Persephone shrugs that off as if it’s nothing more than she expected. “Then you’ll know that my sisters are more than capable of showing up on your doorstep if properly motivated, crossing the River Styx or no. They’re difficult like that.”
The last thing I need is more women like Persephone in my household. “Call them. I’ll have someone find clothing for you and bring it up.” I turn for the door.
“Wait!” A tiny fracture in her perfect calm. “That’s it?”
I glance back, expecting fear or maybe anger. But no, if I’m reading her expression right, there’s disappointment lurking in her eyes. I can’t trust it. I want her more than I have a right to, and she’s only here because she has nowhere else to go.
If I were a better man, I’d smuggle her out of the city myself and give her enough money to survive until her birthday. She’s right; if she has the strength to cross the river, she likely has the strength to leave the city with the proper help. But I’m not a better man. No matter how conflicted this deal makes me, I want this woman. Now that she’s offered herself to me in a devil’s bargain, I mean to have her.
Just not yet.
Not until it serves our mutual purpose.
“We’ll talk more tonight.” I enjoy her huff of irritation as I walk out the door and head down to my study.
There are consequences for my actions last night, consequences for the bargain I just made with Persephone. I have to prepare my people for them.
I’m not the least bit surprised to find Andreas waiting in my study. He’s nursing a mug that might be coffee or might be whiskey—or both—and wearing his customary slacks and wool sweater like the strangest cross between a fisherman and a CEO anyone’s ever met. The tattoos peppering his weathered hands and climbing his neck only add to the disconnect. What’s left of his hair has long since gone white, leaving him looking every minute of his seventy years.
He glances up as I walk in and close the door. “I hear you stole Zeus’s woman.”
“She crossed the border on her own.”
He shakes his head. “Thirty years and change of avoiding trouble and then you throw it all away for a pretty thing in a short skirt.”
I give him the look that statement deserves. “I bend too much when it comes to that asshole. It was necessary before, but I’m not a child any longer. It’s time to put him in his place.” It’s what I’ve wanted since I was old enough to understand the sheer scope of what he took from me. It’s why I’ve spent years compiling information on him. An opportunity that I can’t pass up.
Andreas exhales, long and slow, some remembered fear lingering in his watery blue eyes. “He’ll crush you.”
“Maybe ten years ago he was capable of it. He isn’t now.” I’ve been too careful, have built my power base too intentionally. Zeus killed my father when he was still new to the title, too inexperienced to know friend from foe. I’ve had my entire life to train to take that monster on. Though I was little more than a figurehead Hades before I turned seventeen, I’ve had sixteen years actually at the helm. If ever there was a time to do this, to draw my line in the sand and dare Zeus to cross it, it’s now. There’s no telling if I’ll get another opportunity like Persephone, a chance to humiliate Zeus and step into the light once and for all. The thought of all the eyes in Olympus on me is enough to open up a pit in my stomach, but it’s been far too long that Zeus overlooks the lower city and pretends he’s the ruler here. “It’s time, Andreas. It’s long since time.”
Another of his headshakes, like I’ve disappointed him. I hate how much that matters to me, but Andreas has been the strong guiding light in my life for so long. His retirement a few years ago doesn’t lessen that. He’s the uncle I never had, though he never tried to play the father. He knows better than that. Finally, he leans forward. “What’s your plan?”
“Three months of giving him the middle finger. If he comes across the river and tries to take her back, not even the other Thirteen will stand by him. They put that treaty in place for a reason.”
“The Thirteen didn’t save your father. What makes you think they’ll save you?”
We’ve had this argument a thousand times over the years. I smother my irritation and give him my full attention. “Because the treaty didn’t exist when Zeus killed my father.” It’s shitty beyond belief that my parents had to die for the treaty to be put into place, but if things become a free-for-all among the Thirteen, it hurts their bottom line, which is the only thing they care about. It was one of the few times in Olympus history that the Thirteen worked together long enough to challenge Zeus’s power and strong-arm an agreement that no one is willing to break.