Page 66 of Hell’s Weapon

“Oh, come on. You can’t hold back on me now. I thought you were going to say you’d fucked a contestant in here. This is huge!”

Lords, if only he knew the whole truth.

“And you’re smiling. It was good, wasn’t it?” Tarron hooks a brow at me and I realise that indeed I might be grinning.

I word my answer carefully. “It was explosive.”

“Do you think you’ll do it again?”

“It’s complicated.”

“I’m sure it is. But if she took her mask off for you, she must really like your grumpy ass.”

“Ha,” I bark a laugh. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Dismiss yourself like that. I know you think you have to act all tough but it’s about time you found someone. You’ve been married to the job for long enough.”

“That’s not what I was doing.” I shift in my seat.

Tarron’s been my closest friend for a couple of centuries and in that time he’s had a few relationships and is now happily married to a great female harpy. I, on the other hand, have been completely single. And happy about it.

“Is she going to be here frequently until the end of the games?”

“I guess so, or until we find out which one of the fuckers is working for the Angels at least.” I can’t tell him that she is in fact living in the compound and has been the whole time.

“Well then, it gives you a chance to get to know her. Be open to it.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “I’m pretty sure it was a one-time thing.”

He scoffs. “Really? ‘Cause I don’t know a single person who knows her real identity. If you know who she is, that says something.”

“No, it really doesn’t.”

He holds his hands up in a placating gesture and shrugs. “Calling it as I see it.”

“Well, you’re seeing it wrong,” I tell him firmly. “Can we move on please?”

“Fine, but don’t retreat into yourself like you usually do.”

Tarron knows me all too well; that is my exact MO with the females I hook up with. Even one’s I have liked and maybe seen more than a handful of times. In fairness, the job demands a lot of me and the people I’ve dated haven’t understood that. I can’t just drop everything to be at their beck and call. I have a lot of people relying on me and I cannot afford for anything to go wrong, Tartarus is full of the worst souls to have walked on several planes. Hades trusts me to keep them securely locked up and the team of staff safe too, that requires me to put many hours into ensuring it runs smoothly and everything is well maintained.

I heave another heavy breath before leaning forward on the desk, steepling my fingers. “Fill me in on the groups the contestants have formed.”

Chapter 23

Milo

I’m writing up more connections we’ve made on Wyatt’s wall–that we’ve turned into our crime mapping board–as the others descend into another irrelevant conversation. It's been hours of pouring over the information we’ve been given for this task and so far we’ve concluded that there are two more profiles we need to trade or steal from one of the other teams.

We’ve made good progress on unpicking the mystery to be solved. Wyatt and Seffy pulled together the fact that we’re looking to find a murder weapon, that the profiles were of some syndicate, and one of them killed another.

Currently, everyone is trying to decide on a motive. I’m not really good at this shit, I deal in concrete moves, money changing hands, digital imprints. It was decided a little while ago that this seems more like a crime of passion. I’ve taken to being the one to write out our findings and draw the connections. The murder board sketched up on the wall above the spare bed in Wyatt’s room is already looking quite full.

Tacita had joined us late and has been unusually quiet from the seat she took up on the foot of Wyatt’s bed. She didn’t really give us any detail on where she’d been, but I noticed her avoiding my gaze. It felt like an uncomfortable blanket had been thrown over my shoulders and it was making my skin itch. Had I done something wrong?