Fuck, but if ever there was a woman who could send me to my knees, it’s this one.
“I’m going to spend a fortune in clothes on you.” I chuckle. The sound feels strange in my throat. The impulse to laugh only seems to come to life around her. “It’s worth it.”
“I know,” she says primly, once again the little queen. It makes me want to fuck that control right out of her. Again.
Not now. Not while there are enemies circling and I have no idea how deep the rot goes. “Let’s go.”
I don’t usually stay overnight in The Underworld if I can help it, but I have these hallways memorized. A plan is only as good as its exit strategy, though I’ve trusted Hades up to this point to follow his own rules. Ali having access to the club isn’t a direct violation of that, but his coming into an occupied room without an invitation, touching my baby girl without invitation …
I’ll fucking kill him.
Unsurprisingly, it’s Meg who meets us at the small elevator that leads up to Hades’s office from this floor. She looks just as fresh this morning as she did last night, though she’s changed clothes and hairstyles somewhere along the way. Now, she’s in a pair of slacks and a button-down shirt that’s barely buttoned, leaving a large swathe of skin exposed from her neck to her stomach. She smiles at us, though there’s a coldness in her blue eyes that she usually masks. “You’re headed in the wrong direction for the exit.”
“We need to speak with Hades. Please.” I could demand to see him, throw my weight around, but it’ll only result in him pulling a power play just to prove he can. Dealing with Hades is a constant dance of dominance and power, and I only come out on top about half the time.
Today needs to be one of those times.
She gives us a long look. “He’s expecting you.”
I bet he is. I keep my hand covering Jasmine’s as we follow Meg onto the elevator and head up a floor. She doesn’t speak, which is just as well. Meg might be Hades’s right hand, might run this place just as much as he does, but at the end of the day, he is the one who leads. Which means he’s the one I need to deal with.
We step off the elevators and she motions for us to follow her to a set of large dark doors. They stretch from the floor nearly to the ceiling, and the shiny wood is stained black and carved with a tableau of images that are drawn straight from myth. It sets the tone of any meeting conducted in this room, but I could give a fuck. I’m not here to beg on my knees for a favor. I never have.
Favors from Hades have a way of coming around to bite a person in the ass. I’ve seen it too many times to discount the danger he represents.
Meg pushes open the doors and they swing easily beneath her fingertips. We precede her into the office. It’s done in shades of gray, which would amuse me under other circumstances because I’d bet my left arm that there are fifty of them contained in this room. The far wall is lined with shelves that are filled with knickknacks and weird cluttery shit. I can feel Jasmine’s curiosity over the space, but I only have eyes for the man behind the large gray desk.
Hades looks exactly the same as he did last night, though the suit is a little different. He smiles as we walk forward, the smile widening when Meg comes to stand at his right shoulder. “What can I do for you two lovebirds? Need a favor?”
Jasmine tenses, but I don’t look at her. “No favors today.”
“Pity. We’re under quota.”
I’m not entirely sure that he’s joking, but I ignore it. “You let Ali Tahan have a membership here.”
Hades raises his brows. With his black-framed glasses, it gives him the look of a cultured professor waiting for a student to get to the point. “I allow a lot of people to have memberships here. That’s the purpose of The Underworld. Neutral territory.” His lips quirk, even as his dark eyes stay cold. “Surely you didn’t think your vendetta was the exception to the rule?”
I’ve never seen Ali here, so I made some assumptions I couldn’t afford to make. That doesn’t change the fact that what happened earlier shouldn’t have. “He entered our room without permission and accosted Jasmine.”
The amusement on Hades’s face vanishes. “Bold accusation.”
I give him the look that statement deserves. “You have cameras all over this place. Look for yourself.”
Hades glances at Meg. “Be a darling and see what Ali was up to while he was here last night.” He watches her leave through the door on the other side of the room, his gaze dropping to her ass.