Page 56 of Hades

“What’s that?”

“This,” I waved my hand around. “The beautiful mansion and the designer clothes and shoes. The travel. It’s all supposed to be everything a woman could want, so that she forgets that she can’t leave.”

There it was again, that flash of anger. He wasn’t as good at keeping it in check as he used to be. “Why would you want to leave all this?” He asked the question without a trace of sarcasm or irony.

“Never mind.” I didn’t want to get into a philosophical debate with a psychopath, and I didn’t want to piss him off too badly before the Steel Demons came.

“You are just being contrary,” he decided with a heavy sigh.

“No, I’m not. I’m just stating a fact. If you had everything you have now, but there was a man bigger and more powerful than you in charge of your freedom, would you be all right with that?”

He laughed, but he didn’t answer.

Just what I thought.

“Your friends killed five of my men.” He spoke through gritted teeth, which revealed that he cared more than he would ever admit. “That cannot go unpunished.”

My shoulders almost fell, but I tensed every muscle in my body to stop the instinct even as unease settled low in my gut. He would punish me and he would enjoy it, but this time I wouldn’t just take it. I planned to fight back every step of the way.

If it came to that.

“You lied,” he said in a voice so low I wasn’t sure I heard it.

“I know you, Viktor. Of course I lied.”

He laughed and shook his head. “Your lie cost me five good men, Daisy.”

Suddenly, the door opened. “Ah good, there’s someone I’d like you to meet,” he said to me with an evil smile on his face.

Two of his men walked through the door, each supporting one of my brother’s arms as they dragged him in. They let him go and he slumped to the ground. His eyes were wide, but his mouth was taped, muffling what I knew would be angry, shocked words. “Falcon,” I said softly.

Tears threatened but I swallowed them down. I couldn’t show any weakness, or it would be used against me. I gasped when Viktor’s hand landed on my shoulder.

He squeezed it almost gently. “I have not decided who will be punished for my men, you or him. But to show you that I am not completely without compassion, I will let you two spend your last hours together.” His tone suggested he was trying to be magnanimous, but I didn’t buy that shit for a second.

Ice shot through my veins at those words. Your last hours. My gaze narrowed at him. “So you do plan to kill him?”

“No,” he answered without equivocation. “But we leave first thing tomorrow so either way, this will be the last time you two see each other.” I didn’t trust the gleam in his eyes, but I kept it to myself. As long as Viktor thought he was winning, he would be calm.

That gave me and Falcon time to think. To plan our escape. I still had the tracker hidden in my ponytail, and I knew Steel Demons would try and rescue us, but I couldn’t just rely on that. Right now I had to focus on survival, and that meant trying not to anger Viktor.

There were a lot of things I wanted to say to him in that moment, most of them of the four-letter variety guaranteed to piss him off and kickstart his violent streak. Instead I smiled sweetly up at him and nodded. “Thank you, Viktor.”

Viktor offered a tense smile to me before he turned to Alexei with a quick, almost imperceptible nod.

Alexei ripped the tape off my brother’s mouth with a devious smile before he joined Viktor, and they left the room together.

I waited thirty seconds before rushing across the room and wrapping my arms around Falcon. “Oh, thank fuck.” I hugged him the way I used to when I was a little girl. Every single time he came home, I was so happy to see him, even if he’d only been gone a few minutes. “How the fuck did you manage to get yourself picked up?”

He huffed out a laugh and shook his head. “Good to see you too, Raven.” He squinted. “Though I’m not sure if that is you. You sound like my annoying little sister, but you look like someone else.”

“I had to dress the part,” I whispered, shooting my eyes to the door where Alexei and Viktor left from. “He’s calmer when you keep him happy.”

Falcon’s eyes flashed with anger and his nostrils flared quickly. “This motherfucker doesn’t own you, Raven.”

“Yeah, I know,” I shot back angrily. “But I couldn’t exactly piss him off when he showed me video of you tied to a fucking chair, now could I?”

“Yeah, I guess not.” He flashed that crooked smile that I missed every day when we were apart. “I still don’t like it.”