Page 174 of Hades

“Yes.” I leaned closer. “So now you’re gonna make one good choice in your miserable fucking life and tell me where he’d take her.”

Her lips trembled. I watched the memory surface. “He hated the clubhouse,” she whispered. “Asked about it constantly. Asked if she went there. Asked who could get in. I told him she didn’t like crowds there. I told him she loved her gardens.”

My hand tightened on the leash until leather bit into my palm. “What about the gardens?”

“He asked if she had places to hide. I said no. I said Violet was too soft for hiding.”

Rykard made a broken, furious sound. He’d never heard that lie before, but I had. Soft. Harmless. Useful. Every word they’d used to miss the truth of her.

Hermes’ phone buzzed. He looked down. “Traffic cam caught the SUV eastbound on County Road 19.”

Zeus’ head snapped up. “Where does that lead?”

“Old farms. Abandoned properties. One Stone shell company owns a parcel off Mill Creek Road. Warehouse structure. Industrial. No active utilities except a private generator permit filed last year.”

Claire covered her mouth. “Mill Creek.”

I stood. Cerberus strained toward the road like he understood. Maybe he did.

Zeus turned. “Ares, Hermes, with Hades. Rykard, you stay with Apollo.”

“No,” Rykard said.

Zeus looked at him.

Rykard’s face was gray, but his voice held steel. “That’s my daughter.”

“And that’s your son,” Zeus said. “He can’t ride, and I’m not leaving him here with her.”

Apollo’s eyes burned. “Go.”

Rykard looked down at him.

Apollo’s voice broke as he looked up at me. “Bring her back.”

Rykard closed his eyes for one second, then nodded once. “Bring my baby home.”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. If I spoke, everything inside me would come pouring out wrong.

Zeus pointed at Claire. “Lock her down. Nobody touches her until I say.”

Rykard’s smile was terrifying. “That’ll be the hardest order I’ve ever followed.”

I handed Cerberus’ leash to Ares long enough to swing onto my bike. The dog tried to come with me, losing his mind when I moved away from him and toward the road.

“He can track at the property,” Zeus said. “Bring the truck behind the bikes.”

Ares hauled Cerberus toward the truck with a string of curses. Hermes was already on his bike. Brothers mounted up around us, engines cracking through the festival like thunder. People stared. Let them. Let Athens remember the day somebody took what belongs to the Gods of Mayhem.

I started my bike and looked once toward the booth. Lavender lay spilled across the table. Lettie’s chair sat empty. The striped cloth fluttered in the wind like nothing important had happened. But everything had. My woman was gone.

My Lettie.

My poison flower.

My soft-looking, sharp-edged, brave, broken, stolen woman who’d looked at me with three names cracking her apart and still tried to stand on her own feet. Dakota Stone took her because he thought she was leverage. He was wrong. Leverage was something you used to force another man’s hand. Lettie wasn’t leverage.

Zeus lifted two fingers. The bikes moved. We tore out of the festival and onto the road, engines screaming, Cerberus raging in the truck behind us, and every mile between me and Lettie became one more reason Dakota Stone wasn’t going to live long enough to regret touching her.