Page 54 of Hades

“And?” I repeated. “All you say is and? He used Dio’s fucking kid to get information. If Dio finds out, he’ll fucking kill him.”

“If Orpheus finds out, he’ll fucking kill him,” Hyperion muttered.

I pointed a finger at Hyperion. “What he fucking said.”

Orpheus loved that little girl, thought of himself as her unofficial grandfather. He’d gut anyone who put her in danger. Even one of his own brothers.

“There’s no danger in talking to Mary Kate about her class friends,” Apollo pointed out.

“What did Mary Kate say?”

Coeus took a deep breath. “I think Janie and Sampson were being abused.”

“What?” The word came out sharp. Violent. My hands clenched on the table.

“Mary Kate said Janie cried a lot in school. Said her mom was mean to her.”

Asclepius’ head snapped up. “Have you looked into the kids’ medical records?”

“Yeah,” Coeus admitted. He slid another folder toward Asclepius, who opened it and started reading. No one made a sound as Asclepius’ face grew darker. His brow drew together, and his hand fisted against the table until he slammed it down. The crack of bone against wood made everyone jump.

“Leanne Turner deserves to be in the ground, and I’m not sure her husband shouldn’t be right alongside her,” he growled.

“What does it say?” Zeus asked.

Asclepius ignored the question and turned to Coeus. “Did you look into the doctor?”

“Yeah. Dr. Finley Harrow died two weeks before Leanne Turner,” Coeus revealed. “M.E. listed COD as natural causes since he was older than fucking God himself.”

“And the others?” Apollo asked, his voice sounding resigned, as if he’d already figured out what we were dealing with.

“All had a history of abuse.”

“Harlan Troy?” I asked. My throat felt tight. My chest constricted.

“Turned out Suzanne had motive after all,” Coeus confirmed.

“Son of a bitch,” I cursed. The pieces were falling into place. A pattern emerging from the chaos. Someone was hunting abusers. Killing them. Executing them with cold, calculated precision.

“So we have a vigilante in Athens,” Zeus said.

“Not necessarily,” Coeus countered. “I spread my search out to the surrounding towns.”

The screen at the front of the room lit up, and dozens of pictures began to fill the space. Faces. Names. Dates. A fucking gallery of the dead.

“These are all men and women of various ages, races, occupations who have died suspiciously over the past few years.”

“Jesus Christ, there are hundreds of them,” Atlas said, his eyes glued to the screen like the rest of ours.

My stomach dropped. The room tilted. Hundreds. Fucking hundreds. My heart slammed against my ribs. My hands went numb. The air felt too thick to breathe. This wasn’t a vigilante. This was a fucking crusade. A systematic purge. Someone had been killing for years, and we’d never noticed. Never suspected. Never fucking knew.

“How many have you looked into? Are they all bad?”

“Every person I’ve looked into so far deserved to be put in the ground.” Coeus paused. “Including Professor Halston.”

The silence in the room was deafening. Heavy. Suffocating. We all stared at the screen, at the faces of the dead, and realized we were looking at something bigger than any of us had imagined. Someone out there was playing judge, jury, and executioner. Someone was cleaning up the filth that slipped through the cracks.

And part of me, the dark, violent part that lived in the shadows, couldn’t help but think they were doing God’s work.