14. Charon

14

CHARON

I seek Hades out in the room that’s become his formal meeting place in the months since he married Persephone. I don’t think he consciously made the choice to move; more that this room has a couch that Persephone likes to frequent while she watches Hades work. He does that sort of thing a lot, making space in his life for her to be at his side.

This room is significantly brighter than his old office. The windows at his back overlook the street below and allow him to survey the foot traffic. He’s never said as much aloud, but I know he finds watching his people live their happy, healthy lives comforting. There are two bookshelves built into the walls on either side of the window, and they used to house some dusty old editions. These days, Persephone has been slowly filtering them out as she finishes books while she lounges on the luxurious green couch. The couch itself has acquired a knitted throw blanket from…somewhere. Pregnancy seems to come with a lot of naps, and Hades has ensured she’s comfortable and close to him during those times.

I knock on the doorframe and wait for him to look up to say, “Busy?”

“Not with anything that can’t wait.” He looks exhausted, the circles beneath his eyes a deeper purple than they were a week ago. The lines bracketing his mouth are deeper too. He sits back in his chair and motions for me to take the seat across from him. “Any progress?”

I hate that my answer hasn’t changed from the last time we spoke. “No. They knew where the cameras are. Our patrols too. No one saw anything, heard anything. The only reason Matthew knew it happened so quickly is because he installed that security system last month.”

“And he didn’t tell us,” Hades murmurs.

“And he didn’t tell us,” I confirm. “He didn’t want to bother us, but I think the real truth is that he didn’t want to insult you by making it seem like he didn’t trust your ability to protect him and his business.”

Hades rubs a tired hand over his face. “He was right. I didn’t protect him.”

If he was any worse a leader, he would drag me over the coals for this. Hades might be the ruler of the lower city, but I’m his right-hand man. I’m the one in charge of security. I’m the one who oversees our patrols and ensures his will is done. “I dropped the ball.”

He gives me a brief smile. “There’s more than enough self-recrimination to go around. Let’s focus on finding them.” He picks up a pen and rolls it between his fingers, his dark eyes going distant. I wait for him to get to whatever destination he’s headed toward. Hades has always been this way, someone who thinks things through before he acts. His only exception was Persephone, and instead of that emboldening him, he’s only become more cautious as a result. “Do you think it’s an inside job?” he finally asks.

I bite down on an instinctive denial. It would make the most sense if whoever destroyed the greenhouse has insider info… It’s also the easiest answer. “It’s possible.” I take a deep breath. “But anyone who lives in the lower city would have that information. We don’t keep our moves secret from our people.” They’ve never given us cause to do so. I sure as fuck hope they’re not behind this.

“I suppose you’re right.” He shakes his head. “Is it naive of me to hope that’s the case? After Andreas…”

“Yeah.” We don’t talk about my uncle, the man who played the role of father to both of us. The old man’s mind started to go years ago, but the truth neither of us could quite handle was the one he’d held back for thirty long years.

Hades’s father, the man who held the title before him, the father who supposedly died in the fire alongside his mother? He is alive. He’s been alive this whole time, ruling his own little kingdom in a city within drivable distance from Olympus.

Not that visiting was easy with the barrier, but best I can tell from all the things we don’t say, both father and son thought the other was dead in the fire that scarred the man before me. It makes sense why Zeus allowed that to happen. He had a vested interest in weakening the lower city, and having a child inherit the title allowed him to shove Hades back into the realm of myth. What I don’t understand—what Hades can’t forgive—is that Andreas also knew the truth and kept it from him.

So many lies. So many betrayals.

I’m not an innocent. I know Andreas had a hard choice to make, and he made the best one for Olympus—specifically the lower city. And it was the best choice for the lower city. The Zeus who would go so far as to risk war to kill his rival wouldn’t take kindly to that same rival returning to the city after being presumed dead by the public. Andreas let my Hades believe his father was dead…but he also let that Hades believe his son was dead. The only way to drive him from the city. The only way to keep them both safe.

I understand difficult choices. I even understand putting the greater good above the happiness of a single person. Or two people, as the case may be.

But that doesn’t mean it was the right call for the kid I grew up idolizing. The boy who had to become a man much too soon, who had the weight of half of Olympus on his shoulders, while most teenagers were only worried about kissing pretty people beneath the bleachers.

“I would prefer to believe that all our people are above reproach, but I won’t bet the life of my wife and unborn children on it. Look into everyone again. Prove that our trust is founded.” He hesitates. “Please.”

I don’t remind him that I’ve personally picked and vetted everyone on Persephone’s security team. He knows. He still needs me to do it again for his peace of mind. It’s a small ask in the grand scheme of things. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Thank you.” He lets me get almost all the way to the door before he speaks again. “How’s Eurydice?”

I recognize a trap when it closes around me. Honestly, I’m surprised it took him so long to circle around to this, but he’s been understandably distracted. I close the door softly and turn to face him. “She’s fine.”

“She stayed over at your place last night.”

I lift my brows. “Are you having me watched, Hades?”

He mirrors my expression. Not quite anger on his face, but a clear warning. “You took her to Minos’s party without running it by me first. Did you think I’d let that decision slide without addressing it?”

“She’s an adult.”

“Funny. That’s the argument she keeps giving my wife. I think you’ll understand why both of us are…overprotective of her.”

I get it. I even respect it. That doesn’t mean I want the man who’s part boss, part elder brother butting his head into my business. “I’ll grant that Minos’s party ended up more dangerous than expected, but Eurydice was with me. I kept her safe.” I never would have let her be hurt. Andreas may have proved himself too ruthless to completely trust, but he trained me well. I didn’t let my guard down once at that fucking party, not when the cost might be harm to Eurydice.

Knowing what we do now, she was never one of the targets. Minos wanted to set up his foster sons as members of the Thirteen, by virtue of the assassination clause. Only one out of two of them were successful, but that was one too many.

Hades barely blinks. “And last night?”

I try not to feel insulted that we’re even having this conversation. Hades sees things clearly in every aspect of his life…except family. He went without it for too long, and part of him can’t help overcompensating now that he has a wife and three sisters-in-law. I highly doubt he extends that overprotectiveness to Demeter. She can take care of herself.

But it’s a reminder that even if I see him as something of a brother, the same isn’t necessarily true for him. “Last night was none of your business,” I say firmly. “Eurydice was there because she wanted to be, and the second she stops wanting to be, she’s more than free to end things.”

Hades stares at me for a beat and then chuckles. “Lie to yourself if you must. Don’t lie to me. I’ve seen the way you look at her when you think no one else is watching. You’re not letting her go without a fight.”

He’s right, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to admit as much aloud. The truth is exactly what I told Eurydice the other night: if she doesn’t want me, then I’ll go back to being her safe friend.

I don’t know if that’s possible after knowing how good her pussy tastes, how overwhelming the feeling of her coming on my cock is, but better that every moment with her be the sweet agony of knowing I’ll never touch her again than to be cut out of her life entirely.

I don’t know where Orpheus fits into that picture yet, but we’ll come to some arrangement that suits everyone.

Ideally, without Hades and Persephone meddling.

“I respectfully request that you and your lovely wife stay out of it and let us figure things out like the adults we are.”

“I make no promises.” He chuckles again. “Godsspeed, Charon. You’ll need all the luck and stubbornness you can come up with.”

There’s a part of me that mourns that it won’t be a simple linear journey from meeting to friendship to love the way my parents’ story was, but then their story ended in tragedy. There’s a reason Andreas was the one to raise me.

I want to desire simplicity, but it’s not actually what I crave. I knew things wouldn’t be simple or easy with Eurydice. It doesn’t matter. I want her. I need her.

But if I try to keep her confined to me, I’ll lose her. I know that much. I don’t know what the fuck is happening with Orpheus, but I don’t need to know. Eurydice chose me. She’ll keep choosing me as long as I don’t force her to choose. At least I fucking hope she’ll keep choosing me.

I glance at my phone as I leave Hades’s office. There are no updates from Medusa, but that’s a good thing. No news is good news in this line of work. Instead of checking in and micromanaging, I call Minthe. I barely wait for her to pick up to start talking. “We need to go over the security footage again.”

She curses. “I already spent hours doing it. They dodged our cameras.”

“The ones closest to the greenhouse, yes, but we need to widen the search.” There’s a feeling in my gut, an instinct demanding I follow it. I’ll do as Hades asked and check our people again. It’s smart to button up all avenues of investigation. I just don’t think we’ll find anything there. “They’re not local. I’d bet good money that they’re not even staying on this side of the river.” It’s risky. But they’re not coming over the bridges, or we’d know about it. Even so, I can’t afford to ignore any possibilities at this point. “No matter how good they are at dodging cameras, there’s evidence of them somewhere.”

She’s silent for a beat. “What makes you so certain they’re not local?”

A guess. An instinct. When I answer her, I speak slowly, feeling my way. “Remember that report we got from Hades two weeks ago? The one that came from Poseidon?”

“The one about Minos’s missing shipping containers?”

“The containers weren’t missing. Their contents, on the other hand, were.” Contents that Poseidon claims he doesn’t have any record of. I don’t know if I believe him, but Hades does, and he would know more than I would. He interacts with the Thirteen directly. I only have secondhand information. “Someone unloaded them before Poseidon could act on the information we got.”

“You think Triton had something to do with that?”

I hadn’t really thought it through. Like so many other things that come from Hades’s many meetings with his peers, it’s a problem for the upper city. So much of that shit never crosses the river to bother us, so I only focus in on the information I need to keep our people safe.

I’m only now starting to realize what a mistake that assumption is. Just because no one has tried to kill Hades in an attempt to take his title—an impossible task since the legacy titles among the Thirteen are familial and therefore exempt from that clause—doesn’t mean we are free from enemies in the lower city. Or enemies who will sneak across the river to sow fear.

That’s what the attack on the greenhouse feels like. The action of an enemy.

“I think we can’t take anything for granted,” I finally say. “Search the cameras again, with a wider net this time. If they’re not locals, someone has seen something. They’re entering the lower city somewhere, if not by the bridges. They’re moving around on the streets.”

“What if someone’s harboring them?”

Minthe has a way of speaking the things I’d rather not think about. It’s incredibly frustrating but makes her an excellent part of the team. “Then we deal with it. It’s a big job. Pull whoever you need for it.”

“Was already planning on it, boss.” She puts an ironic lilt on the last word. She might show a little more respect to Hades, but she and I have known each other too long to stand on ceremony. When we were teens and her parents were having a hard time accepting her identity, she moved into this big ass house with us. Her relationship with her parents has mended in the years since, but she never moved back out again.

A lot of people who work for Hades have similar stories. Minthe once joked that we’re like the Island of Misfit Toys, and she’s not wrong. Hades has a habit of collecting the desperate, the broken, and the hopeless. Then he gives us a home. Acceptance. Safety.

As a result, every one of us would die for him.