Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 62737 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 314(@200wpm)___ 251(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62737 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 314(@200wpm)___ 251(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
I felt like a little bitch that had to listen to his master. I was a free man, but now I was a slave. I was livid when I looked at him, but now I was sick to my stomach. I should’ve spent the last few years hunting him down to kill him. Or I should have walked away from this life a long time ago.
“Hades?”
I turned my gaze back to him.
“I would never cause harm to you, your family, or anyone you care about. But if you try to kill me, you better succeed. Because I’ll take your wife and fuck her in the ass until she begs me to kill her.”
Everyone left, and now it was just the two of us.
Alone. In the lab.
Neither one of us ever spent any extended time in here. I was there on occasion, when lab techs got killed and I had to cook to stay on production. Damien did the same thing when needed, but I was much better at it.
Now we were both there for a whole new reason.
We had been assaulted in our own territory, stabbed in the back because we were too busy looking forward. While we were running around trying to demolish every relationship Maddox had, we were destroying potential allies we could use in this war. Now, just the two of us were left…and Maddox owned us both. We had done his dirty work, and he’d just waited until we were done.
So fucking stupid.
I’d walked right into his trap…again.
Damien sat across from me with his eyes on the concrete floor. His arms were crossed over his chest, and his suit was wrinkled from his slouched posture. He hadn’t said more than two words since Maddox and his crew left. He normally couldn’t shut his mouth for more than ten seconds, but now he was speechless.
That wasn’t a good thing.
It was my job to kill the man who’d tortured my family, and now I was in business with the motherfucker. I couldn’t kill him because of the repercussions, and I couldn’t walk away from him either because the consequences would be the same.
What the fuck was I going to say to Sofia?
Damien lifted his gaze and looked at me. “What the fuck are we gonna do?”
It was one of the first times I was glad we were a we rather than just being an I. Maddox was an enemy I couldn’t defeat, a problem I couldn’t solve. I felt inadequate. I felt like a terrible excuse for a man. “I have no goddamned idea.”
“We have to play by his rules if we want to keep Sofia safe, not to mention save our own asses. But can we deal with a motherfucker like him every day? He makes it seem like we’ll be business partners, but you know he’s gonna be a little bitch the whole time.”
I nodded in agreement.
“But I can’t count the number of times we tried to kill him. It exploded in our faces every single time. Just when we think we have him by the balls, we don’t. If we make that same mistake again, we won’t be able to live with the consequences.”
At least I didn’t have to keep Damien on a leash this time. He wasn’t going to gamble with my wife’s safety…not again. “I agree. We’ll just have to deal with it.”
“Unless he would let us depart from the business altogether…”
If that were the case, Maddox would have shot me on the spot. “No, he wants us under his thumb. If he just wanted our business, he could’ve taken that away a long time ago.”
Damien looked at the ground again. “So, that’s it? We just let it be?”
We had no other choice. “Yes.”
Damien ran his hand along his jawline. “What are you gonna do about Sofia?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, she’s never going to approve of this.”
It didn’t matter whether she approved or not. This was the only way to keep everybody safe. It had to be this way, even though I hated it. “She’ll deal with it. She has to.”
26
Sofia
I was sitting at the table working on my computer when Hades walked inside. He was a man of few words, but his moods were so palpable, he didn’t need to say much to express his feelings. He didn’t look at me or greet me as he stepped inside and stripped off his jacket. It was like I didn’t exist, like he wished I weren’t home.
I knew his anger had nothing to do with me, but I didn’t appreciate it either way.
He loosened his watch and set it on the dresser.
I was working on a spreadsheet for the hotel, but it could wait until later. I closed the laptop and leaned forward in the chair.
Hades dragged his feet as long as he could. He slipped off his shoes and yanked off his tie. His fingers slowly unbuttoned his collared shirt, and he left a pile of clothes on the closet floor. He stepped back into the bedroom, standing in just his slacks. His muscled physique was more swollen than usual, as if he’d just gone to the gym for a rigorous workout. All he had to do was be angry, and he gave himself a workout of a lifetime. He took a seat in the other armchair, his body pivoted slightly away from me. He leaned back into the chair, one arm on the table.