Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 107826 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107826 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Fear.
I might have protected her up to that point where that fucking priest got ideas, but who’s to say I would have kept being successful? We were kids. Too weak to do more than drown in the waves made by people more powerful than us.
Minos changed that. I’m not a complete fool. I know he sees me as a tool to be used. Not a son. Never that. But I’ve seen the way Minos treats his only son. Better to be a tool than an eternal disappointment.
I stop short. What the fuck am I thinking? I’ve never doubted him. Not like this. Yeah, I haven’t been a naive innocent, dancing to the tune he sang, but I’ve never questioned him. Not really.
If you’re going to suffer because of him, you should at least know why.
“Damn it, Pandora,” I mutter. “Damn it, Adonis. And damn it, Eris.” One of them, I could ignore, but all three?
I flag down a taxi and give Minos’s address. We make it two blocks before the driver’s increased focus on me makes my skin prickle. I stop looking out the window and start watching him. His hands shift restlessly on the steering wheel and he’s studying me as much as his eyes are on the road. Not in a curious way, either. There’s intent there. It’s happening. He’s a nobody, some random citizen, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a danger.
I lean forward, getting right in his space. “Yeah, I’m Hephaestus. You might have heard the news about that nasty little clause, which means you know why that news was released.”
He licks his lips, his temples damp with sweat. “You’re the reason we even know about the clause. You killed the last Hephaestus.”
Yeah. I did. And I’ve been regretting it ever since. “That’s right.” I don’t touch him. He’s jumpy enough to drive us right off the road, and I don’t want to waste my morning with that bullshit. I lower my voice, injecting as much threat as possible. “So you’re going to drive me where I need to go, and you’re not going to try anything funny. If you do, I’ll snap your fucking neck.”
He swallows hard. “Yes, sir.”
I sit back, but keep my eye on him as he drives the rest of the way to Minos’s place. It’s only now, sitting here in the back seat of a man who considered killing me to further his own power, that I can’t deny the truth any longer. They were right. All of them. And I was fucking naive.
I barely wait for the car to stop at the curb outside Minos’s building before I toss money at him and climb out. My knee is stiff and painful, but I try to keep my limp minimized as I walk into the lobby and take the elevator up.
Luck—if that’s what you want to call it—is in my favor. Minos and the Minotaur sit in his office, their heads together as they examine a tablet between them. They both look up when I walk through the door. Minos opens his mouth to speak, but I get there first. “When were you going to tell me that I was a necessary loss?”
“Excuse me?”
I shut the door and lean against it. “Something’s been bothering me.” No reason to tell him where that doubt comes from. It doesn’t matter for this conversation. “You aren’t behind the attacks, but the second you had one of us trigger that clause, it put a target on every single one of the Thirteen’s backs—including mine.”
“You knew that would be a risk.”
Yes, but I hadn’t thought I’d face it alone. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I didn’t quite believe Minos when he said he wasn’t behind all the attacks. Oh, I don’t think he’s had a hand in the recent ones, but why wouldn’t he look to place more of his people among the Thirteen? The days after I took the title were rife with uncertainty; it would have been the perfect time to strike.
Unless he has no intention of a second strike.
Unless he never had an intention for a second strike.
“No putting that cat back in the bag, is there? Everyone knows it’s a thing now, which means the Thirteen will be hunted for the rest of Olympus’s future. Kind of hard to enact plans when you’re constantly looking over your shoulder.” He doesn’t contradict me, just watches me work through it with a small smile on his mouth. Holy fuck, I’m right. “You don’t plan on replacing the rest of the Thirteen with your people, do you?”
“Our people, Son.”
There was a time when, even though I damn well knew better, hearing that word from him was enough to override anything else I could possibly say. A weakness, and one he exploited. “There’s not going to be a Thirteen when you’re through,” I say softly.