Page 27 of Hades

“Did you know any of that shit?”

“No, brother, I swear.”

“Pontus?”

“Fuck you, Jupiter,” Pontus snapped. My father should have known better than to question him. Pontus had one son, but he had four daughters. The youngest, Shelly, had disappeared when she was only seven years old.

The club searched for weeks, leaving no stone unturned, no house left standing. When they finally found her, it was too late. Not only had the bastard kidnapped her and killed her, but he’d ripped her apart. Brutalized her in ways that made grown men vomit when they saw the crime scene photos. Her mother, Sandra, never recovered.

She became a shadow of her former self. For years, Pontus had her watched, worried she’d try to kill herself. The one thing that kept her going was her grandchildren. She still wasn’t the same woman we knew as kids, but she was still here. Still breathing. Still fighting.

I looked over at Ares, my hand on my gun, watching to see what he’d do. How he’d react. Protecting my father was my main goal, even if it meant shooting a brother.

Ares looked me in the eye and shrugged.

CHAPTER NINE

Hades

“Dad, what the fuck did you do?”

Oceanus moaned from the floor. A wet, gurgling sound that said the bullet had punched through something vital, something leaking blood into places it shouldn’t be. My father lifted the gun to take aim again, ready to finish the job, ready to paint the floor with the old bastard’s brains. I shoved him hard against the wall and pinned him there, my forearm across his chest, staring into his eyes. Cold, calculating eyes that had taught me everything I knew about violence and control.

“What the fuck are you doing, Dad?”

“Either let me kill him, or do it yourself,” he said, his voice flat and emotionless. Like he was discussing the weather, not murder in the middle of church.

Asclepius knelt beside Oceanus, hands slick with blood as he tried to stem the bleeding. The others sat around the table, frozen and uncertain, waiting for someone to make a move. The air stank of gunpowder and copper and fear, thick enough to choke on.

“Someone want to fucking do something?” I shouted, my voice cracking through the silence like a whip.

I turned to Zeus. “I want to know what he said that triggered Jupiter,” my president said, his eyes locking on my father. Weighing every possibility, every angle, trying to piece together what the fuck had just happened.

“What?” I looked back at my father. His eyes were narrowed at Zeus. No remorse, no explanation, just that dead-eyed stare that made my stomach twist. I took my father’s gun and tucked it into the waistband at the back of my jeans, the metal still warm against my skin.

“He was spouting off and something he said triggered this shit. What was it?” Zeus asked, his voice hard, demanding answers my father clearly wasn’t going to give.

My father crossed his arms over his chest, refusing to answer. The room went deathly quiet as Zeus and my father stared each other down. Two alphas locked in a battle of wills, neither willing to break, neither willing to bend. A standoff likely to end in more bloodshed if someone didn’t step in.

The tension was suffocating. My chest felt tight, my breathing shallow. This was my father, the man who’d raised me, taught me, shaped me into the man I was. And he’d just shot a brother in cold blood without hesitation, without explanation.

What the fuck had Oceanus said?

“Poseidon, Ares, take Jupiter downstairs. Asclepius, as soon as Oceanus is stable, I want him downstairs too.”

“Zeus, what the fuck?!” I asked as Ares stepped toward my father. I moved in front of him, blocking Ares with my body, my hand instinctively going to my piece. “Don’t fucking touch him.”

“I’m not gonna hurt him, Hades,” Ares said, his voice calm, almost amused. “He did me a fucking favor.”

The words hit me like a punch to the gut. Ares, whose father had beaten the shit out of him for years, who’d finally fought back and put the old man in the hospital, was grateful my father had shot Oceanus.

What the fuck did that mean?

“Hades, let them do what they’re told,” my father said. He moved around me and walked out the door, followed by our two enforcers. Like he was heading to the bar for a beer instead of a cell.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” I shouted at Zeus, my hands clenched into fists, my nails digging into my palms hard enough to draw blood.

“Everyone out,” Zeus said, his voice cold and final. The voice of a president who’d made his decision and wouldn’t be swayed.