23 The Minotaur

23

The Minotaur

As difficult as it is to let Ariadne leave my sight, I don't want her around for the next steps. I've got to get my hands dirty again. No matter who's calling the shots, that's one outcome I can't seem to escape. Violence comes naturally to me.

Aeacus meet me at the same apartment as last time. The place is still dingy and dirty enough that I know they're not letting anyone else in here to clean, and none of his people are doing the job. He looks like shit, too. I know what it's like when Minos is riding your ass and you actually care about what he thinks. Theseus used to get the same hunted expression.

I don't miss the guy, but there's a part of me that doesn't really know what to do without my ever-present competitor. We were never going to be friends—Minos made sure of that—but there's something about him being the only other person in the world who has the same shared experiences as me that built an intimacy I never asked for.

He's better off. Or at least he thinks he is. I mean to feel the same.

Aeacus drags a hand over his face. "About fucking time."

"I said I'd get them, and I did. If you could do it faster, you should have."

He curses under his breath but just motions me to the computer at the central table. It only takes a few minutes for his guy to get the zip drive pulled up and displaying the blueprints.

I stare at the lines. I hate this part of the process. It's all waffling and planning and no action. It's necessary, but that doesn't make me enjoy it.

Aeacus's guy does something to get the blueprints projected onto the blank wall across from us. I round the table to eye the layout. It's not great. I'd hoped there would be some kind of clear way in that would allow us to dodge security. There doesn't seem to be.

Of course it wouldn't be that simple.

Though, if Hera keeps her word and gets everyone out…

But how the fuck is she going to do that? A bomb threat might clear out the neighboring buildings, but Zeus isn't a complete fool and, to the best of my knowledge, his people aren't disloyal. They aren't going to abandon their posts, and if they leave the building, they're going to make sure he comes with them when they do.

Another of Aeacus's people, a small person with medium-brown skin and more piercings than I can easily count, comes up. They point to a spot that looks like every other part of the building. "Do we have a security layout?"

"Let me check." The guy at the computer mutters a little and then the image changes, a secondary layer appearing in green over the black lines. "There."

"This is Mars," Aeacus introduces the new person. "They're the best."

I haven't worked with them before, so I'll believe it when I see it. But I'm not usually sent on shit like this. I prefer to work alone, and I'm not what you'd call subtle .

Mars whistles under their breath. "They have this thing locked up tighter than…" They glance at me and swallow hard. "Well, tight."

I have a feeling they were about to say some shit about Ariadne, but I let it slide. This time. "Walk me through it."

"Everything is passcoded. Means you can't just kill some fucker and take his badge. You need the code. And I need some time to confirm this, but if Zeus is as paranoid as these plans indicate, I'd bet a month's wages that the passcode either changes regularly or everyone has their own individual one. Makes it harder to hack."

I eye the plans on the wall. "So we bust our way in."

"Not going to work." They tap the stairwells. "These are blast doors. They drop in the case of an attack, and they can be triggered remotely."

Fuck. I cross my arms over my chest and consider the plans. Blast doors on the stairwells. Elevators that will shut down the moment there's trouble. Means it's impossible to go up…but it's equally impossible to escape. "We go down."

"What?" Aeacus looks at me like I've grown a second head. "These buildings are created to be steady. It will take more than a handful of bombs in the basement to topple it. We need to take out at least the first couple floors, if not the entire bottom half. We need to go up."

Bringing down buildings is a pain in the ass. "So we don't do it all at once. We infiltrate and plant the bombs over the course of a couple days and remote detonate when the time comes."

"That brings us back to the problem of getting in."

"Yeah." I lean forward. "Is there a water line we can break? Some shit that will require outside maintenance?"

"I'll look." The guy at the computer types away and whistles. "Whoever got you these blueprints was thorough ." One click and an orange layer is added to the schematic. "Water lines." Another click adds red. "Electrical."

Aeacus hums under his breath. "They'll pull in their own people to fix something that goes wrong."

"They'll try." I shrug. "Your team has done a bait and switch before. Won't take much to do it again." I'm too recognizable. Not that I want to dress up like a plumber and fix some pipes.

"It might work. Risky but it's something." He frowns. "Give us some time to run some scenarios and get things into place. Minos wants an update tonight." He glances at me. "You should probably be there for it."

It's the very last thing I want to do, but when has that stopped me? "Wouldn't miss it. Text me when you're ready."

I almost call Ariadne, but there's no reason to update her until I have the full details. I'd rather do it in person anyway.

As tempting as it is to check in on her, I head back to my apartment. She promised to stay inside today and keep her head down. She's as safe as it's possible to be in this fucking city. It will have to be enough for now.

Plus, I'm not as young as I used to be. I haven't slept much in the last week, and I'm starting to feel the effects. I need to crash for a few hours so my head doesn't get muddled. Missing shit because I'm fuzzy is unacceptable.

I'm stumbling a little as I unlock my door and slip inside. I haven't bothered to go back to the apartment Minos keeps, but I'll have to make an appearance tomorrow. In the meantime…I sigh and pull out my phone.

Minos picks up on the first ring, the eager fucker. "Well?"

"We have a plan. Aeacus is getting things lined up. I don't have a timeline yet, but we're moving as fast as is feasibly possible."

He curses. "I need it done next week."

I pause. "What?"

"Next week, Minotaur. Circe's orders. She's got something in the works, and she needs that tower to come down to make it happen. So we will make it happen."

Easy for him to say. He's sitting nice and safe in his penthouse, yelling commands without any comprehension of the implications. He wasn't always like this, but something about all the repeated failures has cracked his confidence. Or maybe it was Ariadne's defection. Or Theseus's. Impossible to say the specific thing that pushed him over the edge, but now I'm the one having to deal with the consequences.

I bite back my impatience. "Minos, that's impossible. It's not easy to bring down a building."

"Sure it is. Go in there. Kill everyone. Set explosives and get the fuck out."

If I do that—and it's a big if because at the first sign of attack, those blast doors are coming down and it will take more explosives than we have to get through them—then Hera will hurt Ariadne. She might do more than hurt her. "I'm telling you, it's impossible."

"And I'm telling you that I don't give a fuck. I'm calling Aeacus now. Figure it out, Minotaur. That's an order." He hangs up.

Fuck. " Fuck. "

"Rough day?"

I throw myself back, pulling my gun on instinct. I didn't realize I wasn't alone, and it takes several long beats…and Hermes's wicked laughter…for me to register who has broken into my house. "What the fuck ?"

"Got to keep you on your toes." She steps out of the shadows in a completely different place than I expected. I don't know how she managed that trick, but even if I'd started shooting, I wouldn't have hit her. There's no such thing as magic, but this woman makes me doubt that. She's so damn sneaky.

My adrenaline is rushing in my ears and my body is tense with the need to attack after being startled so thoroughly. I have to spend a few seconds breathing steadily before I can slip my gun back into its holster. "What are you doing here?"

"Just checking on you." She bounces on her toes and then she's off, skipping the short distance to my kitchen and rooting around in my fridge. She shuts it and sends me a disgusted look. "I know you're out here living the bachelor life, but you're in serious danger of becoming a stereotype with that fridge. Don't you eat?"

"When I want to eat, I go out." I don't move from my spot. "Answer the question, Hermes."

"I did. I'm checking on you." She leans her elbows on the kitchen counter. "You're bringing down Dodona Tower."

There's no point in pretending otherwise. She'll have heard the entire conversation with Minos, and there's a decent chance she knew what the plan was even before that. The woman deals in secrets and has an uncanny knack of sourcing them. "The only thing you need to worry about is bringing down the barrier ."

"On the contrary, my dear Minotaur, I worry about all manner of things." She examines her nails, and I catch a glint of glitter. "Like the fact that our very own Hera is instigating a rebellion when we're on the verge of a siege—if not an all-out war."

I lift my brows. "Neither of those things are my responsibility or my problem."

"No, I don't suppose you'd see it that way." She sighs. "Truly, it's like herding cats. Just when I get a few of you in order, half a dozen others start getting wild ideas about mutiny."

"Mutiny is only for ships."

"That's not actually true, but same difference." She flicks her fingers at me. "What terms did Hera give you?"

I start to feel foolish for standing across the apartment from her and slowly approach the other side of the kitchen peninsula. "If you know so much, I'm surprised you don't know that."

"Gods, Minotaur, I expected better of you." She rolls her eyes. "I don't know everything, but all you have to do is act like you know everything and people tell you all sorts of delicious details. It works on most."

Damn it. "Did you know for sure that Hera was instigating a rebellion before I confirmed it?"

She smiles serenely. "You'll never know."

It really isn't my problem, and I just need to remember that. I need Hermes more than I need Hera, but fuck, that's not exactly true. Hera is the key to Ariadne's safety. Shit. I can't think . I scrub a hand over my face. "Are you going to stop Hera?"

"I haven't decided yet."

I look at her over my hand. "What do you mean, you haven't decided yet?"

"Exactly what I said. Now, what are Hera's terms?"

No point in pussyfooting around it. She's not going to leave until I tell her, and more than that, I need her help to bring the barrier down. "Hera will keep Ariadne safe—and Icarus, too—in exchange for me not killing anyone but Zeus when we bring down the building."

Hermes whistles. "So it's gotten that extreme. That's unfortunate."

Unfortunate is one way to put it. I study her. "Now what?"

"Now nothing. Minos doesn't care what Hera wants." She suddenly looks tired. "This is a gargantuan mess. I can't let you—or him—kill hundreds of people who work in that tower. They haven't done anything wrong, and while there are plenty of sins to go around this city, the problems start at the top."

Considering Ariadne will feel similarly about a bunch of people dying for no fucking reason, I'm not about to let Minos bully us into making a shitty decision—that won't even work. "And Zeus?"

"Zeus can take care of himself. And if he can't?" She shrugs. "I can't save everyone. In a conflict with these kinds of stakes, you either come out on top or you come out six feet under."