Kal’s breathing was heavy, but he managed to roll onto his stomach and lift himself onto his shaky hands and knees. When he looked up, it was Persephone who stared back.
“Help me!” he dared to demand, his cry guttural, but Persephone did not move, nor did she speak. She just watched in serene silence, and Hades kicked him to the ground.
“Do not speak to her, mortal,” Hades seethed.
Kal landed with a grunt and a wail as another snake bit into the fleshy part of his arm.
Hades turned his attention to Persephone, who stared back, almost emotionless. He wished he could read her thoughts or at least read her expression, but she had watched all this with a passivity that made him think she was either in shock or somehow approving.
He hoped it was the latter.
“Shall I continue to punish him?”
She watched him a moment longer before shifting her attention to Kal. Then she approached, lowering to study his face.
“Will his face scar?” she asked.
Hades did not know why she asked, but he answered nevertheless. “It will if you wish it.”
“I wish it.”
Hades was only marginally surprised; the rest of him was satisfied. At least he had not scared her away with his display.
At her words, Kal whimpered.
“Shh,” Persephone soothed, mocking. “It could be worse. I am tempted to send you to Tartarus.”
There was a strange pride associated with those words, and Hades found them welling in his chest.
“Tomorrow, I want you to call Demetri and tell him you made a mistake. You don’t want the exclusive, and you will never, ever tell me what to write again. Do we have an agreement?”
Exclusive?
Hades’s brows lowered. Was there something happening beyond the blackmail Kal had tried to secure tonight?
Whatever it was, Kal agreed, nodding emphatically.
“Good,” Persephone said, her voice a quiet whisper. As she rose to her feet and turned toward him, Hades knew he would do anything she asked. If she had wanted him to die here in this room, he would have made the choice.
“He can live,” she said.
Generous, he thought, then he turned his attention to Kal.
“Leave,” Hades commanded, sending him seven floors below to the stage. Kal’s sudden appearance would interrupt the performers, and when the crowd looked upon his scarred and bleeding face and saw the snakes that had ensnared him, they would know he had been punished by the God of the Dead.
In the quiet aftermath of Kal’s torture, the two stared at each other, and a strange tension flooded the room. It felt to Hades as though Persephone were building a wall, and while he’d have preferred to tear it down, he began to build one too.
He had so many questions, among them, What were you thinking? But before he could demand an answer, she charged ahead.
“You ruined everything!”
“I ruined everything?” he demanded. He took a step toward her. “I saved you from making a huge mistake. What were you thinking, coming here?”
She glared up at him. “I was trying to save my friend, and Kal was offering a way to do that, unlike you.”
“You would give up our private life—something you cherish most—in exchange for something that will only condemn your friend?”
“Condemn her? It will save her life! You bastard. You told me to have hope! You said she could survive.”
He had also said that it was up to Lexa, but Persephone was conveniently leaving that fact out.
He felt like a monster, towering over her, but she rose to the occasion, fighting back just as hard.
“You don’t trust me?”
“No!” she shot back. “No, I don’t trust you. Not when it comes to Lexa. And what about this place, Hades? This is your club, isn’t it? What the fuck?”
She had expressed her embarrassment when she’d had to find out about his charities through someone else, so it was no surprise that she was angry now.
He reached for her, his hands gripping her shoulders. There was a strangeness beneath his skin, a volatile need to touch her. It was likely fueled by how he’d spent the past several hours of his life, and he wished to channel it into something far more productive than violence.
“You were never to come here. This place isn’t for you.”
Hades did not expect her to wince, and he hated that he had hurt her, though he didn’t understand why until she spoke.
“Leuce works here,” she countered, as if they were one and the same.
“Because it’s Leuce. You told me to give her job back, so I sent her here. You…you’re…different.”
“Different?” She pushed away from him. “What does that even mean?”
Hades’s frustration was acute, pounding through his head. He gritted his teeth. “I thought we’d established this. You mean more to me than anyone—anything.”
“What does that have to do with keeping this place from me?”
Aside from the fact that it was dangerous?
She might not like what she saw—what it made him.
“Everything here is illegal, isn’t it? The Magi are here. What else?”
He stared at her, knowing that he could not escape answering but wondering if he could prolong it.
“What else, Hades?” she demanded.
“Everything you’ve ever feared.” Or perhaps thought to be impossible. “Assassins, drug lords…”
He housed crime families and madams, relic dealers and thieves, arsonists and smugglers. Anyone and anything that could benefit him was within the walls of this club, but as he watched Persephone’s face pale, he questioned just how much she was ready to learn.
So he trailed off, and after a brief silence, Persephone whispered, “Why?”
“I created a world where I could watch them,” he said.
Watch and control.
“Watch them do what? Break the law? Hurt people?”
“Yes,” he said, his frustration at a breaking point. Why did it feel so impossible to introduce her to the scope of his world? How was he supposed to illustrate lifetimes of work, built to reach both the heavens and the depths of depravity?
“Yes? That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”
“For now.” He was at a point where he did not want to explain. If she wished to think so poorly of him, then perhaps he should let her.