Page 2 of Hades

Bound by pain and loyalty.

One more time, I placed my blood-covered hand on my brother’s shoulder, feeling the tremor run through him, the barely contained violence and grief warring inside him.

We didn’t need words—not between us. I sat by his side as he silently said goodbye to the man who’d meant the world to us. A man who was so big, so loud, so fucking alive that I couldn’t shake the feeling I was caught in a nightmare, waiting to wake up and find this was all some fucked-up dream.

The others hovered a few feet away, ready to honor their former president the only way they could. By getting him the fuck out of here before the law showed up.

Zeus finally nodded. He wiped the hair from his father’s face with shaking fingers, smearing blood across Kronos’ forehead, and leaned down to kiss him goodbye. When he looked up at Poseidon, his eyes were hollow. Empty in a way that made my chest tighten. “He’d kick my ass if he saw me crying like a bitch over his death.”

No one said a word. No one pointed out that grieving the father you worshiped your whole life didn’t make you weak. But Zeus was right. Kronos wouldn’t want us wasting time on emotion when there was still work to do, still blood to spill, still vengeance to claim.

Poseidon and Ares stepped forward and crouched down beside us. I nodded to Kraken to grab Hercules, and the four of them waited for direction, patient as pallbearers.

“Zeus.”

“No.”

“It’s time, Zeus.”

“I said no, goddamn it.”

“Brother, we know you’re hurting. We’re all fucking hurting. But we need to prepare him for transport. We need to take him home.” My voice was steady, the voice of someone who’d guided too many souls to their final rest.

“How, Brock? How the fuck do I let him go? How do I say goodbye?” Zeus looked at me, his eyes red-rimmed and swollen, tears cutting tracks through the blood splatter on his face. “How the fuck do I tell my mother?”

“We’ll do it together, brother.” I gripped his shoulder harder. “I’ll walk through hell with you. You know that.”

“Whoever killed him better be fucking dead already,” Zeus vowed, his voice turning cold, hard. The kind of cold that promised violence and pain.

“If not, we’ll bury him ourselves,” I assured him, and I meant it. I’d drag the killer down to the underworld myself and make sure they never saw daylight again.

I nodded to our brothers. A tarp lay on the ground, and I watched as they carefully picked up Kronos and gently laid him on it. The plastic crinkled obscenely loud in the heavy silence. Together they lifted him, grunting with the effort, and carried him out the door to a vehicle waiting to take him to the funeral home where he’d be prepared for the journey home to Texas.

Nebraska wouldn’t be his final resting place. Our dead, our heroes, deserved to go home.

I wrapped my arm around Zeus’ shoulders as he cried silently, his body shaking with suppressed sobs while his men carried his father away. “We’ll find out what happened, Kane. I promise you that.”

And I would. Because I understood the underworld better than most. I knew how to dig up secrets others wanted buried. I’d find the truth, even if it destroyed us all.

Hours later, the clubhouse was mostly empty, the bodies of the men who thought they could take what wasn’t theirs hauled away. I gathered my brothers to assess their injuries, cataloguing the damage.

Someone had shot Eros in the gut outside. Hydros had gone in the ambulance with him to watch over him at the hospital, making sure no one asked too many questions. Apollo took a bullet in the back, the round lodging near his spine. Perseus had gone with him, his face pale with worry.

The others had minor wounds. A few gunshots, knife wounds, and broken bones that Asclepius handled with the efficiency of a field medic. He worked in silence, stitching flesh and setting bones while I sat and did nothing.

Well, if nothing meant keeping my president from losing his fucking shit and going on a killing spree. Which was still a distinct possibility. Zeus sat in the corner, staring at his blood-covered hands, his mind somewhere dark and distant.

Later in the day, when I finally had a moment to myself, I stepped outside into the warm air and called Hermes, our road captain. I filled him in on what happened, keeping my voice low and controlled.

Then I called my father.

“Brock? How bad is it?”

“It’s bad, Dad. Eros and Apollo are both in the hospital, in surgery. Perseus and Hydros are with them.”

“Any deaths?” My father barely muttered the words, almost as if he already knew the answer and was bracing himself for the worst.

“I’m sorry, Dad. Kronos is gone.”