Page 2 of Hades

The USB.

I pulled the small laptop from my bag and inserted the flash drive because I couldn’t resist. I didn’t have the skills to do anything about whatever I found, but I knew people who did. There were gigabytes of files on the drive and I clicked through them, most were just names that didn’t mean shit to me and amounts in dollars, euros, pounds, yen, and a bunch of other currencies I never heard of. But it was the third file that turned my blood to ice.

The Kozlov Group.

It looked like an international charitable organization on the surface, run by a handsome Russian oligarch called Viktor Kozlov. But just like his organization, the looks and the charms hid something much darker. Katya had been a victim and a survivor of the same group, the same man that held me in captivity for three long years.

I went through the files, every last one of them. There were hundreds of photos of young girls, some battered and bruised, others dressed up too old for their young faces. The folders were divided by continent and then country, each one containing hundreds of girls. My heart galloped inside my chest as the picture coalesced in the early morning hours. Back then, I’d naively thought it was just me he was holding, but now I could see that it went much deeper.

And then my heart stopped cold when I saw a folder titled PROPERTY RETRIEVAL. Inside that folder were twenty photos and among them was Katya. And me. A photo of a version of me I barely remembered stared back with the words HIGH PRIORITY RECOVERY stamped in red.

I was Viktor’s pet, his favorite property as he liked to remind me, and my escape was probably a bruise to his ego more than anything else.

Shit.

It wasn’t just Katya being hunted. I was too, at least I would be if they knew where I was. That thought made it impossible to sleep, so I put on a pot of coffee and kept my gaze fixed on the door with my trusty nine millimeter on my lap.

As the sun rose, I drank another half a pot of coffee before I went to check on Katya. She probably had just as shitty a night’s sleep as me.

I locked up my apartment and headed down the corridor to the room Katya was staying in. But when I got close, I started to get a really bad feeling. The apartment door was wide open, and my heart nearly beat out of my chest as I stepped inside, expecting to see the worst. My relief was palpable when I found the place empty with no signs of blood or forced entry. On the way back out, I spotted a piece of paper with my name on it.

Raven, I’m sorry. I had to call my family to say goodbye. They were there with them, I could tell. I have to go. Make them pay. ~K

That was it. That was all the note said, but fear filled my veins and I rushed down the stairs, hoping to find her. I wanted to stop her and remind her she was safer here than on her own. I had no clue how long she’d been gone, I hadn’t even heard the door open.

At the bottom of the steps, I went right to check the alley behind the community center and that’s when I spotted her. Katya on her back, lifeless eyes stared back at me. Her throat was slit and her torso cut straight down the middle. “No! Fuck, no. Katya!”

I pulled out my phone and dialed. I know any normal person would call the cops, but after what I’d read in the file last night I didn’t know how far Viktor’s reach was or who I could trust. Instead, I called my friend and before she even got a word out, I breathlessly exclaimed, “Macy, I need you. Please!”

Chapter Two

Hades

It was early as fuck and I was already awake and at the clubhouse, which was mostly quiet. Some of the club girls were in the kitchen preparing a big breakfast for whoever wandered into the clubhouse before lunch. The patches on my vest were fresh—seven months fresh to be exact—and I was determined to make myself indispensable to the Steel Demons MC. I spent the past eighteen months as a prospect doing all the grunt work from hiding bodies, whooping ass, and any other scut work they tossed my way. I hated that shit, but I proved myself then and I wanted to be more than just one of the guys.

I wanted to be someone they knew they could rely on. Someone the club valued as more than a warm body. That’s why I came in early, helped any way that I could and did my absolute best every fucking minute of every damn day.

Walking through the main room, which held a fully equipped bar, tons of tables and chairs, plus pool tables, dart boards, and a new foosball table, I headed through the back door to check the perimeter of the Steel Demons compound. Behind the clubhouse was a half-mile stretch of undeveloped land with tall grass and wildflowers, before it hit the highway. I walked through the grass, checking the fences, the cameras and all the buildings on the compound, until I was satisfied everything was exactly how it should be.

By the time I circled back, the clubhouse buzzed with activity. Breakfast was laid out on the back table, some of the brothers, along with women and children, piled plates with eggs, bacon and toast. My stomach growled like a motherfucker, but I walked past the crowd and headed into the office where I found Slate because that dude lived in the office, and Dagger.

Slate smiled up at me, eating with one hand and typing with the other. “What’s up?”

“Just came to see if you needed anything.”

“I’m good right now,” he said before taking a big bite of bacon.

“Hey man,” Dagger began, gripping my shoulder. “Thanks for your help cleaning up Steel City Ink. That shit would’ve taken all night.”

I grinned. “Too many KP assignments finally come in handy,” I joked. “Happy to help.”

“Appreciate it. I gotta get out of here. Sinclair has a doctor’s appointment and we’re finding out what we’re having today.” Dagger rushed from the office without another word.

“Sit,” Slate ordered around a mouthful of eggs. He nodded to the screens on the wall above the screens on his desk. “You wanna make yourself useful, let’s go over surveillance.”

“Okay. What am I looking at?”

He grinned. “You tell me.”