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“Your home is beautiful.”
“Thank you,” Three said. “Though not quite worthy of someone as precious as you.”
Whoa, boy, with a simple smile, she raised her glass in acceptance. “Thank you.”
Though if he didn’t wantherto draw his blood, he should hit the brakes.
“I was pleased to hear that you were here,” he said, settling back in his seat, his arm draped on the wide arm, the globe of his wine glass resting in his curved fingers. “Surprised but pleased. Ares tracked you down, is that right?”
“Yes,” she said, wondering who’d fed Hugo his information. A stranger knowing so much was unsettling. “Have you been in contact with your… associates?”
“The Six?” he asked, his brows rising. “I understand Two and Five are no longer with us.” He cleared his throat. “We will have to probe into their replacements.”
That surprised her. “So soon?”
He smiled. “It’s been over a year since the Exodus,” he said. “Olympus is very hierarchical. You must have noticed.”
“And I suppose with Two gone, you’ve been bumped up a slot.”
“Indeed,” he said. “One and I have been in contact. We’re trying to hold things together.”
“Which can’t be easy,” she said, loosening, appreciating being treated as an equal. “What is the situation with Six?”
“Ah,” Hugo said, raising his glass to drink. Swilling the wine in his mouth, he enjoyed the taste before swallowing. “Lowell has put all of us in a difficult position.”
“Loyalty isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”
“No,” he said in agreement. “Zulu was a difficult operation for all of us. It was precarious from the beginning, Hades knew that.”
Zulu being the code name given to the plan to assassinate Zeus, the man at the top of Olympus. When Six, also known as Lowell apparently, broke ranks and revealed the plan to Zeus, everyone had taken cover fast. Hence the Exodus from the Olympus compound. Most of the Olympus men were still unaccounted for.
“If he’s going to continue with the organization, trust will be hard won.”
“Among Hades’ men?” he asked, then answered his own question. “Yes. Among all of us. And while Zeus is still out there, the threat to Olympus and what it represents still stands.”
Zeus was a dangerous man. She got he wouldn’t trust Harry’s subordinates, those who’d been privy to the plot anyway. Until that moment, she hadn’t appreciated how he represented a threat to the very fiber of what Olympus did.
Beyond destabilizing operations, he probably had evidence that the organization itself existed. Exposing it to the media, to other authorities, would lead to trouble for a lot of people… and, for all she knew, could lead to jail or execution for those involved. Daire told her Olympus did what other agencies couldn’t. That might include murder.
“Is there a plan?” she asked. “For how to deal with that threat?”
“Perhaps the beginnings of one,” he said, swirling his wine in the glass. “There are opinions on how we should deal with it. So long as Zeus remains in Europe, we have some breathing space on our side of the Atlantic. We’re not naïve enough to assume he couldn’t eliminate us if he wanted to. His contacts are widespread and they’re not squeamish… So I understand your father’s need to keep you safe.”
Her father didn’t need her to be safe as much as Daire did. Her trust in the sincerity of his feelings was absolute, which was saying something, considering he’d lied to her for most of their association.
“I have to be honest,” Tess said, sliding back in her chair a little. “I’m more worried about what’s being missed while all of this is going on.”
On a nod, he smiled. “You’re not the only one.”
That was Daire’s issue, and he wasn’t wrong.
“Setting up again could be dangerous. Any replacements for Two and Five will take time to get up to speed. And you have to be mindful of Six’s loyalty.”
“And most of Harry’s men are still in the wind,” he said, gesturing toward the house with his glass. “They can’t stay here forever either. You know we talked about chipping all of them, more than once.” He shook his head. “Would’ve made things a lot easier.”
“Chipping them,” she said. “Like with GPS?” Hugo shrugged. “That would make it easier to gather them together… which I’m guessing was exactly the problem.”
“It sounds cold, but men are replaceable. If we were talking one or two, there wouldn’t be a problem. But you’re right, it would help us track them, and we’d be able to get back to operations faster.”
