by Penelope Sky
Maddox didn’t gloat at his victory. “I think you and I can do great things. We’ll be the most powerful men in the drug world. We’ll be untouchable.” He slowly stepped away from me and motioned for his men to get ready to leave.
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.
Then we sat in silence for a long time. I stared at my husband’s visage, seeing the tightness of his jaw, the emptiness of his eyes. I knew he was troubled by the events of the day, and since nothing got him as worked up as Maddox, I knew he was the culprit behind my husband’s irritation. “What happened?”
He didn’t give an explanation. Instead, he rubbed his flattened palm across his jawline. I didn’t like him when he was angry, but he was somehow even more attractive when he brooded like that.
I continued to wait.
“Everything happened.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Hades didn’t draw out the truth like this. He held the silence because he didn’t want to admit what was going on. The longer he waited, the longer our lives would seem normal…or at least, somewhat normal. “My plans backfired. I thought I was making movements in the right direction. Instead, I got cornered.”
What was that supposed to mean?
“I thought I had Maddox taken care of…”
Anytime his name was mentioned, I felt sick to my stomach. I almost asked Hades never to say that name in my presence, but that just gave Maddox power over me. It just made me weak, made me a victim.
“He cornered Damien and me at the lab. Now that all of our competitors have been disposed of, Maddox has decided to join the business. He infiltrated my men, has me outnumbered, and now I have no choice but to let him in.”
I never foresaw anything like this happening. I couldn’t even process what he’d just told me. War meant one side had to die, not that both sides would converge together. “I don’t understand. You’re in business with him?”
He nodded. “Now we run the same drug empire together.”
There had to be something I was missing. “And when he drops his guard, you’re going to kill him?”
Hades wouldn’t look at me.
“You’re going to kill him, right?” I started to panic, started to hear the emotion in my voice. I refused to live in a world where Maddox and my husband were allies. I’d kill him myself before I let that happen.
Hades held his silence.
I used words he had said to me so many times. “Look at me.”
He resisted me at first, but he slowly turned to meet my gaze. There was sadness, apology in his look. His eyes shifted back and forth like he was fighting to keep himself from looking down at the ground.
“Tell me you’re going to kill him.”
“Baby…” He took a deep breath, visibly wincing as the air left his lungs. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you fucking can.” I slammed my hand down on the table. “We don’t forgive and forget. We don’t sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened. You told me that we were gangsters, that we were loyal to each other. Letting him walk away is not fucking loy
alty. Who are you? You are not the man I married.”
Pain moved into his gaze, as if I’d hurt him all the way down to his core. “You don’t understand…”
“I don’t understand?” I asked incredulously. “That man raped your wife. You have no idea the shit he did to me. You have no idea how he would grab me by the neck and shove my face into the mattress and then…”
Hades jumped to his feet. “Stop.” It was the first time he’d raised his voice, so it sounded like he was yelling at me. He usually commandeered a conversation simply by changing his tone. But this time, he snapped. His hand moved over his face, and he sniffed audibly, as if he were controlling his unspent tears.
I pitied him as I stared at him, but I was still enraged.
Hades was quiet for a long time as he considered what to say. He breathed hard as he battled his emotions to reach pragmatism. “I would kill him if I could. You have no idea how much I want that. But every time I made a move against him, I always lost. And if I make a move against him now… I just can’t.”
“Why not?”
He stared at the floor. “Because he’ll take you…”
My heart started to thud in my chest. All the adrenaline and anxiety came rushing back. I never thought about my time with Maddox, but I hadn’t forgotten every little detail of my captivity.
Hades continued talking. “I know he’ll make good on his threat. If I try to kill him, and I fail…I couldn’t live through that again. I barely lived through it the first time. You are the most important thing to me, and if that means I have to deal with him on a regular basis, then so be it. I will not risk you.”
I didn’t want to go through that again under any circumstances. But I didn’t want that man to be part of our lives. I didn’t want my husband to have to look at him every day. I didn’t want that asshole in my hotel, my family’s legacy. I just couldn’t accept the surrender. “I understand your decision, but we can’t live that way.”
“We don’t have a choice. He told me he would never hurt you or our son as long as our relationship stays professional. Making me a partner was always what he wanted. Now that he has it, he won’t bother us again.”
“That doesn’t matter. I refuse to accept the lesser of two evils. He deserves to die for what he did.”
“I know…”
“How can you expect me to bump into him every time I turn around? To have him in our lives indefinitely? How can you look him in the eye without wanting to strangle him? We’ll never move on if we have to live like this every day. We’ll never heal.”
He pivoted his body toward me and placed his hands on his hips. “We have no other choice. You never have to see him again. We can arrange for that.”
“How? He’s going to be at the hotel.”
“I know. So, you won’t be.”
My heart fell into my stomach. “So, you’re taking away the one thing that is mine? That hotel belongs to my family, and now I can’t even step foot inside of it because of him? You expect me to accept that?”
Shame was in his eyes. “I can tell him never to go to your office, but I can’t prohibit him from other places in the hotel.”
“That’s not the point, and you know it. If I want to keep what is mine, I have to subject myself to that cruelty. That’s not right.”
“I know it’s not…”
“Then I don’t accept it.”
He gripped his skull for a second, breathing through his anger. “I hate this as much as you. I hate myself for not fixing this. I feel like a pathetic excuse for a man. But this is what we have to do. We need to make the best of it. We need to keep all of us safe. It’s not just about you and me anymore… We have someone else to think about now.”
My blood turned ice-cold. “Did he threaten Andrew?”
He didn’t answer my question because he didn’t need to.
All of this was so overwhelming that I couldn’t handle it. I stepped away with my arms crossed over my chest, thinking about the terrible future I would have. Even if I played by his rules, I would never feel safe. Until Maddox was dead, I would never feel free. The only way to escape him was to escape Hades. “I’m leaving you.” I stared at the wall because I couldn’t meet his look. I didn’t want it to come to this, but I had to protect myself and our son.
Hades was quiet, like he hadn’t heard what I said.
“I can’t stay here and live like that. I married you because you said you could protect me. Well, you obviously can’t, so I need to move on.” It hurt to say these things, but I had to do what I needed to do.
Hades moved toward me, and when he looked at me, his face looked like a raging battlefield. His vein protruded from his forehead, and there was a red tint to his face. His eyes narrowed on mine, and he stared at me with an arctic coldness. “I’m going to give you one chance to take that back.” His voice was low but so deadly. He was more terrifying than Maddox ever was. He threatened me without even making a single threat.
My heart started to slam against my rib cage. This man never scared me, but when he behaved this way, it felt like my skin was melting off my bones.
“I have done nothing but take care of you since the moment you became my wife. I took your place with the expectation of death. I had offers from beautiful women every night that I was out, and I rejected them all. When you weren’t ready, I stayed patient. I admit that things are difficult right now, but I have done everything I possibly can to protect you. If you really feel that way, if you really think I’m worthless, then get the fuck out of my house. Leave my name and don’t come back.” He stepped away from me and turned around. He grabbed a t-shirt from one of his drawers and prepared to walk out.
I shouldn’t have said what I did. It was cold and heartless, but I was frustrated. If there was nothing for me here, I needed to leave. “Hades.”
He stopped in front of the door but didn’t turn around.
I walked up behind him and stopped when we were close together. “I’m sorry…”
He slowly turned around and faced me again. His face was still livid.
“That’s not what I meant. You’ve been a good husband to me. That’s why I fell in love with you…”
His anger slowly faded away.
“But you can’t expect me to live like this. I’ll never feel safe. I’ll never feel whole. I understand why the risks are too high to retaliate, but rolling over and just accepting it is something I just can’t do. That man would’ve taken everything from me. I just can’t do it…”
“Like I said, we have no choice.”
“I still think I should leave.”
His eyes narrowed.
“If he’s attached to you, then he’ll never go away. But I can move to Rome and run the hotel there. I could take my mother with me and never have to think about him again. If this is the only way Andrew and I can have a new life, then we should take it.”
Instead of him bursting with anger, his face started to turn white like snow. He suddenly turned cold, as if his limbs were hardening from frostbite. The light left his eyes like the sun had set and would never rise again.
“If you aren’t going to kill him, then I don’t know what else to do.”
Hades abruptly turned around and walked out the door without looking at me. Instead of closing it behind himself, he just left it open. He walked down the hallway with sagging shoulders and a crippled physique. He looked like a man broken. Even when Maddox beat him to within an inch of his life, he’d never looked this weak. But now he looked like the walking dead.
I should go after him, but I couldn’t. I was too heartbroken, too frozen to do anything about it.
Sofia and Hades’s story concludes in…
The conclusion to the insanely popular Betrothed Series by critically acclaimed author Penelope Sky. Hades has done everything for the woman he loves. Now it’s time for Sofia to do the same for him.
I never broke the curse...I just changed it.
Now I’m forced into a partnersh
ip with Maddox, and since I can’t kill him, I have to tolerate him every day.
So Sofia leaves me.
I’ve sacrificed everything for her, but it’s never enough. My love for her doesn't change despite the betrayal. The torture continues.
What am I gonna do?
I have one option. I said no the first time, but I’m not sure I can say no again...
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Damien is getting his very own story! There will even be guest appearances from Hades and Sofia AND a crossover story featuring Heath, the new Skull King. It’s just as unpredictable and riveting!
When Heath, Balto’s brother, demands payment from Damien’s business, things get out of hand…and a war begins. It’s the first time a character from another series has become a main player in one of my books. And it’s going to be quite a tale.
Hades retired from the business.
Now it’s just me.
Look at me now. Bitter...angry...depressed. I resent my former friend so much, even hate the guy, but I’ve never been the same since he refused to forgive me.
I meet a woman. She’s like all the others...beautiful, interesting, good at the fun stuff, but I don’t feel anything.
One woman will love you for you, not your money or your power, but you’ll lose her. And once she’s gone...she’s gone.
That gypsy wasn’t right about me too, right?
I’ve got trouble on my doorstep when the new Skull King shows up. He wants a cut of my business.
Like he’s getting anything. This is all I have left.
Once again I become swallowed by the underworld.
Will I survive it?
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She’s gone.
But the fortune can’t be true because she means nothing to me.
Nothing at all.
