Page 176 of Hades

So I waited.

“You want to know why you’re here?” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Because you’re the weakness. The soft spot. The thing that makes the Gods of Mayhem stupid.”

I said nothing. Just looked at him with wide, frightened eyes while my mind worked.

“I’ve been planning this for months,” Zander continued, his voice going conversational now, like we were discussing the weather. “But I’ve been here for years. Meeting with Kronos. Using your mother like she was a fucking tool in my hand. She was so eager to please, so desperate to keep you locked down tight. And it worked beautifully. Until this year.”

He stopped pacing and looked at me like I was a puzzle he’d already solved.

“Until Kronos died. Until you became something the Gods of Mayhem actually give a shit about. Suddenly you’re not just the girl with the garden. You’re the old lady of their vice president. You matter to them now. And that...” He smiled. “That changes everything. That’s power, Violet. Real power. Not the kind that comes from a patch or a gavel or a vote. The kind that comes from knowing exactly what will break a man and having the balls to use it.”

I let a tear slide down my cheek. “I don’t... I don’t understand.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” His smile turned cold. Empty. “You’re just a bitch who sells herbs and fucks a biker. You don’t understand what it takes to build something. To inherit a legacy. To carry on work that matters.”

I made my voice smaller. Softer. “What work?”

His smile widened.

And then he started talking.

“You know what the problem is with this world?” Zander stood and started pacing again. “People get in the fucking way. They take things that don’t belong to them. They ruin carefully laid plans because they think they know better.”

I watched him move. His left leg dragged slightly. He shifted his weight to the right when he turned. Something old. Something that still hurt.

“Reaper took Remi from me,” he said, his voice rising. “That little bitch was supposed to be mine. My father promised her to me. A gift. A reward for loyalty. Well trained on how to please a man. But Reaper, that prick, decided to come back from the fucking dead.”

His hands clenched into fists.

“And Bane. Fucking Bane took Diana. She was supposed to stay locked up. Supposed to rot in that asylum where she couldn’t cause problems. Where she couldn’t tell anyone what she knew. She was leverage, too. Insurance. As long as she was confined, Kronos stayed compliant. Stayed focused. But Bane fucking found her. Rescued her. And suddenly the system wasn’t as airtight anymore.”

Diana. Zeus’ twin sister, Rhea’s daughter. Mimic and Kytten’s mother. It was all true, everything she’d shared with me.

Ten years locked away from her children, her husband. From her family.

“My own father,” Zander spat, “had a plan for that kid. An infiltration. Someone to burrow into the Silver Shadows from the inside. Mimic was supposed to be the tool that did it. But the little fuck grew a conscience. Refused his role. Decided loyalty to some pussy biker club mattered more than what he was groomed to do. Decided a woman mattered more.”

His jaw clenched.

“I told my father it wouldn’t work. I warned him from the very beginning, but he wouldn’t listen. He was too stubborn, too set in his ways. The kid wasn’t broken enough. My father thought because he won one fucking battle with me, the kid was ready.”

I didn’t dare move, didn’t draw attention to myself. So I just sat there listening, taking it all in.

“That bitch he’s with now—Indie. She killed Meredith. Killed Kronos. Destroyed the bloodline that built this empire. And they’ll both pay for that. For refusing the purpose they were given.”

I kept my face neutral. Sympathetic. Like I was listening to a man share his pain instead of confessing to decades of planned atrocities.

“And Montana.” His voice dropped to something venomous. “My older brother. The heir. The golden fucking child who was supposed to lead the Soulless Sinners into greatness.”

He turned to face me fully.

“You know what Montana’s problem was? He didn’t have the balls to do what needed to be done. He talked about honor. About protecting the club. About keeping the legacy alive. But when it came time to actually get his hands dirty, to do the work that mattered, he fucking folded like the pussy he is.”

Zander moved closer. I could see the rage in his eyes now, years of resentment crystallizing into something sharp and deadly.

“I was my father’s legacy,” he said quietly. “Not Montana. Me.” His hand slapped against his chest, and I flinched. “I was the one who understood what George built. What he inherited. What he was trying to pass on.” Zander stood, tossed the chair aside, and resumed his pacing.

“Devlin Scott and my father didn’t just commit crimes, Violet. They built a system. A machine designed to grind up women and children and turn them into profit. Into power. Into leverage.”