He continues as if I haven’t spoken. “I did intend him as a gift to you, love. But that’s not the reason I picked him specifically.”
A gift. I still haven’t quite wrapped my mind around the fact that Hades knew exactly how messed up we’d gotten and instead of talking to me like a normal person, he served me Hercules on a platter. I don’t know that I can throw stones at this point, though. As Hades pointed out, I didn’t exactly tell him everything I was feeling.
Maybe he’s right. We aren’t normal people to fix our problems in that way. And I can’t deny that Hercules’s presence helps in ways I wasn’t expecting. Not solely in prodding us to talk to each other, but he’s a soft ooey-gooey center to all our harsh edges. He blunts us, allows us to connect in a softer way.
I clear my throat, bringing my attention back to this room, this conversation. “Why did you pick him, specifically?”
“A long time ago, before I came to Carver City, I lived in Olympus.”
“I know.” Just that he lived in Olympus and was exiled. Nothing more. Maybe I should know more about him, how he grew up, what his family was like. It’s not something we’ve ever talked about. My parents were hardly saints, and they turned their backs on me when I ran off with Declan all those years ago. I couldn’t bear to admit that they were right about him, so I’ve never gone back. And they’ve never once tried to reach out. It doesn’t hurt quite as much as it used to, but that tenderness causes me to never push Hades about his past. What is the point? We have our now and our future.
Obviously, I should have paid more attention.
“I…” For the first time tonight, Hades hesitates. He glances at Hercules, a connection so brief, I wouldn’t have caught it if I weren’t watching them so closely. “I had a family. Wife. Son. A promising future as one of the most powerful people within the city.”
A wife.
A son.
Each word hits me in the chest with the force of a sledgehammer. Two things I can never, ever give Hades. Two things I desperately don’t want, even now. I start to pull away, but his hand bracketing my knee tightens and he turns to me. “Listen.”
I don’t want to. I don’t want to hear how happy he was. How normal he was. Some truths aren’t mine to bear, and this one is too much to handle. I might laugh if I could find the breath for it. Of all the secrets lurking in his past, this will be the one to break me. Not the horrible things he’s done. Not the people he’s hurt along the way in his quest to secure power. Not the legion of people he’s fucked. Just this. A wife. A son. An entire life I knew nothing about. I swallow hard. “I’d really rather not.”
“Listen.” This time it’s Hercules who speaks, his deep voice steadying something in me despite every molecule in my body demanding I get the hell out of here.
Hades gives me a long look and continues. “We didn’t last the year after I inherited the position of Hades. I was too young and too… innocent. I couldn’t protect them.”
A pit opens up in my chest. “What happened?”
“Zeus killed them.”
Hercules makes a choked noise, but Hades doesn’t look away from my face. “He killed them,” he repeats. “And he drove me out of Olympus with nothing but sorrow to accompany me. For thirty years, he’s been untouchable, well beyond my reach, and now I have the chance to balance the scales. A son for a son.”
My mind is racing and my body tenses as if I’m about to flee for my life, rejecting the things he’s saying. “You… Hercules… His son.”
“Zeus is my father, yes.”
More pieces fall into place. The reason Hercules left Olympus, because of his father’s monstrosity. It never occurred to me that it could be connected to Hades. I grab Hades’s wrist and wait for him to look at me. “You are not killing Hercules.”
He gives me a small smile. “Hardly, love. I’m not in the business of murder.”
I could argue otherwise. He’s more than happy to hand people over to their enemies, which may or may result in their death, even if his hands remain relatively clean. He was more than happy to hand Jasmine over to a man who terrified her. I can’t blame him for that, though, not when my hands are equally dirty with his deals. I look from Hades to Hercules and back again. “So you seduce the son to hurt the father. I’m assuming there is some footage or photographs that will make their way to him.”
He shrugs. “It’s possible.”
I point at Hercules. “And you’re okay with this, with him using you like this?” It can’t last forever, no matter what Hades negotiated as terms. He’s going to drag Hercules down to our level and then cut him loose to drown. “You can’t be okay with this.”
“My father is a monster.” He says it so calmly, as if remarking on the weather. From the little I know of Zeus at this point, I can’t argue with him, but surely he sees this isn’t as simple as Hades has laid it out to be.
They knew and spoke about this and didn’t loop me in until I forced them to.
I feel like I’m falling. Every time I hit the bottom it collapses beneath me, revealing farther to drop. I am completely immaterial to this place. Just the lure Hades placed to draw Hercules in. He didn’t tell me. And Hercules seemed more than content to keep his silence too. It hurts. It hurts way more than it fucking should. I can’t help feeling like Hades has drawn a circle in the sand and I’m on the outside of it. Why bother to tell me the plans? My part in them has been served. He’s only doing it now to placate me, to keep me content and avoid rocking the boat further, not because he genuinely wants me involved or sees me as an equal partner. Even offering Hercules as a gift feels secondary to his vengeance.
I swallow past the hard knot in my throat. “So you take the pictures, send them to Zeus and… what? How is that even close to equal to what he did to you?”
“It’s not.” Just that. Nothing more.
Even with all this talk of talking, he’s still shutting me out.
I wait, but no more information seems to be forthcoming. He’s given me enough that I’m supposed to be satisfied, but even now, he’s holding back. I want to shake him, to scream at him, to list all the ways he’s breaking us even as he appears to take actions to heal us. I don’t. It won’t change anything, not really. Instead, I lean over and take his chin the same way he does to me when he wants my undivided attention. “Hades.” I pitch my voice low, but it shakes with the sheer intensity of the feelings I’m determined not to show. “If you hurt Hercules, that’s it. I’m out.”
“You have a lifetime sentence, love.”
I give him a sad smile. “We both know that won’t stop me if I want to disappear. You deliver harm to him, and I’m gone for good.”
He searches my face with those dark, dark eyes. All amusement flees his expression. “You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
“Megaera—”
I drop my hand and push to my feet. “Good night, Hades.” I nod at Hercules, who’s watching us with a stunned expression on his face. “Sleep well.”
I don’t bother to retrieve my dress before I leave the office and take the back stairs down to the residential floor. Tomorrow, I have to spend more time in the club, to see and be seen. The old saying about the mice playing while the cat’s away is never truer than with a bunch of kinky criminals in a sex club. They’ll push just as far as we’ll let them, so likely I’ll have to make an example of someone tomorrow. Once upon a time, the thought would fill me with glee. There was nothing I loved more than bringing a proud person down a few notches, to strip them to their core self and rock their world. Now? I’m just tired. So fucking tired.