Page 117 of Hades

Lettie went still again.

So still.

Then slowly. Carefully. She leaned into my palm.

My heart broke for her a little.

Maybe more than a little.

“I don’t know what your mother taught you love is,” I said quietly. “But if it makes you small, if it keeps you afraid, if it asks you to disappear so someone else can feel important... that isn’t love.”

Her eyes glistened.

“Rhea—”

“Brock won’t ask you to disappear.”

She swallowed hard.

“He’ll probably ask too much. Push too hard. Hover until you threaten to poison him.”

A watery laugh escaped her.

I smiled. “But he won’t make you small. He won’t pull you out of the darkness, Lettie. He’ll stand in it with you.”

She didn’t respond. But the look in her eyes told me she understood I knew the truth. Zeus had told me about the people who were dying. The club hadn’t put it together yet. And I wouldn’t tell them. I wouldn’t give away her secrets.

I only wished Lucas were still alive. After everything I’d learned. Everything he’d done. Then Lettie could have shown me exactly how a man like him deserved to be brought to his knees.

What Indie had done had been too quick. Too merciful for a man like Kronos. If ever a man had deserved to suffer, it was him.

I dropped my hand and stepped back before I did something foolish like pull her into my arms and give her the kind of motherly comfort she looked like she’d been waiting for her entire life.

Maybe one day.

Not today.

Today, she needed to be able to breathe after I left.

Cerberus walked me to my car like a silent escort. I paused before getting in and looked back at the house. Lettie stood on the porch, one hand wrapped around the post. Golden hair moving in the breeze. Gardens blooming behind her.

For the first time since Lucas died, I felt something beneath the grief.

Not peace.

Not yet.

But the beginning of myself.

I got into the car, started the engine, and drove away from Lettie’s quiet little house with tears in my eyes and my spine a little straighter than it had been when I arrived.

I was not Lucas Cooper’s wife anymore.

I was once again Gabriella Amelia Baudelaire.

And I was going to find out what that meant.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR