I shoot him a glare. “What?”
“Are you going to be like this forever?”
I set my coffee cup down on the end table and press my lips into a thin line.
“Like what?” I ask. I know what he’s referring to, but I like provoking him and making him act out like the man-child he really is.
“She’s gone,” he growls. “She’s gone and she’s not coming back. When will you stop pining after her?”
I smile at him, purposefully showing him my teeth. “It’s none of your fucking business.”
“Ares, shut the fuck up.” Eros tries to calm the waters between us. “Hades, you did promise us that you would stop looking for Persephone after she’d been gone for three months.”
“No. If you heard that, you misunderstood.” I lean forward in my chair, locking gazes with him. “I said that I would take up the reins of our company again. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Ares rocks back in his chair, looking angry.
“I assumed that you would have gotten over your fixation with Persephone by now. If it’s just having a girl, that can be arranged. With one phone call, I can have a girl that looks just like her in here, right now. And this one won’t be so… damaged.”
He makes a feeble fist with his right hand, echoing Penny’s disability. The second he does that, I’m on my feet, raging, ready to kill him.
Eros manages to get between us, holding me back and trying desperately to keep the peace. “Hades, calm down.”
“Fuck you!” I yell at Ares, baring my teeth. I stick a finger in his face. “Don’t worry about her, Hades! Forget her, Hades! You sound like our father.”
Ares flushes. “Fuck you, Hades. Our mother was a drug addict and a whore. She left us when we were kids. And the fact that you say I’m like our father—"
“Your heart is every bit as black,” I spit.
“Will both of you shut the fuck up?” Eros says, exasperated. “I’m tired of having this argument with the two of you over and over again.”
We both go silent, glaring at each other. Eros pushes me back a step and checks his watch. “Jaysus. We’re already late. Lazlo is probably waiting downstairs at the bar.”
My rage doesn’t die down a single bit. But I’m not interested in continuing the conversation, so I just trudge toward the hotel suite’s door. It’s only a few minutes later that I step into the lavish
bar just off the hotel’s entrance. It’s a modern space, polished white granite everywhere with silky black accents. Eros waves to a man dressed in a white t-shirt, black pants, and a black baseball cap pulled over his eyes. The Hungarian, I presume, rises to his feet as we approach his wide, empty table. He drums his fingertips against his palms as he takes all three of us in.
“Eros,” he says, inclining his head ever so slightly as we reach him. His face contorts for just a moment and then it blanks again. “It is good to see you again, my friend.”
He speaks such a strongly accented English that it takes my mind a few moments to process his words. He is twitchy, his posture tense. I can’t tell if his shifty, constantly roving eyes are a sign of a drug problem, a personality trait, or something else entirely.
Eros bows, looking neat as a pin in his all-black attire. “Lazlo. Meet my brothers, Hades and Eros.”
Lazlo inclines his head again, his gaze sliding between the three of us. “You are named after the gods on Olympus?”
Aye.” Ares crosses his arms. “And what are you named after?”
Eros laughs, the sound forced. “You’ll have to excuse my brother. He is a bit bad tempered.” Eros gestures for Lazlo to sit. “If we can order a drink…”
Lazlo sits on one side of the table. Eros glances at me and I scan the room, making sure that there are no exits behind me before picking a seat. Ares and Eros quickly sit too, Eros looking around for a bar attendant.
“I took the liberty of paying the waiter to stay away for the next hour,” Lazlo says. He sits back, casting a glance around the room. “I would rather our business remain private.”
I cross my arms and give him a long, hard stare. “We’re selling three trucks that are currently hidden in a secure location in Algiers. Two trucks of… whole corn husks. One of individual kernels of corn. Do you understand?”
Lazlo scratches his chin, his face contorting again for just a moment. It must be a tic because he doesn’t mention it further.
“I understand.” He spreads his hands flat on the table. “I also understand that I’m not the first buyer.”