Page 4 of Hades

“You calling me a liar, motherfucker?” Zeus snarled back, his tone dangerous as I stood helpless, my anger building while I silently dared King to make the wrong move.

“You want to know who killed your father?” King asked, barely controlled rage pouring off him in hot, violent waves. “You want to know why his throat was slit? Why someone opened him up like a fucking sacrifice?”

Zeus slowly stood from his stool and turned to face King, staring down the barrel without flinching. “Give me a fucking name.”

“I did it,” Indie announced, sidling up next to King. A Silver Shadow prospect and old lady to Mimic, she was the only woman who’d stayed to fight. Small, fierce, and utterly unafraid. “I sliced his throat.”

Her words hung in the air like a death sentence.

Zeus’ eyes widened a fraction before narrowing on the prospect, his face contorting with pure, unadulterated fury. He turned his angry gaze back to King and snarled, “I want her head. I want to watch her bleed out on this goddamn floor.”

“That’s never gonna fucking happen,” Mimic said. One of King’s enforcers and Zeus’ nephew we’d only recently learned about, the kid’s head was fucked up. He was unstable and dangerous in the way that didn’t allow for hesitation as he pointed his gun at his uncle without a second thought. “I’ll put a bullet in you myself.”

“Your father was Nemesis,” Indie said, her voice steady and unflinching. Like she was commenting on the fucking weather.

“Bullshit,” Zeus spat. “My father was Kronos.”

“She’s telling the truth, Zeus.” Cerberus, the VP of the Brotherhood of Bastards, stepped out of the shadows like the three-headed dog guarding the gates of hell.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Morpheus, the president of the Brotherhood of Bastards, demanded, his voice booming throughout the room.

“King, maybe we should talk in church?” Cerberus suggested.

“No.”

King never took his eyes, or his gun, off Zeus. His chest heaved as his nostrils flared. He was a bull ready to charge, ready to gore, ready to kill.

I quickly glanced at Poseidon, who shook his head, the movement almost imperceptible. He didn’t know any more than I did. We were all in the dark here, stumbling through the underworld without a guide.

“Lucas Cooper was a Bastard. His road name was Nemesis,” Cerberus told the volatile group, each word dropping like a bomb.

“When?” Morpheus growled, his face darkening as rage built like a storm.

“He left in 1980. You and Gabby were only eleven.”

“My father was only fifteen fucking years old in 1980, asshole,” Zeus seethed, his hands clenching into fists, knuckles white with the effort of not reaching for his gun.

“Your father is my age. He was born in 1960.” Cerberus’ voice was matter-of-fact, clinical. Like he was reading a fucking obituary.

The sound of a pin dropping would have rivaled a gunshot in the silence that followed. The room felt suffocating, as if the walls were closing in on us, pressing down and stealing the air from our lungs.

It wasn’t possible. Kronos was only twenty years old when Zeus was born. That was what we’d been told, what we all believed, what we’d built our entire fucking understanding on.

Zeus looked at me, and I watched his world shatter. Every doubt I’d had about why my father didn’t want us telling Rhea the truth came slamming back like a freight train. Brutal and unstoppable.

“Kronos didn’t have the brand,” Atlas argued, lowering his gun, his voice uncertain.

“He did,” Cerberus countered. “If you couldn’t see it, it’s because he had it blacked out or covered up.”

I closed my eyes as the image flashed in my mind, clear as day and damning as hell. Kronos’ left pec and shoulder were tattooed solid black, a dark void covering up what he’d called a “drunken mistake.” A woman’s face on his chest. He’d claimed he blacked it over the day he met Rhea, covering up his past for his future.

That fucking bastard.

That lying piece of shit.

I searched for Asclepius. He stood in the corner, head bowed and eyes on the floor, refusing to meet anyone’s gaze. Guilt written all over his fucking face.

“Asclepius!” I shouted, my voice echoing off the walls.