Chapter 83

83

The rest of the day Persephone wandered around her apartment in a daze, analyzing Hades’s every move.

It’s over. You’ve done enough.

At dusk, she lost the battle with herself and dialed his private number. “Hades, we need to talk. I can explain.” She stopped there because she didn’t know if she could explain. Did it matter if she’d been trying to do the right thing when it all turned out so wrong? “Please call me,” she finished lamely.

Pacing restlessly, she checked the fridge for anything appetizing. No luck. She started drawing open a bottle of wine. When her phone buzzed with a text message alert, she dropped the wine opener to grab it.

M. Ubeli not at this number. It’s being monitored. Emergencies only.

She slapped her phone down with more force than necessary. Her husband was gone, disappeared behind the faceless Shades he used as an army. When she ran, she had to fight for her space, but he changes his number and, boom, she was cut off from him.

It wasn’t fair.

“What can I do?” she ranted as Cerberus watched. “He holds all the cards in the relationship.”

Her dog cocked his head and rubbed against her, trying to offer comfort. She scratched his ears. “It’s okay, boy, I’m not mad at you. You sit and stay when you’re told.”

She laughed at this as she finished opening the wine.

A few hours later there came a rap at her door.

“Who is it?” Persephone paused in her slightly off-key rendition of the song playing on her phone’s radio.

The heavy knock sounded again and Persephone groaned, not wanting to move from her spot. She’d just gotten comfortable.

Hades. What if it was Hades? Her drink sloshed as she set it on the floor.

In a wine-induced haze, she barely remembered to peek through the peephole.

The man outside was so tall she could only see his neck.

“No,” Persephone said. Oops. She said that out loud. Shit. Maybe she could hide in the bedroom until Charon went away.

“Open the door,” Charon commanded, in a voice that made it clear that he shouldn’t have to ask twice. Had Hades dispatched his second-in-command to kill her for ruining his business? She giggled, the wine making that thought more fascinating than scary.

She opened the door and looked up, and then up some more. Charon was tall, like really tall. “Hey,” she hiccuped. “What do you want?”

“Came to check on you.”

“Did Hades send you?” She squinted up into the midnight black face.

“He doesn’t know I’m here.”

That gave her pause. Charon was intensely loyal, and as far as she knew nothing would entice him to go behind Hades’s back.

Hades. Who hadn’t sent him to check up on her. Who’d sent her away without even a backward glance.

“Well, I’m alive. Thanks for checking.” She started to swing the door shut but Charon’s foot stopped it.

“Charon, I want to be alone.” He didn’t budge at all and it only made her madder. “I can’t believe you. Move, you big mountain.”

But Charon just herded her back into the apartment until he could close the door.

Cerberus ambled over and sniffed the big man’s hand.

“Fantastic guard dog you are.” Persephone glared at the Great Dane, who gave a woof and went to lie down on the hearth.

Meanwhile, Charon was stalking through her apartment, first heading to her sound dock and cutting off the music.

“Hey!” she cried, but he ignored her, going to the balcony and looking out. He pulled the curtains firmly together, went back to the front door, and reached around her to dim the overhead light. The dimmer had been magically installed after she moved in, part of the ‘upgrades’ the super had instituted at the new building owner’s—aka Hades’s—command.

“What the hell—” she sputtered.

Charon leaned down and got in her face.

“People can see in here when you have the light on,” he rumbled, looking down at her.

Persephone stared up at him with wide eyes. Losing all sense, she shoved him in the chest with both her hands. “I was having a nice, quiet,” she grunted as she pushed, not caring that she didn’t make a dent of difference, “night in. Alone!”

“Not so quiet. I could hear you singing down the hall.”

With a final grunt, Persephone gave up pushing and stalked away. “Well, what am I supposed to do now that Hades has decided we’re on a break? Sit in the corner and knit?” She flopped onto the couch and fished around on the floor for her wine glass, nearly tipping it and herself over when Charon sat down beside her. When he settled on his own cushion, she noticed he took up almost half the couch.

Lifting the bottle to inspect it, he gave her an amused glance. There was only about a glass and a half missing.

She raised her chin. “What? So I’m a lightweight.”

Shaking his head, he leaned over and, before she knew it, he’d relieved her of her glass.

“Hey, I was drinking that.” She struggled but was no match for him. He held her off with one large hand planted on her chest while he drained the rest of the red liquid in one gulp.

“I don’t believe this,” she fumed. “What are you even doing here?”

“Got your message.”

She swallowed hard. “I thought that was Hades’s line.”

“It is, but he’s gone to ground again.”

“Did… Did something else happen?”

“More threats. Poseidon is on the move. A few of our men have been attacked, but he seems to prefer kidnapping over murder. No demands yet.”

Persephone’s temples were starting to pound with another one of the headaches she’d been getting lately and ugh, she felt like she was going to throw up. She rubbed her forehead and tried to focus on what Charon was telling her.

“Poseidon is holed up somewhere, but he’s in the city. Gotta be. There’s a warrant for his arrest in connection to the Mayor’s poisoning.” Charon grabbed the wine bottle and poured himself a glass. She’d never seen him drink before. “We think he’s working with the Titans.”

“The Titans want back in, don’t they?” she whispered. “She won’t stop, will she? My mother?”

He looked her in the eye and shook his head. “The Titans want back in and they’re gonna get in, unless we can get Poseidon to join us. But with him scooping up Shades, it’s not looking good.”

“What can I do to help?”

“Nothing. Unless you can magically produce Poseidon.”

She bit her lip.

Stay away from Poseidon. It’s over. You’ve done enough.

It’s over.

“Why are you telling me this?” Persephone tried not to sound sad and failed. Her mother was up to no good as always, trying to hurt her husband. She winced, the pain slicing deep. Was Hades even still her husband? Did he want to be? “He doesn’t want me involved.”

“You gonna give up that easy?”

She stared at Charon but he didn’t look at her.

“What do you mean? I hurt him, I know that. I know he feels betrayed. But he won’t even talk to me.”

Charon chuckled without mirth. “Not fun being shut out, is it?”

“No,” she said, chin dropping to her chest. She’d given Hades the same treatment for months after she’d left him.

“Two months gone and you grew a backbone. But you still haven’t grown up.”

Would she break her hand if she punched him? She’d probably break her hand. “Maybe when you all stop treating me like a child.”

Charon just shook his head, taking a long drink. “You wanna know what he’s thinking? You wanna know everything?”

Persephone frowned but nodded, tucking her legs underneath her on the couch, making her into the smallest ball possible. Cerberus sat close by, looking unhappy until she reached out and stroked his soft gray head.

“You sure?” Charon finally looked at her and the warning in his dark eyes was serious.

“Yes.”

“You sure you wanna wake up? After this you may never sleep again.”

Somehow she knew he wasn’t talking about literal sleep. She nodded.

“Alright.” He toyed with his empty glass, pausing for so long that she wondered if he forgot she was there. But she didn’t dare break the silence. “You know Hades’s sister?”

“Chiara.”

“You know how she died?” He picked up the wine, refilling his drink and keeping his hand on the bottle’s neck.

Persephone looked at her hands. “My mom killed her.”

Charon downed his second drink. “That wasn’t till after. First the Titan brothers raped her. All three of them. She was stabbed, multiple times—I guess when your mom came in and found what they’d done. Maybe she was mad at Karl for cheating on her. Maybe she hated old man Ubeli that much. Or maybe it was for the power. But Chiara bled out on the mattress where they had her chained up.”

Persephone sat frozen, her hand still on Cerberus’s head. She’d never thought through the particulars of that night so long ago. She hadn’t wanted to, she saw now. She was going to be sick.

But Charon wasn’t having any mercy on her. He was going to tell the story no matter how much it hurt either of them. And it hurt him, that was clear enough to see by the glaze in his eyes and the hitch in his voice.

“Chiara was safe at the Estate, but she got a wild hair and took off. That’s when they snatched her. We knew she was missing, pulled every fucking string we could to find her. In the end, a snitch found her. Too late. She’d been dead for a day. Fuckers left her alone to die, stabbed, covered in their filth.”

Charon’s hand shook a bit on the bottle, a gold ring he wore on his right hand’s ring finger clinking against the glass until he clenched it, hard enough for his knuckles to pale.

“Hades saw her and lost it. He was still a kid.” Charon looked across the couch at her, his eyes filled with black memories. “But that was the day he grew up. Not the day they took his parents, not the year after. It was the day we found Chiara, that was when he left. Didn’t even wait until she was laid to rest. Cried, last time I’d see him cry, and disappeared.”

Persephone gripped her arms around her legs to keep from shaking. Her eyes were dry; she had no tears for this. Charon kept speaking, his deep voice echoing in the pit of this bottomless night.

“Took me a year to find him. He was fucking homeless for months before he found his way. Trained as a fighter, and came back to New Olympus. By that time, the Titans had been in power two years, and most of Old Man Ubeli’s empire was gone. Hades built it back, and didn’t stop until the last one of them was driven out.”

Silence.

So this was why he’d left her. “I betrayed him and gave the Titans an in.”

“Woman.” Charon shook his head at her like she was dense. “He sent you away because he can’t deal. Everything he’s done has been to protect you. And you leave your safe home—just like Chiara—and run to the bad guys. Doesn’t matter why you did it. He already lost his family once. He can’t lose you too.”

Persephone didn’t know what to say to that. He was wrong, though. He didn’t see the look on Hades’s face. He didn’t hear how cold Hades’s voice was when he told her it was over. Hades was a man who valued loyalty above all else. And she’d betrayed him. Without trust, what was left?

“You remind me of her, you know?” Charon said, breaking the silence. “Chiara. She was sweet, but underneath was fire.” His voice dropped, so she strained to hear. “We’d do anything to protect that.”

The tenderness in his deep voice made her turn to look at him. Charon’s muscular form was balanced, rigid, but he’d let the mask slip from his face enough for her to see the man beneath, the years of pain and torment.

Persephone leaned against the arm of the couch, suddenly seeing so much.

“You loved her,” she whispered. Her stomach swam with nausea. “How can you even stand to look at me, Charon?”

“Get some rest, Persephone,” he murmured. And that was it. He walked out the door.

But all Persephone could see was that young girl, violated over and over again by Persephone’s uncles…by her father. And Mom had finished the job by…

Persephone barely made it to the toilet before emptying the contents of her stomach.