Chapter 7
HARLOW
Iwanted to play it cool. Try not to break the news to him the way I had to Cass. I had forewarning now. This should be slightly easier, right?
Okay, no way in the world was this going to be easy. The already pissed off expression on Jules' face told me that. He was a firecracker ready to go off with a spark. What had him on edge?
I lifted my chin.
"I should ask you the same thing. You look ready to take a hammer to somebody's left kneecap."
He glanced down at his leg.
"Yeah, I that was specific, wasn't it?" It could have been the right kneecap.
"Bad afternoon." He dropped his tools down beside the door.
I stepped over to put my arms around his neck, hoping to defuse the situation. If he was a little calmer, he might take the news about his father better, right?
Yeah, I couldn't even see the straws I was grasping at, they were too far distant from reality.
"I'm a good listener."
He gave me a hard look, like he saw right through my facade and into my black soul.
Particularly black now I had a secret to tell him that he wasn't going to want to hear: I was going to kill his father.
There was no way out of it. No way around.
I killed Zeus or Zeus killed us. Those were the choices.
Which, when you think about it, was only one choice, because I wasn't going to let him kill us.
Jules' gaze shifted over to Cass. A flash of guilt passed his features. "I had a meeting with someone."
My heart went cold. Was there any chance?
I took in a breath, then another one for good luck. "Anyone I know?"
"As a matter of fact, you do," he said. "I met up with my father."
"I knew it," Boner said loudly. "That explains everything."
Jules scowled at him. "How do you figure?"
"You look pissed off," Boner said, not oblivious to the direction the conversation might have gone.
"Only a father could put that expression on someone's face.
I know, I used to wear it all the time. I'd look in the mirror and I'd say, ‘Boner—'" he pointed at an imaginary reflexion of himself right in front of him “—you have that expression on your face again.
The one that says if you don't kill this motherfucker, he's going to kill you first. Am I right, folks?
I mean, there are good fathers out there, but… no. Jules has that look."
"My father is a shithead," Jules said clearly trying to figure out what was going on. Sure he was missing something.
"What did he want?" Cass asked carefully.
"You don't want to know," Jules told him. He stepped past Boner and headed into the kitchen.
"Yes I do," Cass said. "I want to know exactly what he said and did. Everything."
He used his bossy, demanding voice. The one that worked on most of us. It sometimes worked on Jules.
Not today. Jules poured himself a drink of water and leaned against the counter to sip. "Trust me, you really don't want to know."
"Trust me, I really do." Cass closed the distance between them until they were almost standing chest to chest.
Jules was taller and heavier than Cass, but Cass looked ready to insist any way he had to. With his fists, if necessary. Which wasn't like him at all.
This whole thing had him on edge. If his father was there right then, I didn't think I'd be able to stop him from strangling the man.
Would I try? Honestly, I probably would. If Cass killed his father in anger, he'd have to live with that for the rest of his life. It was better if one of the rest of us did it. He didn't need the literal blood on his hands. He deserved better.
Jules stared his brother down. "He's still an asshole who doesn't give a shit about us, okay? He has no regrets for being a prick. He's still a prick, he'll always be a prick. He only wanted to talk to me because he needed something."
Cass stiffened. "What did he need?" His voice was dangerously low. It might be Jules who got strangled if we weren't careful.
I stepped over to put a hand on his shoulder, reminding him I was here if he needed me. Even if he didn't. I wasn't walking away until this situation was diffused. Preferably without bloodshed. The floors had seen enough of that.
"What's the big deal?" Jules asked. "You never cared about him before."
"I want to know now," Cass insisted.
"Because?" Jules prompted.
"Because—" Cass started to say. He stopped and took a measured breath. Refraining from blurting out what he knew. He didn't want Jules to find out the way he had. "There's something you should know," he said, stepping away from his brother. He gave me an apologetic look as my hand fell away.
I nodded that I understood. He needed some space from his brother before he did anything rash. He wasn't trying to shrug me off.
"What did you do?" Jules asked. He gave his brother a long-suffering look, as though somehow Cass was always causing trouble.
"I didn't do anything," Cass said. "Hypnos told Harlow who Zeus is."
Jules squinted at him. "He what?"
Cass didn't repeat himself. Jules heard him clearly. He just needed a moment for the words to sink in.
"Okay, so who is he? Are we on our way to kill him?" Jules asked. "Let me guess, you have some kind of elaborate plan." He gestured at all of us, looking irritated at the possibility we'd left him out of that.
"Not yet," I said. "We hadn't gotten to that yet. We wanted your input."
"Of course you did." He squared his shoulders relieved we hadn't excluded him. "So who is this prick?"
His gaze slipped from me to Cass and back again.
He frowned.
Understanding clicked into place in his mind.
He might have taken a step back if the counter wasn't right behind him.
The glass dropped out of his hand, shattering on the floor and spraying water everywhere.
He didn't seem to notice.
"You're not fucking telling me our father is Zeus," he whispered. The expression on his face was torn between horror and disbelief.
"We're saying that's what Hypnos told me," I said. "I know there's a possibility he's lying."
Jules turned to me. "But you don't think so, do you? You're sure my father is Zeus."
Cass reached out to him.
Jules jerked his arm away. "No, what the hell?" He stared at Cass like he'd never seen him before. "I know he's done some shitty things, but…" He shook his head. "If he's Zeus, then he knew about Granger Fairfield."
"We don't know that," I said.
"You don't know he didn't either," Jules pointed out. He ran a hand over the back of his hair, taking a fistful like he might rip it out of his head. "You believe this, don't you?" he asked Cass. "You believe Zeus is our father?"
"He's a monster," Cass said simply. "It fits. We should find out for sure before we do anything."
"Do anything," Jules echoed. "You mean kill him?"
"That's exactly what we mean," Boner said. "That was the goal, remember? It ends with Zeus. Or have you changed your mind?" He cocked his head at Jules.
"Changed…" Jules dropped his hand to his thigh.
"Give me a few minutes to get my head around this.
" He stalked away to the other side of the room, muttering to himself, opening and closing his hands.
He made a fist, like he might punch the wall, but dropped it down again. "This is all kinds of fucked up.”
"I could try to give you an exact number, but I don't think I could lock it down," Archer said regretfully.
Jules glance at him as though he was going to snap, but turned away again.
"Okay." He turned around slowly. "Say our father is Zeus. What then?"
"Then we figure out how to deal with him," I said. "As influential as he is. It's not going to be easy."
"It'll be fucking easy if I walk up and stab him in the heart," Jules snarled.
"You'd have to get a knife past his security," I pointed out.
"I could…" Jules stopped.
I saw his mind turning over and over.
"Hypnos said he knows who you are," he said finally. "So he knows who we are. He must have been feeling me out. That's why he wanted to have lunch with me. He wanted to know if I knew who he was. Asshole," he spat. "He had the nerve to ask me for a favor."
"What favor?" Cass asked, looking disbelieving.
Jules pressed his mouth together, lips together so hard his lips turned white. "I was going to do one thing for him and he agreed to leave you alone. He promised."
"I think he plans to break that promise," I said softly.
How had I gotten all of us into this situation? If I hadn't become involved with Cass and Jules, they wouldn't be in the middle of me and their father. Regardless of who he was, this whole situation was sticky. Not in the good way.
"No, this is a good thing," Archer said. "You had no idea he was Zeus. He thinks none of us know. Why would he? It probably hasn't occurred to him Hypnos would have said anything. If it has, we've just proven we're clueless."
"Right," I said, catching on to his train of thought. "We know who he is, and he thinks we don't know. There has to be something we can do with that. Without using Jules or Cass as bait," I added quickly before anyone else had that bright idea.
"It might be the only way," Cass said. "I can go to him. Ask him to leave Jules alone. And then… I don't know. Strangle him with his own tie."
"Why do I get the feeling you've given that a lot of thought?" Boner asked. He raised his hands to either side. "I'm not judging. I'm impressed. I was starting to think Titmus the younger was only going to be an observer to all our shenanigans. You might have the makings of a serial killer yet."
He placed a hand over his heart and pretended to look weepy.
"They grow up so fast. One minute they're throwing up at the sight of a severed finger.
The next minute they're graduating to using a silk tie to cut off someone's air until their eyeballs pop out of their heads and they die.
" He leaned to the side, pretending he was going to drop to the floor, before righting himself and grinning.
Cass shrugged. "It seems obvious. You know, it's around his throat already." He pointed to his own neck. "Sometimes I wonder why people wear them."
"We could say the same for scarves," I said absently.
Anything around the neck could be used as a weapon. Although if you were creative enough, almost anything could, including a coffee mug, a fidget spinner, and a fridge magnet.
Those are a story for later.
"We need to sit down and figure something out," I said.
"Quickly," Jules added. "He's put out his feelers. Knowing him, he won't take long to act on it."
"Then we act first," I said firmly. "But we look before we leap." I gave him a direct, meaningful look. He could try to march in there and snap his father's neck. I doubted Forrest would make it that easy. There was a reason he asked for that meeting in public. Witnesses.
In private, the only witnesses would be people who worked for Forrest. People paid to take a bullet for him.
No, we had to be careful. We couldn't afford any wrong steps.
We'd made too many mistakes in the past. I wasn't going to do that again.
Every risk had to be calculated. Every step planned out.
Every counter move anticipated. We had to think moves ahead of Forrest. I hated the idea his sons could help with that.
Trap their own father. Who knew him better than they did, though?
It was an advantage I had and I'd have to use it. Like it or not.
"Harlow, can I have a word in private?" Jules said, not breaking my gaze.