Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 65210 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 326(@200wpm)___ 261(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65210 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 326(@200wpm)___ 261(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
We were both breathing so hard, the pressure in the room heightening to where I felt the hair on my arms stand on end. He held me tightly, closely, and I knew he’d keep his promise to never let me go.
“I’m yours,” I whispered. “I’d much rather be in hell with you than in heaven with anyone else.”
Epilogue
Persephone
I was pretty sure I was good in the smiling department for the next year, but I pasted on another one as I stood in front of the backdrop they had set up for the graduating class, while Sophia’s parents took pictures of us together.
Over the last year, my life had been turned upside down, and I didn’t know how things would work out. I’d been afraid, heartbroken, and drowning in grief.
I’d had to become someone new, had to grow up even though I was already an adult. I never thought I’d be a person who would ever take matters into my own hands. I’d been sheltered my whole life, and I had been okay with that.
Until I wasn’t.
Until I had to change in order to survive.
I didn’t ask what Hades and Bruno had done with Michael after we’d left the room. He’d brought me to the room I’d been sleeping in, sat me on the bed, and kissed the top of my head. Then he said to stay there and he would handle it.
I’d been there for an hour before he returned. I didn’t want to know how they disposed of the body, and felt panic rush through me, not because I ended a horrible man’s life, but because I didn’t want the legal repercussions that came along with such a dark act.
But nothing had happened. The days blurred by, and things felt… normal. Well, as normal as they could, given the situation and all the things that had transpired.
I saw the news reports, headliner stories about how Michael Cronus had passed away peacefully in his sleep after a battle with a long illness.
My gaze sought the one man who’d shown me that sometimes you had to become someone else in order to make things better.
Hades stood off to the side, his three-piece suit making this air of power surround him. He was an intimidating force, a head taller than even the biggest man here.
People stayed away from him, as if he were a droplet of oil and they were water. They could sense the danger in him.
But when I looked at him? I saw the man I was in love with, the one whom I shared a bed with, whom I gave my body to.
He was a person who covered himself in dark, angry shapes and lines to take back control after the abuse he had experienced.
And I traced every single one of those scars with my fingers, kissed them so he knew that they didn’t matter, that I didn’t think he was any less because of them.
That I knew he wasn’t ruined or broken.
I knew he hated being here, but I also knew he wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
And although I didn’t know what I would do after this, if I would go to college, what degree I would get, I knew one thing for certain: I wanted Hades in my life when I experienced it all.
After the incident with Judge Wilcox being exposed for corruption, there had been a massive shift in… everything.
A flurry of girls from the school had come forward with their truth about what Trevor had done to them. There was power in numbers, and we all stood together so everyone knew the truth about who and what he really was.
Because of the spotlight on his father, and with his sexual deviancy now out in the open, Trevor and his father had criminal charges brought up on them. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree where sexual harassment, molestation, and rape were concerned with the Wilcox family.
It didn’t matter how far he or his family ran, or how many charges were thrown at them. They couldn’t outrun the press, the allegations, or the repercussions from the damage they’d done. This would live with them forever.
There were still students who looked at me with scorn and hatred, still blaming me for what had happened, but I didn’t pay them any mind. It didn’t matter. Justice had been served in more ways than one.
“Are you ready, baby?” A heavy hand landed on the center of my back, his palm warm, his fingers strong as he added slight pressure.
I stole a glance at Hades and saw his attention was on Sophia’s parents. When I looked at them, I instantly saw their nervousness as they shifted on their feet.
Hades’ reputation wasn’t exactly a secret.
“Come on, sweetheart. We have a dinner reservation.” He slid his hand down the center of my back to cup my ass over my graduation gown, and I squeezed my thighs together as my inner muscles clenched.