Chapter 17

17

“Are you okay?” asked a female officer two hours later, checking in on Persephone where she waited in a windowless room inside the police station.

Persephone was huddled on a chair with her knees to her chest, arms wrapped around them. She looked up at the sympathetic looking woman. “I asked for someone to come cut this thing off of me an hour ago.”

Persephone held out the chain connected to the collar around her neck. Her voice sounded slightly hysterical even to her own ears but she couldn’t help it.

After sneaking out of the hotel, she realized she didn’t have a place to go or anyone to help her. Hades had confiscated her phone that had Hecate’s number programmed into it, but even if Persephone still had it, she wouldn’t have wanted to bring the older woman into this. People were scared of Hades for a reason.

So Persephone had found a cop and asked to be taken to the station. They were the only ones she could think of who actually could help her.

It was over now. She was free. So why was she still so on edge?

The woman’s eyes went wide. “Oh my gosh, of course. I’ll be right back with some cutters.”

The door shut behind the woman and Persephone couldn’t help immediately getting up and going to check the doorknob. It wasn’t locked. Persephone pressed a hand to her heart, willing it to slow.

You’re being paranoid. These are the good guys.

But she was still on Hades’s turf. As soon as she’d blurted out everything that had happened ever since her wedding day to the policeman at the front desk, he brought her to this room. Fifteen minutes later, a superior officer, Captain Martin, had come and she’d reiterated her story more slowly.

“Please,” she begged. “Hades is a powerful man. You need to transfer me to a station that’s further away. We are still on his turf. He has soldiers, I don’t know how many. You probably know more than I do. What if he attacks the police station?—?”

“It’s all going to be okay now,” said the kindly police captain, a man in his mid-50s with more salt than pepper in his hair, as he patted her hand. “You’re safe now and we won’t let anything happen to you. Ubeli isn’t foolish enough to attack a police station. That’s not how his kind works. Now you just rest up while I make some calls and we’ll see about a more permanent situation for you.”

But Persephone hadn’t been able to do anything other than pace back and forth in the small room and then finally curl up into a ball on the chair while waiting for any news. Whenever she shifted on the chair, she was reminded of last night. Of what it felt like when Hades had finally…

Taken the last of your innocence.

She still felt it now, the bowling ball tearing through her guts when she realized it had meant nothing to him. That he still only saw her as a means of revenge. She would only ever be her father’s daughter to him. So she’d run.

By now Hades would have come home to the apartment. He’d have found her gone. The cameras in the room would have shown her picking the lock and escaping. He’d also probably deduced that she couldn’t have gotten far, especially if she’d been caught on any street camera footage.

It was probably only a matter of time before he tracked her to the police station.

She pressed her fingers to her face. Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, what was she going to do? What if the cops couldn’t?—

She jumped out of her skin when the door banged open again. But it was the female policewoman with what looked like bolt cutters.

“This might be overkill,” the woman said apologetically, “but I know it will get the job done.”

“Fine by me,” Persephone said. “I want this thing off my neck.”

The woman nodded. “I’ll be careful.”

She slid the cutters between Persephone’s neck and the leather and with one firm snip, the leather collar came free and with it, the chains clanked to the floor. Persephone cupped her neck. The bare skin felt strange. Not that she wanted the collar back, she just?—

The cop was watching her.

Persephone forced a smile. “Thank you. Just...thank you.”

The woman put a hand on Persephone’s shoulder and squeezed. She bent over and picked up the chains attached to the severed collar. “I’ll get these out of your sight.” With that, she left the room.

And Persephone was back to waiting, waiting for she didn’t know what. Her new life to begin, she supposed.

It wasn’t five minutes before the police captain entered again, carrying a folder. Captain Martin sat at the table across from her. Persephone forced herself to drop her knees so that her feet were on the ground. She’d taken off the voluminous coat but now she shivered even though it wasn’t especially cold. It was Captain Martin’s face. He didn’t look like he had good news.

“What is it? Is something wrong?”

“I don’t think I have to tell you that Hades Ubeli is a dangerous man.”

Was this guy kidding? “Yeah, I figured that out when he locked me in a room for over a week with a collar around my neck. You don’t have to convince me that he’s a bad guy. Preaching to the choir.”

“Good, good,” the police captain said. “Then you’ll be happy to testify against him in a court of law.”

“What?” Persephone shoved back from the table and stood, holding her hands up. “What are you talking about?”

“Well, you’ve come in here with a pretty fantastic story,” Captain Martin said. “We’ve been trying to nail Ubeli for years on racketeering, drug trafficking, money laundering, you name it. But kidnapping and captivity will make for one hell of a story, especially if you have any insights into the rest of his business dealings.”

Persephone was shaking her head the entire time he spoke. “I don’t have anything to do with that. I want to get out of here. Right now. I want one of your guys to drive me as far west as you can take me and I’ll disappear.” She held her hands up again. “I don’t want anything to do with Hades Ubeli. I want to forget he even exists.”

“Well, that’s not likely to happen, seeing as how you’re married to him. But if you work with us?—”

“I’m not going to testify!” Was this guy nuts?

The captain’s eyebrows scrunched together. “So maybe your so-called captivity wasn’t as unwanted as you’re calling it. You know, lying to the police carries a penalty of?—”

What the fuck? “I didn’t lie to you! I wasn’t lying about being kidnapped. Well, I mean, at the beginning, I thought it was the start to our honeymoon. But it all changed when he—when he— How dare you even suggest that I wanted what he was—” She pressed her hands to her head. “I didn’t want to be there with him. Not like that. But I don’t want to testify…”

“If you’re worried that he’ll get to you, punish you for talking to us?—”

She flinched at the captain’s choice of words. Punish. That’s exactly what Hades would do. Punish her in the most delicious way possible. Make her submit to his will and make her like it. “I’m not afraid of that…” Okay, she was. Because if she stayed to testify, there was no way Hades wouldn’t find a way to get her back.

She jumped to her feet. “I want to get out of here.”

“Mrs. Ubeli?—”

“Don’t call me that,” she snapped.

The captain’s face hardened. “You want to see what sort of monster you married?” He opened the file and photos spilled out. Bodies splayed and bloody, eyes open, faces contorted in fear, frozen in the moment they realized their oncoming death.

She recognized one face. The curly haired man who’d roofied her. He’d said he was following orders. He’d tried to warn her.

Now he was dead.

I’m gonna take care of you.

“This is what your husband does,” the captain ranted. “This is how he conducts his business.”

“Do you have proof?”

“No. That’s why we need you.”

Light dawned. Persephone scraped the photos up with her fingernails and stacked them into a pile. “You want me to testify against him somehow. Say he did these things and confessed to me.”

Excitement flickered in the captain’s eyes. “Yes.”

“You want me to lie.”

He said nothing.

This city is a beast, Hades told her once. Innocents fall and the criminals go unpunished.

“My husband doesn’t think he’s a criminal,” she told the captain quietly. “He thinks he’s dispensing justice.” Even when he didn’t want to. There were moments when they were together, where he hesitated. He could’ve destroyed her for what her family did to his sister. Instead, he’d…

“That’s what the cops and courts are for.”

The police do nothing. They’re either corrupt, or have no power. And here was proof. The captain wanted her to lie on the stand. She wasn’t about to give her freedom up in order to satisfy some police captain’s wet dreams of glory in capturing a notorious crime boss.

She just wanted to get the hell out of here.

“If you testify for the DA, we could get you what you want. Set you up with a new life. New identity. Ubeli would never be able to touch you. You’d be safe. Free.”

“You mean witness protection?”

He nodded. “Federal marshals would have your back. You could live somewhere nice and sunny, all year round. Pick your paradise.”

Persephone’s eyes wandered to the mirror that covered one wall. She looked tiny. Pale with shadows under her eyes, her long hair snarled. Who was she to try to stand up against the Lord of the Underworld?

She closed her eyes, not able to bear looking at herself anymore. There were no good choices. She wasn’t a little girl anymore, shielded in her mother’s controlling arms. The world wasn’t a pretty place and she had to face it.

“No. I won’t testify.”

Captain Martin didn’t say another word. He simply picked up the folder he brought in with him and strode from the room. The door shut behind him with a heavy clang.

Persephone laid her head in her arms on the table. What now? Would they not even help her if she wasn’t willing to testify against Mar?—

But she hadn’t even finished the thought before the door was pushing open again.

And there stood Hades himself. “I must say, wife, choosing not to testify against me is the first smart thing you’ve done all day.”