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“Is that how you say hello to your oldest friend?” Zeus said with a hearty dose of smug pride.
“I don’t give a shit about you,” Harry said, pointing at the screen. “You shouldn’t say a fucking word.” His focus swung to Hugo. “You fuck, you’ve been planning this all along.”
“It wasn’t his plan,” Zeus said.
He liked to hold court. The only one standing on their side of the ocean, and in a central spot too. He projected his voice, betraying he enjoyed being in control.
“No shit,” Harry said, shaking his head. “This has you written all over it. That fuck is too weak to take a piss without your permission.”
“Perhaps,” Zeus said. “Doesn’t mean he was wrong.”
When something touched her hair, she recoiled, ripping her focus from Daire to whirl around. Zeus’s fingertips receded. Closing her mouth, she inhaled rage through her nose. He didn’t have any right to touch her, anywhere, ever, but especially not in front of her father… not in front of Daire.
“You want my compliance, you keep your hands off,” she hissed under her breath.
If her father heard, whatever. If Daire heard… He wouldn’t like anyone’s hands anywhere near her. Much like she didn’t enjoy being on the wrong side of the Atlantic powerless to help or support him.
“What do you want?” Harry snapped. “Murder? Suicide? Money?”
“Now you see why they hired me for the big picture,” Zeus muttered with enough of a snicker to boost her annoyance.
Folding her arms, she didn’t want to make the fraught situation any worse with an outburst. On the screen, Daire’s hands curled over the back of the chair in front of him. He squeezed and released, squeezed and released, each time his knuckles going whiter for just a little longer.
Her Heart. Losing her would mean grief. Harry vented his emotion with anger. Her Heart was angry too. Silently he stood there seething. His frustration was palpable. The only way to ease it was to be at his side. Keeping quiet was hard on her. It would be harder for him. She was in his eyeline, but he couldn’t protect her.
Her father opened his mouth to take a measured, calming breath, and then spoke with less fury. “What do you want?”
“Nothing,” Zeus said. “Through our associates, I understood you were concerned for your child. As you can see, she’s fine.”
Harry’s attention switched to her. “I want to hear that from my own daughter. Tess?”
“I’m fine,” she said because saying anything else would enflame tensions further. “I’m rested. We’ve eaten. We’re in London—”
“He knows that,” Zeus said. “Garrick will have tracked the call to this very room… I have been patient and kind given the circumstances.”
“The circumstances,” Harry sneered. “You kidnapped my daughter… again.”
“She got on the plane willingly.”
“Without knowing where it was going,” she said. “I played along.” Using Daire’s words was deliberate. “Hugo also told me you were aware of our plans.”
“I wasn’t,” Harry said, glaring at Hugo. “Tell me why I shouldn’t rip your limbs off the minute I next lay eyes on you.”
“Because without him, Olympus will be further delayed… We have to put our past issues behind us and move forward.”
“While history repeats itself,” Harry said. “You took Tess before because you wanted something.”
“Your attention. Your commitment. I want both again.”
“So you keep her while I run your errands?” Harry said, shaking his head once. “No. We know exactly where you are. No reason we shouldn’t come over there and take her back ourselves.”
“Something I understand you and your protégé were planning as soon as you realized she was gone,” Zeus said.
She could believe it but didn’t like to think of the urgency they must have experienced as their concern grew to critical mass.
“You made a plan, so did they,” she said. Byron and Hugo were staying quiet. Docile wasn’t her nature. “You told me not to be hostile, I’d say what you did was hostile. If this is all for the good of Olympus, lay it out for them.”
“All in good time,” Zeus said.
