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“We have to monitor every party,” Zeus said, his words slow and deliberate. “This is not going to be an easy transition.”
Infuriation wasn’t far away. “Loyalties are strained, I know, you already told me…” Tess said. “You’re so quick to judge the men who worked beside you at Olympus. You seem to have forgotten that this directive, Operation Zulu, came from higher in the food chain…” She glanced from Byron to Hugo. “Isn’t that right? Hades didn’t go rogue and decide to obliterate Olympus for fun. It was his home too. It wasn’t something on the side for him like it is for the Six. Like it or not, my father respects the chain of command. Why would he put up with all he and Zeus went through, the decades of hostility and blackmail, only to turn on him after I was grown?”
Whether Harry let Zeus exploit his love for her mother, and whether that love included her, didn’t matter in that moment. These men believed Harry didn’t stand up to Zeus all those years because he feared for her safety. To consider assassination on his own would be madness and something he’d have done when she was a child if he intended to follow through.
“This is exactly why we need you,” Zeus said, approaching to sit at her side. “You can speak for your father while he is not here… but you’re sensible too, you see things from all sides.”
She might be able to see them from all sides, but that didn’t mean she understood or respected every side.
“Your cancer didn’t come from within the Olympusphere,” she said, “not at your home, it grew in those who fund your campaigns.”
“And we have eliminated the instigators.”
Two and Five were dead, she hadn’t forgotten. Just like Daire wanted to take down Six for betraying the mission, Zeus had taken action to eradicate the disease which threatened his life.
“What about Harry’s men?” she asked, since he’d brought up killing people. “How many of them are gone?”
“Only the five that came for me… that I know of.”
Five. That was a quarter. There were twenty men under her father, not including Daire and Styx, the boys he’d adopted and nurtured into adulthood. The trio didn’t share DNA but were still family.
“That you know of?” Tess asked. “You think others have come for you?”
“Others could be on their own missions to find me right now,” he said. “But I meant that I only know of five who are dead. Terrible fates can befall a man. Sometimes of their own making… sometimes by accident.”
Accident? Like her mother’s accident? Zeus couldn’t be responsible for that. Even if he had men under his authority, Olympus men or new recruits, they couldn’t have tracked their location. Daire was the only one capable; people kept stating that as fact. Also, if Zeus’s man was responsible for Anne’s death, the murderer would have known where she was too. Would’ve probably been able to track her and Daire on their road trips. Wouldn’t the tracker have come for her if his objective was to eliminate Harry’s family?
Zeus would know about her mother’s death. Somehow everyone knew. Was he playing on her paranoia? There were plenty of external threats to focus on, she didn’t need an internal one too.
“How long should we wait?” Byron asked. “Before reaching out again? A few days? A few weeks?”
The latter suggestion made her stomach drop.
“We’ll have to see how things go at this end first,” Zeus said, his interest hadn’t swayed from her. “And reports of how things are going on the other side of the ocean.”
Reports? Someone was feeding intel to Zeus. Knowing how Hugo had aligned himself, she wasn’t surprised he’d been reporting back to Zeus. But he wasn’t in his home anymore. None of the Six were.
Harry wasn’t the mole. He wouldn’t have been so mad if he knew this was coming. And, oh yeah, he couldn’t stand the guy sitting beside her. It wasn’t Daire either; he’d have told her if he was in contact with Zeus. That left Garrick and the five men who’d trained under her father. No appealing prospects.
“Well…” Byron said, drawing in a breath and pushing back in his seat. “We’re in it now.”
Yes, they were. Her included.
“Tess, you look tired,” Zeus said. “All of us should get some rest, take some time to reflect.”
Or they wanted to talk more and didn’t want her eavesdropping. Zeus pressed a button, which summoned a uniform guy, and instructed him to ensure her needs were met. If the trio were going to talk about her, they were going to do it one way or another. Choosing her battles would be critical if she wanted to survive her first European trip.
Playing along, she didn’t fight being excused and escorted back to her room. Being by herself was better than being around Zeus. She needed to make plans, to figure out how she was going to get through being Zeus’s reluctant houseguest.
For that moment, rather than stress or grieve, she chose to see the video call and potential future as a positive. She’d seen Daire, he was mad but safe and, at least for now, out of harm’s way.
The future that Zeus wanted to build was the same one her Heart wanted. Would they secure the future of Olympus, or would the situation be the end of them all?
SEVENTEEN
THE FOLLOWING DAY, when she woke, Tess was ready. Keen. Aware. The jetlag was wearing off, she was on top of her game.
Decisions had to be made. She needed to figure out how to embrace the situation and help Daire from thousands of miles away.
