Page 45 of The Wrong Bride
Dio leans further into my side, and I’m relieved to find a cheeky smile back on his handsome face. A small amount of tension eases across my shoulders.
Then he opens his big, fat mouth. Again.
“I wanted in on her budding harem, so I made her give me one too.”
One of my hands connects with his chest and Dio’s cheeks puff out with an exaggerated wince. Zeus doesn’t miss a single part of the exchange, of course. The muscle along his jaw jumps, his eyes narrowing in our Enforcer’s direction.
“I thought it was just Miller and Sinclair?”
Now my lips actually do part. “I swear togod, Orbison. Do you not understand the concept ofthis stays between us?!”
I wonder if I can reach that block of knives sitting on the counter directly behind him. And if these counters might be too porous for the impending bloodshed.
“You know I have to report everything back to the Bossman, baby, even pillow talk,” he says, fighting and failing to hide his amusement at my indignant look.
I’m still deciding how best to carve that smug fucking look off his face when Zeus raises both a hand and an eyebrow. “Let me guess: Dio’s short forDionysus,” he interjects mildly.
The giant, muscle-bound idiot’s grin widens. “At your service.”
Our Lead’s gaze drops to his lips. “Fitting.” The corner of his own mouth tilts, maybe even threatens to lift, but he still sounds much too terse. “And the others?”
“Tristan is pre-med, musical, revered by the student body. The golden boy.Apollo,” I list them off, not blind to the way Zeus’s face tightens at Tristan’s name. “Callum’s their weapons guy. He’s big, angry. If they were to have an Enforcer, he’d be it. So, goes without saying—Ares.Lake is cyber and information, takes care of communication with their contacts.Hermes.Finally,Atlas is in charge of their money. Unlike the others, he’s private. I also suspect he does most of their surveillance.Hades.”
“Well, if your intentions were to form some sort of ancillary Crew, then it would only make sense for me to be Zeus,I suppose,” he muses, with all the innate confidence and arrogance of a Grayson. The frown’s gone, but now his look’s entirely too self-satisfied for my liking.
“Don’t know why you’re automatically assuming leadership inmyPantheon,” I grumble half-heartedly, but not exactly hating the way his eyes track down my body when I relax back onto my hands again.
“Because you like it when I tell you what to do,” he mutters without skipping a beat, taking his first step back into the kitchen.With the way his eyes glaze, I’m not entirely sure he’s even aware he took it at all.
Dio’s head drops back and I feel his groan vibrate through my shoulder. “I can’t believeI’mthe one saying this, but we didn’t expect to see you before the opening ceremony tomorrow night. Yet here you are—looking like the Herald herself just dropped a Kill Order with your name on it.” He huffs out an exaggerated breath. “So maybe we turnthis,” he continues, circling a finger between the three of us, “down to more of a sweet simmer. Just long enough for us all to regroup, yeah?”
It’s such a casually delivered jest, but the ensuing silence is so total, you could hear a fucking mouse fart.
Dio’s eyes swing back and forth between us, assessing. His teasing expression slowly drops. “Wait—seriously?!” he exclaims, tanned cheeks now distinctly paler. “Who the fuck would even have the balls?!”
“Sebastian,” Zeus replies flatly, wetting his dry lips and glancing away. Just like that, all the sexual tension of a minute ago is replaced byactualtension.
“Bullshit!” Dio spits out incredulously, volume rising as one large hand swipes through the air. “There’s no way—no fucking way—The Gray Man’s killing off his own fucking heir. He’d sooner rather get rid of his Codex!”
And before today, I would’ve one hundred percent agreed with him.
Until now, Zeus and I had both lived with and worked for the Suits fully confident that our importance to Sebastian’s empire came with certain immunities.
Immunities like not being, you know,forcibly retired.
“There hasn’t been an officially sanctioned hit,” I cut in, and Dio’s eyes slide reluctantly away from where he’s studying Zeus’s distant expression. He raises a skeptical eyebrow. “He’s…found evidence Sebastian has a second biological son. One who’s just come of age.”
Dionysus’s huge body rocks forward in shock. “You’re fucking kidding. Do we know who it is?”
The look that passes between Zeus and I feels distinctly loaded, but I can’t quite tell how said exchange actually makes me feel.
…Nervous?
…Guilty?
Fuck.
This is all too unfamiliar and raw, and I’m way too emotionally illiterate for this. Trying to understand what’s currently happening inside my chest’s like trying to decipher a set of hieroglyphics without the Rosetta Stone.