Page 91 of Hades

He’d asked her to meet his father today, and she’d said yes. And now he was sitting here telling us she might be his missing sister.

Fuck.

“I want to meet her,” Rykard said.

I looked at him. Studied him. Searched for any resemblance to the woman I was beginning to suspect might be his daughter. What I saw was the same grief Apollo carried, but older. Deeper. The kind that had settled into bone and become part of who he was. The kind that had hollowed him out from the inside and left him a shell of whatever he’d been before his daughter disappeared.

He’d lost a daughter.

His wife had killed herself over that loss.

And now he was sitting here, staring at the possibility that his daughter had been alive this whole time.

Living two miles away.

Close enough to touch.

Close enough that he could have passed her on the street a hundred times and never known.

“I’m sure you do,” I said. “But wanting doesn’t mean shit to me.”

Rykard didn’t flinch. Didn’t get defensive. If anything, he looked like he respected the answer. Like he understood I was protecting something precious. Something that mattered more than his pain or Apollo’s pain or anyone else’s fucking pain.

Good.

He should.

Because that was what a father fucking did. They sacrificed their own happiness for their children. Gave up their own desires to make sure their children were safe and happy.

“I don’t want to scare her,” Rykard said. “I don’t want to walk up to her and start asking questions she can’t answer. I don’t want to hurt her.”

“Then don’t,” I said.

“I won’t.”

The words were simple. The vow underneath wasn’t.

I held his stare for another beat, then nodded. He meant it. Just like Apollo meant it. They weren’t going to hurt her. Weren’t going to force this on her. Wouldn’t take away her choices the way someone else had.

Which meant I didn’t have to hurt them.

Yet.

“Her mother,” Zeus said, dragging us back to the part none of us wanted to touch. “What do we know about her?”

“Not much,” I answered. “Rumor is, she never leaves her room, much less the house. I still haven’t met her.”

“Convenient,” Atlas said.

“Maybe,” I agreed. “Or maybe she’s just lazy and miserable like Lettie says.”

My eyes cut to Apollo.

“She treats Lettie like shit.”

Apollo’s fingers tightened on the wheels of his chair. Knuckles going white. Jaw clenching. “Yeah.”

“You know that how?” Zeus asked.