We take our seats, Conor a sentry at Hades’ feet. I feel small. It’s too quiet at the table. What the hell do I say? I can’t announce that they’re all very tall, though it would be true. I also can’t say that somehow, they seem like a matched set. They all look very different, but there are tiny expressions shared between all three of them.
Buddy goes tentatively around the table and takes in Hades and his dog. Hades puts a hand down to Buddy. Conor surveys this with his head on his hands, his eyes watchful. I wonder if he’ll try to defend Hades, try to block Buddy, but after a minute Buddy pushes his nose into Hades’ palm. My dog—it’s strange to think of him as my dog, but he is—lets Hades pet his head, then comes and settles himself next to my chair.
“Tell us, Ashley,” Zeus says, once our plates are situated. “What makes you think you’re good enough for Poseidon?”
Poseidon chokes on his dinner roll. I slap him on the back, and Hades laughs—another shiver—and the awkward tension in the room breaks like falling china. “You fuckface,” wheezes Poseidon, and it’s a full minute before he has his composure again. “You’re a guest on my ship.”
“I still want to know the answer. It’s not every day a woman claims to be good enough for our beloved brother. We have to make sure she measures up.”
Poseidon grimaces, but I can see he’s amused at the joke in spite of himself.
“Yes,” adds Hades. “What are your intentions with Poseidon, Ashley? Honorable, I would hope.”
“Well, he took me hostage, so...”
Zeus bursts out laughing, and I was right before—he has a voice that wouldn’t be out of place at an enormous fancy party. He laughs so hard tears come to his eyes and he has to dab at them with a napkin.
“Did you know he could cry?” Hades asks Poseidon, then takes a bite of his roll.
“He’s not crying,” Poseidon says. “That’s evil leaking from his eyes.”
I don’t understand what Poseidon was talking about when he said they weren’t close. “What are your intentions?” I ask into the lull after the laughter. “Are you here to help finish the ship?”
“Among other things,” Zeus answers. “This little trip is also our annual family reunion.”
Hades puts a fist in front of his mouth and stays so still that I’m worried he might be hurt, but Poseidon is grinning. After a minute, Hades stabs his fork in Zeus’s direction. “You have to stop. I’m trying to eat, jackass.”
“You’re allowed to laugh,” Zeus says. “I can’t help it if I have a sense of humor.”
Poseidon rolls his eyes. “You were the only one who could crack a joke without getting punched in the face. It gave you a false sense of security.”
The temperature in the room drops.
“Yeah, he was a real bastard to me,” Zeus’s golden eyes cloud with dark memories. “But how can I complain when he was leaving Hades out to die and kicking the shit out of Poseidon?”
Poseidon speaks more quietly. “And what he did to Demeter.”
The table gets quiet.
Zeus curses. “This is why we don’t have family reunions, isn’t it? Of course we’d end up talking about that bastard Cronos and Demeter.” He says her name like another curse, disgust lacing his tone. And something else. Sorrow, I think.
“He abused her,” Poseidon says.
“That doesn’t excuse her for what she did,” Zeus says. His grip is so tight on his fork that his knuckles have turned white. “Lovely of you to defend her now.”
“I’m not defending her.” Poseidon’s jaw works. “I hate her as much as you.”
“Impossible.” Zeus keeps his tone fit for a dinner party, but I’m not sure I believe it.
“One of these days we’re going to have to handle her.” That’s Hades, and from the way he says it, I know they’re continuing a discussion they must have started earlier. “She’s recruiting everyone we send to confine her. Eventually we’ll run out of guards to hire. She’ll continue to be a problem until we resolve it.”
“You mean kill her,” Zeus says, not sounding bothered by the prospect.
“Christ,” Poseidon says.
Zeus snorts, but a shadow crosses his eyes. “As if she wouldn’t end our lives, any one of us at the table, if she had the chance. As if she hasn’t already murdered people. She’s tried to kill me, and I—” He looks away, and for a moment I think he might leave the table, might call this whole thing off. But then he looks back. “It doesn’t matter what we’ve done for her. She’s just like Cronos.”
“She’s sick,” Poseidon says. “And she’s our sister.”
It sounds like it hurts for him to say it. Poseidon’s tattoo for Demeter is a dead flower, and the way he’s spoken about her before… I’m not sure he could say it. Not until this moment.
Hades runs a fingertip along the edge of the table. “You’re both correct. She’s sick. Like a rabid dog that needs to be put out of her misery. There’s no cure for what she has.”
The three brothers share a look laden with history.
“Don’t let them ruin another dinner,” Hades says. “Don’t let them ruin another second of your lives. They’ve taken enough already.”
Poseidon’s eyes glint like the surface of an endless ocean. “There’s a lot of shit I’d change if I could, but I’m glad to have the two of you. That was hardly a real family, but…” He crumples his napkin into a fist beneath the table. “Only my brothers would show up and sit around a dinner table in the middle of the fucking ocean.”
Tears prick my eyes, but I hold them back, knowing none of the men here would appreciate my sympathy.
“Well, I owe the both of you my life,” Zeus says quietly. “As much as it pains me to say it. Or I would owe you, if there were such things as debts between brothers.”
“Lucky for you,” Hades says, expression thoughtful. “Have you heard of a man named Mason Hill? He owns Phoenix Enterprises in New York City.”
“Yes,” says Poseidon, sounding wary.
Zeus raises his eyebrows. “You two run in the same circles now?”
“The people-with-money circles. You wouldn’t know,” Poseidon says with a smirk, and Zeus shoots him the middle finger.
“He’s got brothers, too,” Hades says. “And a sister. They remind me of us.”
“Psychotic?” Zeus asks.
“Self made.”
“I thought they were loaded,” Poseidon says. “The Hill family fortune. They built subdivisions of million dollar McMansions up and down the east coast. They were in Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, all those bullshit magazines. Everyone wanted to invest with them.”
Hades nods. “They grew up very wealthy. Prep schools, vacations in Ibiza, the whole fucking thing. But when their parents died, they lost all of it. Everything.”
Poseidon grows serious. “Christ. Didn’t they have a net worth close to twenty-seven billion? That’s a lot to lose in a second. You’d think it would be harder to go broke.”