Page 159 of Hades

And I wasn’t ready to let her go.

Not to them.

Not to anyone.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Rykard

The festival smelled like fried dough and caramel apples and too many fucking people packed into too small a space.

I pushed Apollo’s wheelchair through the crowd with practiced efficiency. One hand on each grip. Eyes scanning. Always scanning. Looking for threats. Looking for exits. Looking for the golden-haired woman Apollo swore was his sister.

I didn’t want to hope.

Hope was a weapon people used to destroy you from the inside out. It made you vulnerable. Made you stupid. Made you believe in things that couldn’t possibly be true after twenty-three years of searching and finding nothing but dead ends and false leads and women who looked almost right but weren’t.

Apollo had been obsessed with finding Colette since the day she disappeared. Since someone walked into our house and took her from her crib while we were all sleeping. Since the day our world fractured into before and after.

I’d searched too. For years. Decades. But I’d learned to compartmentalize. To function. To accept that she was probably dead and we’d never know what happened.

Apollo never accepted it.

He carried that loss like an open wound. Let it bleed into everything. Every woman he met. Every child he saw. Every fucking birthday that passed without her.

And now he thought he’d found her.

Violet Foster. Lettie. Twenty-five years old. Living two miles from the clubhouse. Golden hair. Soft features. The right age.

It could have been her.

Or it could have been another dead end that would destroy what was left of my son’s sanity.

“There,” Apollo said quietly, his voice tight with something I didn’t want to name. “Booth seventeen.”

I followed his gaze.

The booth was busy, crowded with customers examining jars and bottles and bundles of dried herbs. A hand-painted sign read Persephone’s Garden in elegant script. Professional. Well-organized. The kind of setup that took years to build.

And behind the counter stood a woman.

Golden hair pulled back in a loose braid. Soft gray sweater and a long flowing skirt. She moved with quiet efficiency, answering questions and wrapping products and smiling at customers with genuine warmth.

Beautiful.

That was my first thought.

My second thought was more tactical. She was comfortable here. In her element. This was her territory, and she knew every inch of it. The way she positioned herself. The way she tracked movement in the crowd even while focused on a customer. The way her body language shifted subtly depending on who approached.

She was always assessing. Always calculating.

Just like Apollo’s mother used to do.

Fuck.

I felt Apollo tense in the wheelchair. Felt his breathing change. Becoming shallow and quick, like he was trying not to hyperventilate.

“You’ve already met her,” I said quietly, keeping my voice level. “Apollo. Look at me.”