The cameras follow her as she walks out of the lounge and takes the elevators all the way down to the ground floor. There’s a black car idling at the curb.
“Do you have sound for this?”
“Yeah.” A push of a button and we can hear soft traffic noises.
The door opens and a man’s voice says, “You came.”
“Let her go.” Meg doesn’t sound terrified, but I know my woman. It’s there in the line of her shoulders and the hardness of her voice. She’s holding onto anger to shield herself from fear.
“Of course. A deal’s a deal. You know all about that, don’t you?”
Movement within the car and Aurora spills onto the street. She rushes to Meg and wraps her arms around her. Meg smooths back her hair, checking her expression. “Are you okay?”
“I’m sorry, Meg. So sorry. I didn’t know—”
She presses her fingers to Aurora’s lips. “Go.”
The man speaks again. “Remember, princess. You say a single damn thing to him and your mother pays the price.”
“I remember.” She doesn’t have Meg’s poise. She’s obviously been crying, and though she moves as if she’s not injured, she’s plainly terrified. Instead of coming into the building, Aurora bolts. I don’t need to follow her path to know her destination. The hospital where her mother is on life support.
I speak without looking away from the cameras. “Send two of our people to watch over her mother—and her. When she’s ready to come back, escort her.”
“Yes, sir.”
A hand emerges from the backseat. “Come along.”
“I don’t think I will.” She takes a step back. A red light appears on her chest. A tiny little dot, its significance sending ice cascading through my veins. Meg looks down and freezes. “Impossible to claim you came in good faith when you have a sniper in a nearby building.”
“I had a feeling you’d be difficult.” A deep laugh. “Get in the car or the next person who’s on the wrong end of my sniper is that old bastard.”
Meg hesitates, but only for a moment. She steels herself and takes the man’s hand, letting him draw her into the car. The door shuts and it veers away from the curb and into traffic.
No.
“How long ago was this?” I barely sound like myself. Even without seeing inside that car, I know exactly who it contained. Zeus. I took his son, and even if that doesn’t begin to balance the scales of what he did, he still sees the injustice of it and is determined to punish me just like he did all those years ago. I thought he’d come for me when he was furious enough. It never occurred to me that he’d get to Meg first.
“Thirty minutes.”
“He’s going to take her to Olympus. Beyond our reach.”
“No. Fuck that.” Hercules glances at Minh. “Could you excuse us for a minute?”
Again Minh hesitates, but he finally nods and slips past us out of the room. Hercules barely waits for the door to click shut before he grasps my shoulders. “Get your fucking head in the game, Hades.”
I blink. My thoughts move slowly, the past, the present, and the future melding together into one unforgivable emotional blow. “We can’t save her. It’s too late.”
Hercules gives me a hard shake. His blue eyes are twin flames of fury. “If he wanted her dead, he’d have shot her right there in the street. He wants to punish us, and that means we have time.”
“She trusted me to keep her safe and I failed.”
He shakes me again, harder this time. “If you’re going to go maudlin and defeatist, you don’t deserve her. Choose now, because I’m going after her.”
I could lose them both.
The thought staggers me. I close my eyes and try to focus, to think past the memories trying to claw me down to hell. “He’ll take her to Olympus,” I repeat. It’s several hours’ drive. He has barely a half hour head start on us. I nod and push Hercules back. “We go after her.” I give him a long look. “You will follow orders, no matter how unsavory you find them.”
His jaw sets like he wants to argue, but he nods. “As long as we leave now.”
I call Minh back into the room. “Tell Allecto to meet us in the garage. She gets three people—her best.”
He nods, but I’m already moving. I stride back into my office and collect the gun I keep in a locked drawer in the desk. Hercules doesn’t blink as I withdraw a hostler and shrug into it. I take a moment to check that the gun is loaded and the safety is on. I prefer not to use firearms. They’re so incredibly clumsy and blunt when it’s just as easy to accomplish my will with words and careful manipulations. I don’t have the luxury of that now. I don’t have the time.
I hold Hercules’s gaze. “It may come down to your father or Meg.”
“I know.” The pain written on his face isn’t only for our Meg. Zeus is a monster, but he’s still the father of the man I care deeply for. Killing him will hurt Hercules. It may even take our potential future together and damage it beyond repair.
Even knowing that, if it comes down to a choice between them, I know what I’ll choose. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. She’s the important one.”
We detour to his suite long enough for him to throw on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and then we’re off, rushing down to meet Allecto in the parking garage. She takes one look at me and her mouth tightens. “That bad.”
“Zeus has Meg. If he makes it to Olympus with her, I can’t guarantee we’ll be able to get to her. He has roughly forty-five minutes on us.” I scrub a hand over my face. “I expect he’ll pick the most direct route, but I’m not sure.”
Allecto takes it in stride. It’s one of her strengths—seeing the battlefield as a whole before she ever takes the first step. She turns to the three women at her back. “You three take one car. We’ll take the other. Keep your damn phones on because we’ll need to coordinate carefully to drive them off the road and we have to catch them first.” She glances at us. “You two, with me.” Allecto stops short. “But if you’re going to be wringing your hands and distracting me, you can damn well stay here.”
Hercules bristles, but I touch his shoulder. “We have it under control.”
“You had better. We don’t have room for error on this.” She turns on her heel and marches to the nearest car. “Get your ass in the backseat. We’re doing this.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Meg
Fear is a strange thing. I thought I’ve known it in the past. Walking into the Underworld at twenty-six and bargaining away my future for the man I thought I loved was scary. But even then, I must have seen something in Hades and known that he wouldn’t hurt me in any irreparable way. Like recognizes like, after all. A broken heart is one thing. But my body has always been safe with him.
I don’t have that assurance with the man lounging in the seat across from me.
No, Zeus will hurt me and hurt me badly. Nothing personal, of course. He simply intends to send a message to the men I love, the kind designed to bring Hades to his knees.