Page 167 of Hades

Zander watched me. Not Mother. Me. His pleasant expression stayed in place, but his focus sharpened. I felt it the way I felt storms before rain fell, causing a change in pressure invisible to everyone else.

He was listening. Not to the truth. To the leverage. The thought slid through me cold and quick, then disappeared under the heavier weight of everything else.

Rykard spoke my name. Not Lettie. Not Violet. “Colette.” I looked at him. He looked destroyed.

“I don’t know what you need from me right now,” he said, his voice rough. “I don’t know how to make any of this easier. I can’t. But I’m not lying to you.”

Apollo’s voice cracked. “Neither am I.”

I looked at Apollo. At the man who had watched me with suspicion and longing and pain I hadn’t understood.

My brother.

Maybe.

No. Not maybe.

That was the part that terrified me most. I believed him. I believed all of them. But belief didn’t make it easier. It didn’t rebuild a life in one breath. It didn’t tell me who I was supposed to be now. It didn’t explain how to keep standing while every memory I owned turned uncertain.

I looked at Mother. Claire. The name sat in my mind like something poisonous. She shook her head slowly, tears on her cheeks now, but I knew those tears. I knew when they were real and when they were weapons. These were both.

“They’ll take you,” she whispered. “They’ll take you from me.”

I stared at her. “You took me first.”

The words left me before I knew they were coming. Silence fell so hard, even the festival seemed to dim. Mother’s face crumpled. For one second, I thought she might confess. Instead, she screamed.

“Liars!” People jumped. She pointed at Rykard. “You’re lying!” Then Apollo. “He’s lying!” Then Brock. “The club is lying! All of them! They want her! They want what’s mine!”

Brock’s hand left my waist for half a second. Not to release me, but to shift me behind him. I caught his wrist before he could move fully in front of me. “No,” I whispered. His eyes came down to mine. “I need to stand here.” He looked like he hated it, but he let me. Barely.

Mother saw that too. Her gaze darted from Brock’s face to his hand, to Rykard, to Apollo, to the brothers closing in around us. Panic kept cracking through her rage. She was losing control, and everyone watching could see it.

Zander stepped close to her side. “Carol, maybe you should sit.”

She grabbed his arm. “Don’t let them.”

“I’m not doing anything,” he said gently. But his eyes were on me. Still assessing. Still learning.

Mother leaned into him, her voice dropping into a trembling complaint. “She won’t listen to me anymore. She used to. Before him. Before them. They made her think she doesn’t need me.” The old guilt tried to rise. Brock’s fingers brushed mine. I held on to him instead.

Zander’s gaze dropped to our joined hands. There it was again. That slight sharpening. A piece sliding into place. Lettie matters. Not to Mother. To them. To Hades. To the club. To the grieving man who looked at her like she was a miracle with a knife buried in it. To the broken brother whose whole life had bent around losing her. I didn’t know how I knew Zander had realized it; I only did. His attention settled on me differently after that. Still polite. Still quiet. Still hidden behind the face of a man who had only come to buy lavender and comfort a woman he barely knew.

But I felt marked.

Brock did too. His body shifted closer, careful not enough to draw attention, but enough that his cut brushed my shoulder.

“Baby,” he said softly. I couldn’t answer. My name was gone. My mother was gone. My life still stood around me in baskets of soap and tea tins and handwritten labels, but none of it looked like mine anymore. Colette. Lettie. Violet. Daughter. Stolen. Found. I pressed one hand to my chest because I couldn’t tell if my heart was beating too fast or not at all.

Mother kept crying into Zander’s arm. Rykard stood in front of me, waiting for permission he had every right to want and no right to take. Apollo looked like he might shatter if I said the wrong thing. Brock stayed beside me, the only solid thing in a world that had turned liquid beneath my feet. And Zander watched. Quiet. Patient. Learning exactly where to cut.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Lettie

I didn’t remember letting go of Brock. That was the part I kept coming back to later. The small, impossible detail my mind circled like it could change the ending if it found the right place to bite. His hand had been there. Warm. Callused. Anchoring. His fingers had brushed mine, and I’d held on because the rest of the world had tilted too far to trust.

Then the shouting started. My mother’s voice rose above the festival, sharp and breaking. “Liars! All of you! You’re liars!” People pressed closer. Ares barked something at the crowd, and bodies shifted. Someone bumped the corner of my table hard enough to rattle the tea tins. A jar tipped. Lavender spilled across the striped cloth like dried purple blood. Mother sobbed into Zander’s arm, then twisted away from him and pointed at Rykard again, her face wet, ugly, and furious.