by Tate James
“Fuck it,” I muttered. “Here.” I handed the envelope across the table to Diana.
She looked worried, biting her lip and frowning as she ripped it open and pulled the papers out from inside. That frown quickly faded as she read the first page, though.
“Is this...?” Her lips parted and her eyes went wide. Shit, her eyes went watery. “Hades, did you adopt me?” Her voice was all squeaky and shrill, and Seph winced, covering her ears.
I gave an uncomfortable shrug. “Figured it doesn’t really change anything; you already spend every weekend at our house. But it will keep you safe if anyone ever wonders what happened to little Diana Manson.”
Tears were rolling down Diana’s face now, and she clutched the paper to her chest. “This changes everything.”
“Oh my god, Little A,” Seph snickered. “Be more dramatic.”
Diana snapped a glare at Seph. “Fuck you.”
Seph shot her a middle finger back, and I rolled my eyes. Again. I did that a lot when the two of them were in the same room together. At the end of the day, it hadn’t been a hard decision to officially adopt Diana. She’d taken to showing up on our doorstep every Friday afternoon without fail, spending the weekend with us before going back to school Monday morning. Apparently when Zoya was home with Nadia, they spoke Russian all weekend and Diana didn’t understand a word they were saying. Seemed like an excuse to me, but I also didn’t call her out on it.
Cass had been teaching her to fight, Lucas had been training her in gymnastics—she was damn good at it too—and Zed, despite my scolding, had been quietly teaching her how to shoot a sniper rifle. She was a part of our family. When she’d asked to be called Artemis instead of Diana, it made us realize that although we thought of her as family, she still felt out of place.
I would never bring a defenseless child into my world. I could never knowingly raise an innocent child—whether biological or not—in such violence and danger. But Diana was already neck deep in it all and had adapted like it’d always been a part of her. I knew better. I knew from my own damage that her own dark experiences had shaped her personality. It just so happened that we loved her, thorns and all.
“Does that mean I’m a Timber now, too?” Her smile was wide and hopeful, her wet eyes darting from Seph to Demi, then back to me.
“You sure are, kid,” I told her. “It suits you.”
Whatever else she might have said dissolved into incoherent babbling as she launched a hug at Cass, who was closest to her. Then she hopped up and went around the table hugging everyone, landing on me last.
“Does this mean I call you Mom?” she asked, sniffing back tears.
I peeled her away far enough to glare. “Call me ‘Mom’ and I’ll sign you up for ballet classes.” Diana gave a horrified gasp, and I laughed. “That’s what I thought.”
She grinned, then hugged me tight once more. Over her head, my guys all gave me soft smiles. We were a family, and now we had the legal paperwork to prove it.
TWO YEARS LATER
A heavy clang echoed through the stone corridor, the metal gate open just long enough to allow me through before beginning to close once more. The security in this prison was staggeringly impressive, but it was for that very security that I’d been paying such a steep price for the last three years. For the security, and the extra-special personal attention my prisoner was getting from his jailers.
“It’ll be a shame to see this one go,” the scar-faced guard told me in a thick Scottish accent as I approached the isolation cell at the end of the corridor. He wore a leather apron, dark and stained with blood. Guard was a polite term for what he actually did within the prison.
I curved a cold smile. “Yeah?”
He grunted. “Aye. He lasted so much longer than the usual sheep I get tossed. Made it a real challenge to break him.” He gave me a missing-toothed grin. “I won in the end, though. Always do.”
“It’s why I had him brought here,” I murmured, eyeing the thick, locked door behind the guard. “I reviewed the recent footage. He definitely is broken now, hmm?”
The man dipped his head. “Oh, aye. All of this?” He tapped his head. “Gone. It happens to all of ‘em sooner or later. Yer man was one of the longest.”
I huffed a sharp laugh. “He lost his mind a long time before he came here. Alright, let’s get this done.”
The guard nodded and cranked the heavy mechanical lock on the door, then hauled it open. “I’ll wait out here, then. Knock when yer done.”
My nose stung at the putrid smell inside the cell, but I stepped forward confidently and braced myself as the heavy door shut behind me. The light in the cell was harsh, leaving the broken heap of a man chained to the wall no place to hide.
“Your guards think you’ve finally broken, Chasey baby,” I murmured, stepping closer and cringing at the smell. I’d watched countless hours of footage from this very room, but it was a different thing entirely to be there in person. “Is that true? Have you checked out?”
When I got close, I crouched down to his level. The way he slumped against the wall, his wrists bound and bloody... it’d be easy to believe he was dead already. A breath later, though, he raised his head and squinted at me with his one remaining eye. His eyepatch was long gone, and the mess of scars on his face was in full view without the covering. But that stare...
“I thought as much,” I murmured, holding his gaze.
“Darling,” he croaked, giving a hacking laugh, “it’s been forever. Miss me?”
I gave a tight smile. In the early days, when he was first relocated from his court-assigned prison, I’d taken an active hand in his torture. I’d drawn plenty of satisfaction returning his own methods of torture onto him threefold over. All except the rape, of course. I had no desire to touch him in that way... though the same couldn’t be said for the guards within this very special prison.
But eventually, I’d had to face the fact that it was weighing on my soul too much. By continuing to return, I wasn’t only torturing Chase. I was torturing myself. And if I ever truly wanted to be rid of him, I needed to walk away. So that’s what I’d done. I handed his care over to the professionals and cleared him from my mind. Except, of course, for once a month when I logged into the secure server that showed me video documentation that he was still alive and still suffering.
“I think it’s time, don’t you?” I said softly, unlocking the shackles from his wrists. He dropped to the floor in a heap, like he lacked the strength to hold himself up anymore. Not that he’d need to. I was there for one reason, and it wasn’t forgiveness. It was finality.
I stood up and nudged his shoulder with the toe of my shoe, rolling him over onto his back. A weak smile curved his cracked lips, and he looked up at me with resignation.
“You won, Darling,” he admitted. “I underestimated you.”
I tilted my head, smiling. “You really did.” Not breaking his gaze, I pulled the Desert Eagle from my shoulder holster and aimed it at his face. “I hope you appreciate how poetic this ending will be for you, Chase. Almost like we’ve come full circle... except this time you won’t be making a one in a million recovery.”
He hacked a laugh. “I don’t doubt it. We had fun though, didn’t we, Darling?”
I shook my head. “No, Chase. We really didn’t. I hope you rot in Hell for eternity.” I wasn’t religious in the least, but I liked the idea of eternal damnation for Chase fucking Lockhart.
My finger squeezed the trigger, and a bullet slammed home into Chase’s face, right in the middle of his forehead. His one beady eye stared up at me, blank and lifeless, but I wasn’t taking chances. Inhaling deeply, I squeezed the trigger over and over, emptying my clip into his head until nothing remained but a mess of blood, bone, and brain matter all over the stone floor.
If Chase had taught me anything, though, it was never to leave any doubts if you truly wanted someone dead and gone. So I calmly put my gun back in its holster and pulled the squeeze bottle of gasoline f
rom my handbag. It was a quick job to douse the body with the pungent fluid.
Before lighting a match, I knocked on the door to ask the guard to open it. The last thing I needed was to accidentally blow myself up if the gasoline had been overkill.
The guard swung the door open, gave the body a long look, then nodded. “Thorough.”
I smiled back. “I try.”
Standing at the doorway, I retrieved the engraved silver lighter from my bag and flicked a flame to life. Then, as casual as feeding the ducks, I tossed the lighter onto Chase’s remains and watched without blinking as his corpse went up in a whoosh of blue-orange flame.
“Gonna stay until he’s ash?” the guard asked with zero judgment.
I nodded. “Sure am. He’s risen from the dead once before... but never again.”
The guard grunted a sound of respect. “I wish I could offer ye some marshmallows. Coulda had a wee celebration while you wait.”
Reaching into my bag once more, I pulled out a bag of squishy pink treats I’d brought along just for the occasion. “Way ahead of you.”
He gave a roaring laugh, shaking his head. “I’ll leave ye to it.”
The sound of his chuckles echoed along the corridor, and I made my way back into the cell now that the initial flames had died down to a less eyebrow singeing level. I poked a marshmallow on the end of a dagger and toasted it over Chase’s burning body, then snapped a selfie to send to the guys.
Their response was instant and unanimous.
We love you. Come home.
I smiled, because I could. I could finally go home, totally free of my demons, and into the arms of the men who loved me for me.
Chase Lockhart’s hand had been wrapped around my throat for so long, I’d forgotten what it felt like to breathe freely. He’d tried everything to break me. He’d attempted to burn my whole empire to the ground, he’d even burned my gumdrop. And in the end… it was him who wound up a pile of charred remains on a dirty, blood-stained prison floor.
Except this time, the only thing rising from ashes was my future.
I walked away with the sickly-sweet taste of toasted marshmallow in my mouth and never looked back.
THE END
A NOTE FROM TATE
Oh, hey you! You MADE IT! Good work. Now… do you need a snack or some water or something? I know that one was a girthy bitch and I hope you stopped for pee breaks along the way.
You didn’t seriously think we were just going to let Chase rot in jail forever, did you? I bet you’re gonna be looking at marshmallows differently next time you go to toast one! I have it on good authority (from Hades) that they taste pretty fucking awful when toasted over burning body. But I suppose victory tastes better than anything, so I’ll let her get away with that.
Yes, I hear you, not everything got tied up in a nice, neat bow, again! You still have questions, dammit! And I feel for you. But my villains don’t always play nice. They don’t tend to leave video confessions or write their secrets in their diaries. Sometimes—like with Sandra—secrets simply go to the grave unheard. But if it makes you feel better, I know ALL the answers to your questions. I just didn’t leave anyone alive to tell them on the page! Whoops-a-daisy.
Oh, Heather knows too. Does that help? No? Hmm.
Change of subject? Okay, good plan! I know you’re still curious about a couple of characters that had little introductions throughout this series, but don’t worry. Their day will come. Like Hades’s tattoo says, everything happens for a reason, and that couldn’t be more true in this Shadow Grove linked world.
A word of warning, though. Hades was a deeply damaged chick who dealt with her big feelings in bloodshed more often than not. But she’s got nothing on this next heroine. Please proceed into The Guild with caution because they’re not the good guys.
Before you flip the page and read the blurb for my next linked series, I need to express an enormous thank you to my content editor, sounding board, taskmistress, and general hand-holder Heather Long. This has been a goddamn journey but I think we just keep getting better with every conquest. Like I told you thirty-four books ago, you’re the bestest editor who ever edited and yes, Zed is all yours. (along with River, Zan, Beck, Rafe, Fucking-Kody, and you-know-who… *wink*)
To YOU my reader, thank you for sticking with Hades story, I hope you enjoyed yourself. I also hope you’ll come back to Shadow Grove world again with Honey Trap, releasing December 27th. (turn the page for the blurb and buy link)
Honey Trap
THE GUILD #1
honeytrap
noun
a stratagem in which an attractive person entices another person into revealing information or doing something unwise.
Those who have reached a certain level within the mercenary guild, know that it’s not merely a job. It isn’t a hobby or a career or a fun pastime. It’s a calling. A fucking honor.
Being in the Guild is our life.... Or death.
Not everyone is created equal, and not everyone is truly cut out for the work we do. It’s not pretty, it's not glamorous, and it’s sure as shit not moral or good. The weight of the sins we carry can become too much for some, and they crack.
When they do, they become a threat.
No one quits the Guild. Not really. Either they cut a deal to make themselves useful in another capacity, or they get eliminated.
But who, you might ask, can kill a killer?
Who scares the boogeyman into running and hiding?
Men like me.
The Guild is my life. My love. My very existence.
Anyone who poses a threat to that, is eliminated. No questions, no hesitations, no mercy.
Until her.
Also By Tate James
Madison Kate
(Dark NA Contemporary Romance)
#1 HATE
#2 LIAR
#3 FAKE
#4 KATE
#4.5 VAULT
HADES
(Dark NA Contemporary Romance)
#1 7th Circle
#2 Anarchy
#3 Club 22
#4 Timber
The Guild
(Dark NA Contemporary Romance)
#1 Honey Trap
#2 Dead Drop
#3 Kill Order
The Royal Trials
(YA/NA Fantasy)
#1 Imposter
#2 Seeker
#3 Heir
Kit Davenport: (NA Paranormal Romance)
#1 The Vixen’s Lead
#2 The Dragon’s Wing
#3 The Tiger’s Ambush
#4 The Viper’s Nest
#5 The Crow’s Murder
#6 The Alpha’s Pack
Novella: The Hellhound’s Legion
Box Set: Kit Davenport: The Complete Series
Dark Legacy: (Dark Contemporary high school romance)
#1 Broken Wings
#2 Broken Trust
#3 Broken Legacy
#4 Dylan (standalone)
Royals of Arbon Academy
(Dark contemporary/dystopian college romance)
#1 Princess Ballot
#2 Playboy Princes
#3 Poison Throne
Hijinx Harem: (RomCom PNR series)
#1 Elements of Mischief
#2 Elements of Ruin
#3 Elements of Desire
The Wild Hunt Motorcycle Club
(Dark PNR/Fantasy series)
#1 Dark Glitter
#2 Cruel Glamour (TBC)
#3 Torn Gossamer (TBC)
Foxfire Burning: (UF/PNR series)
#1 The Nine
#2 The Tail Game (TBC)
#3 TBC (TBC)
Undercover Sinners
(Dark Contemporary Suspense Romance)
#1 Altered By Fire
#2 Altered by Lead
#3 Altered by Pain (TBC)
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