Chapter 1

CHAPTER1

MEDUSA

“Ineed you to do something for me.”

I fall into an easy stance, feet shoulder-width apart and hands clasped behind me out of sheer instinct. Athena doesn’t require as much formality as my old instructors, but old habits die hard. She sits behind her desk, as regal as a queen and seven times as deadly. She’s a beautiful Black woman with warm brown skin and an undercut, her dark curls perfectly styled. Today her customary suit is a lovely cream color that would make me look like a child playing dress-up.

On Athena, it’s perfect.

If she wasn’t my commander, her beauty and perfection would make me trip over my feet and act like a bumbling teenager, but Athena doesn’t suffer fools lightly and I am not foolish enough to harbor a schoolyard crush on one of the thirteen most powerful people in Olympus. Most days.

“Whatever you need.”

She leans forward and arches a brow at me. We’ve known each other long enough, that her gaze doesn’t linger on the scars that mar my face. “Sit, Medusa. This isn’t a dressing down. I have a mission for you, and I require the utmost secrecy.”

Disappointment sours my stomach, and I fight to keep my expression even. I don’t know what I expected. That Athena would call me in here one day and just want to chat? Ask me how my day’s going? That’s not who she is. That’s not the role I play for her. There are times when I wish it were different, especially lately, but I owe Athena everything. She says jump, I ask how high.

I gingerly sink into the chair across from her desk. It’s sturdy and not what I would consider doll furniture, but my body still feels too big, too gangly, to occupy this space. What if I crush it? That would be just how my luck goes. Shift wrong, flex a little, and now I’ve broken Athena’s favorite chair.

It takes a whole lot of effort to drag my thoughts back into order. “What are the details?” I can guess the parameters. I’m not like the normal squads she has running the valiant tasks to keep Olympus safe. Achilles and Patroclus and Bellerophon are all practically heroes as far as the city is concerned. The only time people talk about me, it’s with fear. Like I’m the boogeyman hiding under their beds, ready to kill them with a single attack. Still, at least they only talk about me in whispers, instead of saying it to my face. I prefer it that way, even if being called a monster hurts.

No matter how true it is.

The limelight has only shone in my direction once, and that was more than enough. The fear from that time still has me waking in a cold sweat some nights. I dodged a bullet, and Athena is the only reason I didn’t spend years holed up in an apartment in the shipping district, unwilling mistress to the last Poseidon. He’s dead and gone now, his son having inherited the title, but the fear remains.

Better to be feared than desired. Better for me. Better for everyone.

She sighs and leans back. “The situation is not ideal. Two of the legacy families are at each other’s throats over a marital matter. Normally, this would be outside our jurisdiction and I’d be inclined to let them figure it out for themselves, but Zeus has requested I take care of things.” Her expression twists at that last bit, leaving me no illusions over the nature of the request. More like an order. Athena might be one of the Thirteen, the ruling body of Olympus, but Zeus is…Zeus.

“Okay,” I say slowly. I can guess where this is going, and the twisting in my stomach gets worse. My hands are hardly clean, and not likely to get cleaner as time goes on, but I don’t have the nifty ability to click off my emotions like some of Athena’s other people do. Instead, I add to my nightmare fuel and call it a fair deal.

Better than the other option.

“The husband, Odysseus, has a mistress and he’s not being subtle about her existence. His wife is furious, both the families are embarrassed and sniping at each other, and it’s only a matter of time before she poisons his soup or her mother tries to run him over with a car.”

I blink. I have never understood the upper tier families who all scramble for whatever powerful cast-offs they can grab from their proximity to the Thirteen. What’s the point of all that effort with no payoff? There’s only a changeover of title once a generation, give or take, so it all seems so pointless. “Why doesn’t he just dump the mistress?”

“His pride is all riled up and so he won’t end the relationship even though he doesn’t want to deal with the consequences. You’d understand if you met him.” Athena sighs. “Zeus wants her gone in the permanent sense, and quickly.” She slides a manila folder across the desk to me.

Nausea surges as I pick it up, but I swallow down the feeling. Inside the folder, I find a piece of paper with a name and address on it; a key; and a picture. I put the picture back into the folder without looking at it. I don’t want to see the face of the person I’m being asked to remove, at least not while I have an audience. The address is close, a fancy apartment building right in the center of the Olympian upper city. Odysseus really is bold to have set her up here, right under his wife’s nose.

My gaze lingers on the name above the address. Calypso. Pretty name, no doubt for a pretty woman. She doesn’t deserve what’s about to happen to her, but sometimes the price of grabbing for power in Olympus is that you get violence and blood instead of prestige and jewels. It doesn’t seem worth the risk from where I’m sitting, but when I’m the one they send to cut down people who have reached too far, too fast, I guess I’m not the best person to make that call.

I toss the keys lightly in my hand. “Zeus moves fast to get keys to her place.”

“He didn’t provide them. Odysseus did.”

I almost drop the keys. “Excuse me?”

“Like I said, his pride isn’t allowing him to admit he’s wrong, but he wants this problem taken care of as much as everyone else.” Athena makes a face. “I realize how this looks and it’s not ideal, but Zeus has given his command and we all dance to his tune. There’s nothing to be done about it.”

There’s nothing to be done about it.

She managed to step in when the last Poseidon wanted to treat me like an object to be claimed, but he hadn’t wanted me dead, and once Athena claimed me as her own, he hadn’t dared cross her. But Zeus is not Poseidon for all that they’re two of only three legacy titles among the Thirteen. No one fucks with Zeus when he gets his mind set on something. Not even Athena.

“He’s a coward.” I don’t mean to speak, but the words burst free all the same. “He’s the married one. Why is murder more acceptable than admitting he was wrong and ending the relationship?”

“That’s not our concern,” Athena says firmly. “We do what we have to in order to protect the peaceful balance of Olympus. Sometimes that means doing things that are…” She looks away. “It’s not ideal, and I realize that, but we don’t have another option. Zeus wants what he wants, and if we don’t give it to him, two pissy families will be the least of our worries. Calypso needs to be removed to maintain that peaceful balance.”

Peaceful balance.

Funny, but the so-called peace only seems to apply to those with money and power.

That, I manage to keep internal. Ultimately, my thoughts about this order don’t matter at all. I don’t hold power in this city. I’m just an instrument of the powerful; namely, Athena.

And, right now, she’s telling me to jump.

I stand and slide the keys into my pocket. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Thank you. It’s best to make it look like an accident if at all possible. The woman has no family to speak of, but Odysseus has been public with the affair and if it gets out she was the victim of a violent end, people will ask uncomfortable questions.”

Gods forbid someone ask questions.

I smooth out my expression and turn for the door. “I’ll see it done.” Even though I know better, part of me wants Athena to call me back and say we’ll find a different way. She won’t. She’s made the call and she’s not one to second-guess herself.

No, the weak one in this scenario is me.

It’s late enough that I don’t see anyone as I leave the building and stride down the street, my long legs eating up the distance. It’s tempting to go home, to sleep on this, but ultimately I have no choice. If I don’t obey, then I’ll be the one seeing consequences, and Athena will just send someone else to remove the mistress. My chest tries to close at the thought, a sensation as familiar as my own heartbeat.

I don’t have a choice. I never have a choice. A small price to pay for my life, but it’s easy enough for me to say that. It’s not me who’s paying the price this time.

At least I can ensure its painless. A small comfort, that, but better than nothing. All too many accidents are violent in nature. Another of my…coworkers…might shove her out of her high-rise apartment or send her through a glass shower with some conveniently located cuts to allow her to bleed out on her bathroom floor.

Pills, I decide. Not an accident, but a suicide. A deep sleep that she’ll never wake up from. It’s the kindest way to go.

With that in mind, I take a quick detour to the closest of Athena’s safe houses. We have them scattered about the city, designed to be a perfect hiding place if we need to disappear for a short while or the perfect, fully-stocked location to duck into if we need something for a job. Weapons and medical gear and a few bedrooms to crash in.

This one is blessedly empty. Thank the gods. I’m not sure what my face is doing, and I can’t keep my doubt from surfacing. From the truth from surfacing. This woman doesn’t deserve to die for sleeping with a married man. As best I can tell, it’s practically a sport in the city among the upper crust. They play political games in and out of the bedroom and no one raises any brows as long as they keep things pure and wholesome on the surface. Hypocrites, all of them. If Odysseus hadn’t been so stubborn about taking her out in public, it wouldn’t have come to this, and now she will pay the price instead of the person who rightly should.

She’s not married. He is.

“Not my call to make,” I mutter as I dig through the medical supplies until I come up with the proper pill bottle. I check and double check to ensure it’s the right medication. She won’t suffer. I’ll ensure that much.

Funny how that doesn’t make me feel even a little bit better.

I take the time to crush up enough pills to finish the job and then scrape all the powder back into the bottle. I slip it into the pocket of my pants and go dig through a closet until I come up with a mask. I already knew it wasn’t a social call when Athena summoned me, so I’m dressed for work in black tactical pants, boots, and a long-sleeved black fitted shirt. I pick up the black mask and pause. The mistress dies tonight. Wearing a mask hardly matters, nor does whether the woman sees me, because it’s not like she’ll live to talk about the fact that one of Athena’s people showed up to murder her.

Still…

I shove the mask into my pocket and survey the space. I’m forgetting something… “The cameras!” I’m sure Athena will squash whatever investigation Ares wants to form, and I bet there will be pressure from both families to keep things quiet, but there’s no reason to tempt fate.

I take a breath and dial Bellerophon. They don’t make me wait long before their low voice answers, “Bellerophon here.”

“I need a favor and it’s work related, but I can’t give details.”

They barely pause. “Of course, Medusa. What can I do for you?”

I rattle off the address of the mistress’s building. “I need the cameras in the parking garage, stairs, and thirtieth floor on a loop for a few hours tonight.” It shouldn’t take long to deal with this, but better safe than sorry.

“Give me a moment.” Movement on their end and then the soft sound of typing. “That security system is one we have a back door into, so that’s not a problem. Do you want a loop or simply want the footage erased?”

I worry my bottom lip. That’s a good question. Missing footage is convenient in that there’s no worry that it’ll be recovered and it’s unlikely the in-house security will realize there’s a problem until they go to search it up and find it gone. A loop is slightly riskier because there’s a small chance someone might notice, but it covers my tracks more effectively. “A loop, please.”

“Got it.” They hesitate. “I’m off through the weekend. I’m more than happy to play backup to whatever Athena has you doing.”

It’s tempting to say yes. So incredibly tempting. I like Bellerophon quite a bit. They’re quiet and competent and they never make me feel like the monster I’m certain I am most of the time. They also don’t treat my scars as either something horrific to stare at, or something to pretend doesn’t exist. The scars are just part of me, and they don’t see a reason to comment on them. I don’t know that I’d call us friends, but I’m closer with them than most of my coworkers, if you can call the other people who follow Athena’s darker orders coworkers. “I appreciate the offer, but this is a lone wolf kind of situation.”

“Got it.” Some more typing. “If you change your mind, let me know. The loop begins in fifteen minutes.”

“Thanks, Bell.”

“Anytime.”

I hang up, unable to decide if I feel better or worse. It doesn’t matter. I know how I’ll feel after the night’s events come to a conclusion.

Like the monster I am.