Page 178 of Hades

An old injury. Something chemical in his system. Rage that made him sloppy.

I filed it away. Every detail. Every word. Every weakness.

The door was metal. Locked from outside. But the hinges faced inward.

The workbench had tools. Twenty feet away. Too far with my hands tied. But if I could get free⁠—

Zander’s voice rose again. Something about Montana. About inheritance. About being owed.

I let myself shake. Let tears run down my face and drip onto my shirt.

Let him see exactly what he expected to see.

A terrified girl. A victim. A message waiting to be delivered.

Not a woman who’d been killing monsters since she was old enough to understand what wolfsbane could do.

Not someone who’d spent her entire life learning to survive by wearing whatever mask kept her alive long enough to strike back.

Not Lettie Foster, who’d looked at Brock’s darkness and chosen it. Who’d poisoned men for sport. Who’d learned that sometimes the only way to stop a predator was to become something worse.

Zander kept talking.

And I kept listening.

Kept watching.

Kept planning.

I kept waiting for the moment when his arrogance would give me the opening I needed.

Because Brock was coming.

And when he arrived, Zander would learn what happened when you mistook fear for weakness.

When you mistook softness for surrender.

When you took something that belonged to a man who’d burn the world to get it back.

The knife moved away from my face.

Zander stood.

Started pacing again.

And I breathed.

Shallow. Even. Controlled.

Ready.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Lettie

Zander paced. Back and forth. His left leg dragged slightly with each turn. The knife hung loose in his hand now, a forgotten prop he no longer needed because the girl in the chair was already broken. That was what he saw.

What he wanted to see.