HADES Read online

  His words worm their way into some nether region of Hades’s conscience. The hidden part of his brain, where he keeps things like morality, his conscience, and the ability to reason when it comes to Persy.

  “Probably not,” Hades admits, his Cajun accent coming in thick and cold. “But shooting you straight in the face would make me feel a lot less aggravated right now.”

  “I would've married her, you know.” Lukas goes over to a bar set, sitting on top of a side table, and pours himself a glass of Glendaver bourbon. “If she had chosen me, I would've given her a foundation to run, and unlike you, I would’ve kept her life completely drama-free. I never would've lied to her. Under any circumstances. Yet here you are, pretending you have any right to her.”

  Lukas turns his mouth down, derision written plainly across his face. “Acting as if it’s completely within your right to break into my home and threaten to kill me because I dared to help her.”

  Hades bristles under Lukas’s judgment. This fonchock….

  The phone rings again. Waylon’s always been a persistent bastard. Hades sends it straight to voicemail, then lowers the gun to ask Lukas, “When you saw her at the ball, did you ever wonder why she looked so happy to see you? You, somebody she supposedly led on and dumped without a second thought?”

  Lukas falters, and his face becomes a little less judgmental.

  “She was happy to see you because she thought you would be the one person who would help her get what she wanted most at the ball,” Hades answers for him. “To escape me. She was happy to see you because she never chose me over you. I chose her. I captured her, and I kept her, and then I forced her to lie in order to spare your worthless life.”

  “No, no, that can’t be true.” Lukas's voice lowers to a rasp with denial.

  And Hades lets his own voice drop a few octaves to inform him, “She didn’t want to be with me. I hadn’t even touched her at that point. She was still a virgin when she ran into you at that ball. And you were her best chance of escaping me back then. But you were so busy judging her, you didn't even give her the chance to ask you for help.”

  Strangely, Hades hates Lukas for what he did to Persy. Almost as much as he hates himself. And that hate rings clear in his voice as he tells her unworthy ex, “You're right. You could have been the one she married. Truly married. But when the moment came for you to be a man, a real man, not a snide little beer bitch, you blew it.”

  The denial fades from Lukas’s expression, and the smug CEO’s face collapses with horror.

  Kill shot.

  “You’re right. Shooting you point-blank in the face would only add to my long list of fuck ups where my woman is concerned.” Hades makes a big action of putting away his gun before he says, hitting Lukas with a feral grin, “I'm not going to kill you, Brandt. I'm just going to let you live with that knowledge.”

  Lukas doesn’t answer. Hades suspects he’s all out of words. But he barely gets a few seconds to revel in his enemy’s misery before his phone goes off again.

  This time Hades decides to answer it. Brandt’s a judgmental contraieuse, and maybe he did help Persy escape somewhere else beyond that five-hundred dollars she took out of her account. But if so, he’s not going to share the details with the fake husband who just admitted to kidnapping her in the first place.

  Without bothering to say anything else to the beer bitch, Hades rips the vibrating phone out of his pocket and heads toward the door.

  “What?” he growls at Waylon.

  “Hey, cuz, how you doing?” Waylon answers. His Tennessee accent is a lazy drawl, as if he was just calling to shoot the shit. After over a year of silence.

  “I can't talk right now,” Hades answers.

  “Oh, that's too bad,” Waylon answers. “I was just calling to ask why Persy just walked into my wife's clinic, big as day.”

  Hades stops dead in his tracks.

  Waylon’s wife. The one who had helped her escape in the first place. Amira. Amira Fairgood.

  Persy had wanted answers, and she found the one person who could give them to her.

  CHAPTER 20

  PERSEPHONE

  It only takes Amira Fairgood a few moments to enter the rural clinic’s large waiting room to check on the “personal friend with an urgent matter.”

  But she freezes when she spots me sitting there with all the other people hoping to see a doctor, dentist, or nurse practitioner at Angel Pond Primary Care. And I’m pretty sure it’s not just because I really don’t fit in with everyone else in the clinic—a mix of bikers in leather vests, farmers in John Deere hats, and pregnant women covered in tattoos.

  Amira’s mouth falls open, and for a moment, she just gapes at me, shock written all over her pretty medium-brown face. But then, she immediately pastes on a welcoming smile and loudly proclaims, “Hey, girl. I forgot we were supposed to be having breakfast today after your routine exam. Great to see you! Come with me….”

  I’m confused by her reaction, but I waste no time following her through the door toward the exam rooms.

  I try to be less snooty than my mother when it comes to people who have obviously grown up in a different financial bracket than I have. But it feels like everybody in the lobby is eyeing me up and down. Especially the bikers. So, I’m more than happy to follow behind anyone who wants to take me away from this uncomfortable space.

  However, Amira drops the “great to see you” act as soon as we're out of the lobby and all but yanks me into an exam room.

  “What are you doing here?” she demands, closing the door behind us. “Are you crazy? Coming here of all places?”

  Funny, I hate talking about my accident. Over the many months I spent with the man pretending to be my husband, I grew to despise explaining my memory loss. I eventually asked people I knew to stop bringing it up, and I didn’t bother to disclose it to anyone who didn’t know me before the accident. It got to the point where I'd rather folks think me forgetful, or one of those people who failed to pay attention to the news or pop culture for the last decade. It seemed easier to pretend I was completely normal—other than not knowing stuff like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie not only officially got married but also officially split up.

  But over the last two days, I’ve told more people than ever about the accident. First, the man who turned out to be my ex-boyfriend, then his unseen hacker associate, and then, Amira, after she pulls me into the exam room and demands to know if I have lost my mind.

  Her face falls as I tell her my story. And after I’m done, she quickly explains everything she knows about me.

  It isn’t nearly as much as I was hoping. To my shock, she’s only met me on two occasions before this, but she was willing to help me out of something that looked like…She pauses and uses a judicious tone to label my relationship with the biker called Hades “a bad situation.”

  Still, her story sheds light on my biggest questions.

  Persephone.

  That’s what Persy stands for. That is the answer to the question Galen—no Hades—never answered.

  Hades had captured and renamed me.

  Like a dog.

  For three years of our marriage—no, not marriage. Lukas’s hacker friend already told me there are no marriage certificates on file for either me or Galen Fairgood.

  But Amira Fairgood confirms that he’d kept me in captivity for three years. As some kind of blood debt.

  Hades was my captor.

  And Amira…

  She helped me escape. From Hades, who was some kind of biker crime lord—not the upstanding, self-made real estate mogul I believed Galen Fairgood had worked hard to become.

  “So, I didn't love him,” I conclude when Amira finishes her version of my story. “I was just his prisoner.”

  “I mean, it seemed like you were just being kept against your will,” Amira answers, her voice taking on a careful note. “But after you left, he didn’t exactly…”

  Amira tilts her head to the side, as if she’s not sure wh
ether or not she should finish that statement.

  But I’m sick of being kept in the dark.

  “Tell me,” I demand. “Whatever it is, tell me all of it.”

  “Okay, well, he didn’t exactly act like a person who merely lost a prisoner,” she tells me. “The way he searched for you bordered on obsessive. It took him months to forgive Waylon for deciding to marry me after what I did. They’re best friends, on top of being related, but he did not attend our wedding.”

  She shakes her head with a sad look. “I’m pretty sure Hades spent most of the pandemic getting drunk and searching for you. Then suddenly one day, he just cleaned up his act and announced his decision to not only take over RR Homes, the Reaper's legitimate construction and development business, but also headquarter it in Ohio, of all places. I figured that had more to do with residual bitterness against me than any real desire to become a legitimate businessman. But now…”

  Amira lets out a wry chuff and seems to be examining me in a new light. “Now, I’m not so sure.”

  For a moment, Amira just stares at me, like I’m one of the spirits New Orleans guides insist exist on all the city’s infamous ghost tours. “I never thought I'd see you again. I never stopped wondering what happened after we parted, never stop worrying about you. I felt so guilty going on with my own happy life when I wasn't sure how you were getting by in yours.”

  “You shouldn’t feel guilty at all.” I shake my head and take her hand. “It doesn't sound like anyone else was willing to help me. But you, a virtual stranger — you came through for me. Did I thank you for that?”

  “No, but you don’t have to….You don’t owe me anything,” Amira answers, shaking her head.

  I shake my head right back at her. “I still haven't regained any of my memories, but something is telling me that’s not even remotely true.”

  I grab the taller woman and hug her tight. “I was free. Because of you, I was free for three whole years, until he found me. Thank you.”

  Amira hugs me back just as tight. “It’s great to see you. Even with the TBI, you seem in such a better place than you were before. I just wish I could’ve done more. I'm so sorry he found you again.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I answer. “This is all on Hades.”

  “Girl, preach,” Amira says, pulling back from our hug to nod like she’s at church or in one of those Tyler Perry movies where trifling exes just have to pop back into your life.

  But then her heart-shaped face takes on a grave expression. “This is the last place you should have come, though. I mean, the last place on earth. Come on. I always carry a few hundred in my purse. We’ll get that money and put you on a bus.”

  “No, wait,” I say. “I have so many more questions.”

  “And believe me, I have a ton of questions for you too,” she answers, already heading for the door. “But there's no time. We have to get you out of here before anyone realizes you’re —"

  A heavily pregnant woman slips into the room before Amira can reach the door. “What's this I heard about Persy just walking right up on in here?”

  She’s gorgeous, I note. She also has a hard-edged Southern accent and sharp, intelligent brown eyes. And though she’s wearing a white jacket and stethoscope, the same as Amira, the clinic’s nurse practitioner, I somehow know in an instant that she isn’t a nurse.

  “Doc?” I say, remembering that random thought I'd had when I first woke up in that Ohio hospital bed. “Is that you?”

  The woman just shakes her head. “Of course, it’s me. The real question is: What are you doing here? Are you crazy? When Hades finds out you're here, he's going to—”

  “I already told her that,” Amira answers. “And actually, the real question is: How did you know she was here?”

  “One of the bikers who used to come into the roadhouse all the time told me,” Doc answers, her expression just as grave as Amira’s as she rubs her hand over her swollen belly.

  I have no idea what this roadhouse is or why anyone who frequented such a place would recognize me. But after Doc says that, Amira takes me by the wrist and tugs me straight out of the exam room, only pausing long enough to dodge into her office and return with her wallet.

  “I’ll drive her in the golf cart and put her on the first bus to Cedar Rapids,” Amira tells Doc.

  “I’m going with you as backup,” Doc says.

  But Amira shakes her head. “I’ve got to drive fast in a vehicle that’s not meant to go on roads. You know Vengeance will never forgive me if I let anything happen to their pregnant wife while staging this getaway.”

  Vengeance? Is that the road name of whoever got Doc pregnant? Maybe someone non-binary, who uses they/them pronouns like a few of Daphne’s classmates at school?

  Before I can ask, Amira pulls me through the clinic’s back door toward a grassy field where several golf carts are parked, one of which is painted a golden yellow.

  “That’s me,” Amira says, pointing to the yellow cart. “Let’s book it!”

  She breaks into a run, and I jog to keep up with her, but we both have to stop short when the sound of motorcycle engines fills up the air and three big and burly bikers suddenly appear to block our path to the carts.

  “Crap! Not again!” Amira says besides me.

  And I soon learn—or I guess I should say relearn—who Vengeance is….A three-biker enforcement team. They all individually use he/him pronouns, and to my shock, they’re collectively married to Doc—who gets to come along with Amira and me after all.

  Less than ten minutes later, I’m seated next to Doc in the back seat of the yellow golf cart while Amira drives slowly with a reluctant expression on her face—not toward a bus stop, but into Angel Pond proper, the homey little town the clinic’s named after.

  There’s a member of Vengeance driving in front, in back, and right beside us. And instead of getting away, we’re driving deeper into the idyllic belly of the beast.

  I took a risk coming to Angel Pond to get answers. And now…

  Well, now I’m trapped here.

  Being driven helplessly toward a place where Vengeance tells me I have to wait until my former captor comes to get me. Like I’m a dog who got out of her cage, and Hades, my owner, is simply coming to pick me up.

  They all refer to him as Hades. No one calls him Galen.

  All hope seems lost until Doc slips something into the Birkin sitting on the floor between our feet when her trio of husbands isn’t looking.

  “I couldn’t help you back then,” she whispers, snapping the bag closed over her gift. “But I’ll be damned if I let him take you again.”

  CHAPTER 21

  HADES

  Hades is no longer the co-president of the Ruthless Reapers MC. He gave up his position in the underworld organization he cofounded for the chance to make a life with Persy in the legitimate world. These days he sleeps at night—as opposed to making nefarious deals with fellow criminals, politicians, and various individuals who’ve built cottage industries in the moral grey.

  But old habits die hard.

  Hades steps off a private plane, wearing his old Reapers leather jacket, after landing in a “private” airfield in Iowa the Reapers use when they have goods they don't necessarily want TSA monitoring. Like a woman who might not want to fly home to Ohio with the man who has only been pretending to be her official husband.

  Perhaps his former co-president feels the same way about his current upstanding citizen status. Hades finds Waylon’s black truck idling on the other side of the unregistered airfield's chain-link fence.

  The truck was a gift from Hades back when they both thought they’d run the Ruthless Reapers together until they died. He brought it all the way up from Louisiana special for Waylon when his cousin showed up at their favorite Tennessee roadhouse with an unexpected bride.

  A bride named Amira. Little did Hades know when he brought Persy along for the trip that he was about to introduce her to the woman who would help her escape him.
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  Waylon is married to that woman now. They have two kids—a boy and a girl—neither of whom Hades has ever met.

  Four years ago, Hades couldn’t have imagined such a fate possible for the cousin who came off as psycho, even by 1% biker standards. The way Waylon’s drug-addict mother had fucked him up, there was no way his story could include a romantic happy ending.

  But when his cousin steps out of the truck to greet him, his infamous crystal blue eyes have lost their psycho glitter.

  He even smiles at Hades, flashing the set of pearly white teeth that most of the Reapers hadn’t seen before he showed up at the roadhouse with a cute little nurse practitioner in tow.

  “Welcome back, brother,” Waylon says, pulling him into the same hug they would have exchanged when they ran the Reapers together.

  “Is she okay?” Hades asks instead of returning the greeting.

  Back when he had Persy by his side, Hades initiated their hugs, while Waylon always wanted to get straight down to the business at hand. It feels like they’ve traded places.

  Waylon lifts an eyebrow. “Are you okay, brother? What's this I hear about you pretending to be Persy’s husband after she lost her memory in a car accident?”

  Hades just throws the small duffel he brought with him into the back seat of his cousin’s truck and asks, “What's this I hear about her coming here to find your wife specifically? You know, the one you never should've married after the way she betrayed me.”

  Waylon rarely cracked a smile four years ago, but he looks dangerously close to laughing as he climbs into the driver's seat. “Well, you got me back by saddling me with full responsibility for the MC. So maybe we can call it even on that.”

  Hades doesn’t respond, just stares out the window as they head down the road toward Angel Pond.

  B,A. — Before Amira—Waylon would’ve left Hades to brood.