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“Tell him where the girl is!” He steps towards Eros, puffing his chest out aggressively. “It was yer fucking plan.”
“It’s not that simple. I gave her money and offered that she could leave. Where she went…” Eros shakes his head and shoots me a pleading glance. “Persephone decided to leave, Hades.”
My breathing grows ragged. My heart squeezes in my chest.
“She doesn’t get to decide to leave!” I bellow at my brother. “Where the fuck did she go? And where did ye just come from?”
Eros raises a hand to calm me. From a lifetime of dealing with his bullshit, I can say for certain that raised hands aren’t a good sign.
“Hades, let me explain,” he says. “I dinnae ken where Persephone has wandered off to?— “
Ares cuts in, talking over Eros.
“Shut up, ye fuckhead.” He points to the hotel room. “The money’s still here. All of it. And unless Persephone is a demolitions expert, she didn’t leave on her own. She was either taken or she had help in escaping.”
“The—” Eros’s eyebrows rise. His confusion is evident. “Why would she leave the money?”
My rage is hot and red and fast as lightning. I lash my gun out at his head too fast for him to protect himself. The gun connects with his skull and makes a satisfying soft crunch.
“Ye fucking idiot!” I rail at him. “Ye dinnae ken where she is? Ye want to know why she left the huge bag of cash ye gave her?” When I scream, specks of spittle fly out of my mouth. But I’m red-faced and beyond caring about that.
Eros doesn’t cower under my abuse. He merely weathers it, looking aggravated.
“Hades—” Ares says, trying to calm me down.
“What were ye two doing, offering Persephone cash? Were ye trying to get her to leave?”
Ares screws up his face and shrugs. Eros folds his arms across his chest and stares over my shoulder.
“We could tell that ye were becoming too attached to her. Persephone is damaged goods, physically and emotionally. She can’t just travel with us everywhere we go. She belongs in the States, with Constantine.”
I raise my gun, pointing it right in the middle of Eros’s face. I’ve been born and raised with guns, from childhood hunting rifles to slick M16’s during my military service. Trigger discipline has been drilled into me every step of the way. Even now, it’s hard to point my weapon at my brother.
And I know that I shouldn’t point a gun if I don’t mean to shoot.
But my finger rests on the trigger as I hold Eros in my sights. My head throbs. I can’t quite hear anyone or anything else because I have the distinct feeling that my ears are stuffed with wads of thick cotton. I glare at Eros, my heart and gut and rational mind all playing tug of war.
He took Persephone from me.
Maybe she wanted to leave. Still, he helped her.
If he were anyone but my brother, I would have killed him already.
But can I even trust Eros now?
Before I can make up my mind, a blur appears, physically tackling me. Ares grunts as we both go down to the ground hard, me underneath him. I release the trigger before my entire body crashes to the ground. Eros scrambles to knock the gun from my hand, his glare lethal.
“What the fuck, Hades?” Ares asks. “Calm down! We can find Persephone, okay?”
I shove him off of me, cringing as I start to get up. Eros offers me a hand, but I smack it away, trying to convey my feelings for him at this precise moment without saying a fucking word.
To put it tersely, I fucking loathe the bastard.
Ares gets to his feet, his head swiveling as he senses movement. Not a second later a car starts around the front of the little hotel.
A possible witness, fleeing the scene. No fucking way.
I don’t even have a weapon in my hand but I sprint toward the front in time to see a little rusty two-doored shitbox backing out with a squeal of tires. My brothers are right behind me.
