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“God damn right ye do. And ye need to apologize to Persephone too. She is the one ye really hurt.”
“He will apologize,” Eros says. When Ares grumbles, Eros punches him in the arm. “Shut up, ye unbelievable sack of shit. I think ye’d better set aside a trust for Hades’ son, too.”
“It’s a girl.” I cross my arms. “And I think that’s a grand idea. How about ye start it with all yer earnings from the last job?”
Ares grimaces. “Yer killing me, Hades.”
“It’s better than actually killing ye, which was my first impulse.”
He throws his hands up. “Fine! Jaysus. Ye can have it. I was just trying to do what our father would have done. He would have taken any deal if it had offered him enough money.”
Glancing out over the landscape, I try to pull my thoughts together.
“I’ll say it, if ye need to hear in. Da was a fucking coward. Hearing Magda’s side of the story really brings that home. Ye shouldn’t try to be anything like him. We are better than our father ever was.”
Ares slides a glance at Eros. Eventually, he sighs. “Aye.”
Silence stretches between us for half a minute. Eros breaks it, giving me a hard look.
“So yer out. If ye’ll have no more to do with the arms dealing business, what comes next?”
I shrug and cast my gaze out, over the horizon.
“Being with Persephone will have its own share of challenges, I imagine. Neither of us is perfect. And trying to add a baby to the mix can only complicate matters.” I scrunch up my face. “I do love her, though.”
“Enough to make her a Lyon?” Eros asks.
I let out a bark of laughter. “Enough to do anything she wants. And I expect ye both to get with the fucking program. Or I will take the necessary steps to make sure that ye don’t make trouble for us ever again.”
“Ye can count me in.” Eros steps close and claps me on the back.
Ares looks at the ground but nods his head. “Aye. Same for me.”
He draws a small black velvet box out of his pocket and offers it to me. Pursing my lips, I take it, opening it to reveal a small diamond beset by emeralds in an antique ring. My eyebrows fly up and I look at Ares.
“For Persephone.” He squints, avoiding eye contact. “It was Ma’s. She left it at home when she fled. I found it and kept it, thinking that I would be the first one to need it.”
“It turns out that banging women in the bathrooms of bars doesn’t exactly earn ye a wife,” Eros says with a grin.
Ares punches him without looking and Eros lets out a sigh.
I examine the ring. It’s much nicer than the one I’d already bought. “You think that Penny would like it?”
“What the fuck do I know about what women like?” Ares snaps. “I just thought that maybe if ye were serious about making her yer wife, ye’d like Ma’s ring to do it with.”
“It’s touching, really,” Eros teases him.
“Shut the fuck up.”
Closing the ring box with a snap, I give Ares a long look. He avoids my gaze and looks off into the distance, brooding.
Raising the ring box at him, I shake it in his direction. “This doesn’t make us even, ye know. Not even close.”
He shrugs a shoulder. I stare him down for a few more beats before I tuck the box in my pocket.
“Thanks,” I say. “I think Penny will like it.”
“Whatever.” He acts nonchalant, but I can tell that there is the undercurrent of strong emotion there. “Don’t tell her it’s from me, maybe.”
