one else existed. She never really had friends. The other girls in the club tried, but Alex wanted to be alone. Wanted to be special. Wanted attention without earning it.
And Poseidon let her run over him. Let her manipulate him with tears and tantrums and the memory of their dead parents.
“He won’t fucking shoot you on sight.”
“You sure about that?” Hyperion muttered with a chuckle.
“Zeus is right,” I added. “He’ll at least tell you what she did.”
“There are more of us than there are of them,” Ares pointed out.
“We are not starting another fucking war!” Zeus shouted and slammed his hands on the table. The crack of flesh against wood echoed through the room. He closed his eyes, and I watched him count to ten. When they still didn’t open, I sighed.
“Poseidon, we all love Alex,” I began. “But Zeus is right. She’s an adult. She has to accept her punishment.”
“And if he kills her?” Poseidon asked.
His flared nostrils and labored breathing weren’t from anger—no, they were from fear.
Fear for his sister, and I understood. Hell, we all did.
But you could only hold someone up for so long before you had to let them fall.
Before you had to let them face the consequences of their own stupid fucking choices.
“He won’t kill her,” Apollo assured him. “Not unless she kills one of his men, and even Alex isn’t that stupid.”
“Alex couldn’t hurt a fly,” Adonis offered. “Not physically, anyway. She’s too soft.”
Nods and murmurs went around the table. Poseidon sat down, his elbows hitting the wooden surface as he held his head in his hands. Broken. Defeated. Watching his baby sister self-destruct and knowing there wasn’t a goddamn thing he could do to stop it.
“Take the night and head out in the morning.”
“No, I’m leaving in an hour. I won’t leave her there longer than I have to.” He stood from the table and walked out of church. Silence filled the room as we watched him go, the door closing behind him with a finality that felt like a death knell.
“Church is over.” Zeus slammed the gavel on the table, and the brothers quietly filed out until it was just the three of us.
Zeus, Atlas, and me.
We spent the next few minutes dissecting Alex’s latest fuckup.
The political fallout. The potential for violence.
The ways this could blow back on us. But my mind kept drifting, circling back to golden hair and soft skin and the way Lettie had looked at me when I’d made her come. Like I was everything. Like I was hers.
And then I’d fucking left her.
Stood her up without a word. Let club business pull me away without even a goddamn phone call to explain. I’d been so focused on Zeus and Poseidon and the clusterfuck with Alex that I’d forgotten the most important thing.
My queen.
She was going to make me pay for it. I could already feel the reckoning coming. The punishment I’d earned.
Fuck, I hoped she made it hurt.
I said my goodbyes. There was nothing left to do except go see my woman and drop to my fucking knees. Beg for forgiveness. Grovel at her feet until she let me back in. Until she let me prove I was worth keeping.
I pulled my bike up to the house and switched off the key, listening to the engine tick as it cooled. All I heard were birds chirping and wind rustling through the trees. Peaceful. Serene. The kind of quiet that made my skin itch because I knew it wouldn’t last.
My eyes scanned the yard. Chickens pecked around a small garden beside their coop, and I smiled. I’d seen the extensive gardens out back and wondered if she’d made this one specifically for them. Another sign of her softness. Her care for living things.
She was the fucking light to my dark. The balance I didn’t know I needed until I’d tasted her.
I swung my leg over the seat and walked toward the front porch. Halfway there, the door flew open and Cerberus came charging at me, teeth bared, hackles raised. The massive beast moved like a freight train, all muscle, fury, and protective instinct.
I stopped mid-step and waited for my queen to appear. When she didn’t come outside, I looked down at the snarling dog. Smart. She was making me work for it. Making me prove I was worth the effort.
“I guess that answers whether or not she’s pissed.”
I stood in the yard with my hands on my hips, staring at the house.
The way I saw it, I had two choices. I could take a chance, walk forward, and risk having my balls ripped off by a hundred and fifty pounds of pissed-off Cane Corso.
Or I could stand here and wait her out. Show her I wasn’t going anywhere. That I’d stay as long as it took.
Leaving wasn’t an option. Not now. Not ever. She was mine, and I’d sit on this fucking porch until I rotted if that was what it took to make her understand.