“Alex,” Zeus said, his voice calm and measured. “Have a seat.”
It wasn’t a request. I moved to the empty chair across from him. My legs felt steadier than they should have as I sat down and folded my hands on the table before I met his gaze.
“Thank you for coming,” he continued, like I had a fucking choice. “I know you’ve been through a lot recently. Poseidon mentioned you had a rough time up in Rapid City.”
“That’s right,” I said evenly.
“Bad breakup, he said.”
“Yes.”
Zeus nodded slowly, his fingers drumming once on the table. “Must have been pretty bad for you to come all the way back here after four years.”
There it was. The first jab.
The reminder that I abandoned them, abandoned Oscar, abandoned the only family I had ever known. “It was,” I replied simply.
“Want to tell us about it?”
No.“Not really,” I said, forcing a small, self-deprecating smile. “It’s embarrassing, honestly. I thought I knew him. Thought we had something real. Turns out I was wrong.”
“What was his name?” Hades asked, his voice a low rumble.
“Does it matter?”
“Humor me.”
I hesitated for just a fraction of a second. Long enough to look like I was reluctant to share, not long enough to look like I was lying.
“Derek,” I said. “Derek Walsh.”
It was a name I pulled from a random obituary I read online last week. A man who died three years ago in a car accident in Montana. No family. No connections. No way for them to verify.
“And what did Derek do for a living?” Atlas asked.
“Construction. He worked on commercial buildings.”
“In Rapid City?”
“And the surrounding area. He traveled a lot for work.”
“Is that why you broke up?” Adonis asked as his pen moved across the notebook. “Because he was gone all the time?”
“No.” I shifted in my seat, letting the discomfort show on my face. “He cheated. I found out and left.”
“Just like that?” Aries leaned forward, his scarred hands clasped together. “You didn’t try to work it out?”
“There was nothing to work out. He fucked someone else. I wasn’t going to stick around and play the forgiving girlfriend.”
A few of the men nodded, like what I said made sense. Like they respected that.
But Zeus wasn’t nodding. He was watching me with those sharp, assessing eyes, and I knew that he didn’t believe a word I was saying.
“How long were you in Rapid City?” he asked.
“About a year or so.”
“And before that?”
