Page 48 of Hades

Despite everything, she was a good person, just in love with the wrong man. A man who wouldn’t give her the time of day. Until he did. Until he got drunk and angry and used her body to work out his frustrations. Now she was paying the price for that mistake.

“If it’s his kid, it is my fucking business.”

“Go fuck yourself, Brock.”

She shoulder-checked me as she pushed past and practically ran down the hallway, desperate to get away. I turned to Zeus, who was glaring at me like I’d personally wronged him.

“Don’t fucking glare at me. I didn’t get you into this shit.”

“You didn’t have to be an ass to her.”

My mouth dropped open. “Me? What the fuck did I do?” I asked. “How does she even know about the test? The lawyer only left a few hours ago. No way he had time to file the papers and have her served.”

“I told her.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Why are you so fucking stupid?”

He didn’t answer my question, knowing it was rhetorical because I already knew the answer. We both did. He let his fucking temper rule every fucking decision he made. He was just like his damn father. Kronos had been the same way. Quick to anger, slow to think. It was a miracle Zeus had kept the club running as long as he had without burning it to the ground.

“If you want to meet your kid, you need to play this smart and stop making these fucking rash decisions. Explain to me how you can run this club with diplomacy, precision, and common fucking sense, but you let one fucking woman get under your skin?”

Zeus closed his eyes, and it hit me like a fucking lightning bolt. The tension in his shoulders. The way his jaw clenched. The barely controlled rage simmering just beneath the surface.

“Oh my God, you still fucking want her.”

“I don’t want her. I want my son.”

I smiled. “You want to fuck her again, don’t you? Jesus Christ, Zeus. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

He stood up and walked around his desk, pausing to get in my face. Close enough that I could smell the whiskey on his breath. Close enough that I could see the lie in his eyes. “I don’t want to fuck her. I can’t stand the woman. I got drunk off my ass because my father pissed me off letting Aspen marry that piece of shit. She caught me at a weak moment. She was nothing but a fucking hole to get my dick wet and burn off some frustration.”

Liar.

Zeus walked out of his office, leaving me standing in the doorway, dumbstruck. He was a goddamn liar, and Regina Brooks had gotten under his skin. Burrowed deep. Made a home there whether he wanted to admit it or not. I followed him down the hall, giving him shit until we were outside. He’d just sat down on the porch when a flashy ass Ducati rolled up in the front yard.

A bike we all fucking recognized. She pulled off her helmet, shaking out her black hair, and I narrowed my eyes, not believing what I was seeing. Zeus stood from his seat and descended the porch steps in her direction, Atlas and me right behind him. I glanced at our SAA and he shrugged. He didn’t know shit either. Poseidon shoved the door open and paused.

“Alex?”

Alexandra Jones, Poseidon’s little sister, swung her leg over her bike and stood. Four years older. Harder around the edges. Running from something, judging by the way her eyes darted around the yard before landing on her brother.

“Hey, Oscar. Miss me?”

Poseidon shoved through the crowd and grabbed Alex, pulling her into a hug. The relief on his face was pathetic. He’d carried guilt over her disappearance for four years, blaming himself for not keeping her safe. For not being enough.

“Jesus Christ, Alex. Four fucking years. About fucking time you came home.”

The rest of us stood there, watching, waiting to see what brought the prodigal daughter home. Poseidon and Alex were kids when their parents died. They’d both grown up in the clubhouse, and the day Alex turned eighteen, she disappeared. Ran. Left nothing but a note saying she needed to find herself.

Bullshit then. Bullshit now.

“You look like shit,” he told her.

“And you look old,” she shot back.

He barked out a laugh. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Around. Seeing the world. Living the dream.”