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Finally, I find a note handwritten in red.
“Call the estate lawyer. Give up everything. Leave, go back to work, back to your life. Leave the men you’ve manipulated and their inheritance behind, and no one will ever find out what you really are. If you stay, I will release these photos to every website and news outlet in this country. Your reputation as an untouchable ruthless ice queen will be shattered. Everyone will know you are nothing but a cock hungry slut who belongs on her knees serving men, not in a boardroom giving orders. You will still lose everything.”
Hot tears spill over my cheeks as I draw deep breaths, trying not to throw up all over the table.
“Baby girl, don’t be sad. We will figure this out.”
“Sad?” I laugh. My heart is thundering in my ears, my face and neck getting hot. “I am not sad. These are not tears of sadness. These are tears of rage. This is an act of fucking war. I don’t want to be comforted. I want to wage a battle, and I will rip this lying piece of shit apart limb by fucking limb. So help me god, I will have blood on my hands after this.” My palms sting from slapping them on the table hard enough that some of the papers go sliding off.
“What happened?” Heph asks as he and Perseus enter the room. One of the papers lands at Perseus’s feet. He picks it up, and the blood drains from his face.
I can’t hear the men talking for a few moments. The ringing in my ears is too loud. I need to focus, but my thoughts are racing, and I can’t make any of it stop. It’s getting harder to breathe, and a sharp pain is stabbing through my chest. I close my eyes and try to slow my breathing. I can’t kill Paris with my bare hands if I give myself a heart attack or let my emotions dictate my actions. My response needs to be carefully crafted, meticulously executed, perfectly targeted, and devastating.
If I act from a place of raw emotion, I can burn myself in the process.
I count to five in my head, inhaling then holding my breath for a few beats before I slowly exhale. I do this a few more times, letting my heart calm and the fog in my mind clear so I can focus. When I open my eyes, the others look as mad as I feel. Good.
“He wouldn’t do this,” Perseus says. “It’s an empty threat.”
“Is it worth the risk?” Heph asks. “Is the money and this house really worth the damage this could do to Athena? If this is let out, she loses all that anyway.”
“I don’t do ultimatums.” My voice is calm and in control. My emotions are raging just under the surface, but I have a lock on them. I won’t let rage control my decisions, but I have no problems with harnessing it to fuel my actions.
“What do you suggest?” Heph asks.
“We come up with a third option,” I say. “I am not giving up this house.” I look Perseus in the eye when I say that. Just because our feud has cooled doesn’t mean I am giving up, and he needs to be reminded of that.
He answers with a single nod.
“We need to figure out how to take the power from him,” I add.
“Like what, hacking his computer? The only one who could do that is Paris,” Eros says.
“We could call the kid back. He is a mouthy little fucker, but he is talented,” Heph suggests.
“No, it’s too risky. What if he has hard copies, or a backup drive, or the kid uses the photos. We need to make the photos worthless.”
“How the fuck do we do that?” Perseus asks.
A slow smile spreads over my face. “We change the narrative.”
Chapter
Forty-One
Perseus
Watching Athena on the warpath is the hottest thing I have ever seen. The initial shock wears off fast, and she becomes very still and focused. Like a snake about to strike. She refuses to play by Paris’s rules. It isn’t about inheritance anymore. It is about not letting other people make her choices for her.
“Do any of you know any reporters?” she asks. “I need someone with enough juice to get a story everywhere. My usual contacts are too risky for me. I don’t want my father getting involved, and he has ears everywhere.”
“Yes, but releasing this first won’t make it any less of a scandal,” Eros said. “You will still lose everything.”
“No, I wont. This trash”—she gestures towards the pile of papers—“is all slut-shaming nonsense. It may still be okay to trash women in the tabloids if it’s something dirty and secret. But if I own it, then it’s not shameful. It’s empowering. If we launch the story first, but frame it as a woman being the center of a consensual alternative relationship, then the tabloids won’t touch those pictures. It’s an invasion of privacy that is no longer salacious. There is no secret. Plus, I’ll throw a lot of money at it, the fear of the Godwin name, and get the reporters on my side.” She pauses for a moment. “That is, if you guys are okay with it.” She looks at me and Heph. “I don’t know if either of you are out or—”
