by Marian Tee
“Let my son out,” Dahlia was screaming.
Someone answered her in a voice too low for Herod to hear.
“Oh my God!” Dahlia started to moan. “Herod, Herod!” And then her voice started to fade.
Fear churned inside Herod as he felt Helios push him onto his back with a nudge of his foot. Dahlia had always been a monstrously strong woman, and to hear her sob like a weak, old, helpless being – it wasn’t right. Nothing in his world was going to be right again. As the fact became clear to him, Herod began to cry, too. Helios was going to kill him then.
Around him, the room whirled. All the walls had enormous zigzagging cracks, painted with smudges of blood. Helios had flung him at just about every side of the room. The only thing left, Herod thought dizzily, was the ceiling—
A wheezing protest came out of him as Helios lifted him bodily into the air, his hands around Herod’s neck. As the pressure around his neck tightened, Helios began to choke and the world got smaller and smaller with each second—
“Stop, please,” Herod choked out.
In the next second, the noose-like grip around his neck vanished and he fell to the ground in a jarring, bone-shattering thud. Herod groaned, feeling like he was black and blue all over. When he opened his eyes, Helios was crouched down on the floor next to him, the merciless look on his face making Herod’s bastard brother almost unrecognizable.
“Did that get your attention, older brother?”
Herod only managed a jerky nod, not wanting to risk saying the wrong word.
“That’s good. If you tell me anything but the truth, it means you just want more of my attention. But I don’t think you want that, do you?”
He shook his head vigorously.
“When you sent men after Rick, did you find out anything about Manolito Chavez?”
“Y-yes.”
“And?”
“He wants your…your woman. Badly. He has the woman’s father with him.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“He’s a ghost. No one knows where he is—” Herod’s scream was cut halfway when Helios once again gripped his neck and started to strangle him.
“Look at me,” Helios said quietly, not bothering to ease the pressure, forcing Herod to fight for his life like MJ was fighting for hers. When Herod’s gaze met his, he said coldly, “I need concrete answers. If you say something like you don’t know, I’ll bash your head against the floor. It won’t make you any dumber than you are now, but I guarantee you, it could keep you paralyzed or even stuck in a coma for the rest of your life. Do you want that?”
Helios let his fingers ease around Herod’s neck.
Herod gasped out, “N-no.”
“Excellent. Now, I’ll ask you one more time. And I want you to think very hard. What do you know of Manolito Chavez that can help me?”
The need to survive forced Herod to think furiously. “You could…you could find out where he is through his daughter.” Relief exploded inside him when he saw Helios’ frowning look. “Yes,” he said eagerly, “it’s a secret I accidentally stumbled upon when a business partner slipped about it. Her name is Gracie Langley. She’s into the same business as her father, but they make sure she’s not connected to him in any way. She serves as the face of their legal enterprises.”
Helios slowly rose to his feet. “Anything else I have to know about this woman?”
“I heard…” Herod licked his lips in fear. “I heard people say she’s the opposite of her father. That she’s a masochist. If a man can’t make her cry out in pain, they say she’d have her men kill him instead.”
Chapter Five
“Afxisi,” Kellion murmured to him just before he put on his helmet and drove off. One by one, the other officers, Yuri and Andreus, said the same thing to Helios before riding off into the night. The other members of the club followed until Helios was all alone. This was his fight, his honor, his woman at stake, and he did not want his club involved in what would prove to be the darkest days of his life.
For a long moment, Helios remained at the foot of the stairs leading to Greece’s most exclusive secret club, a palatial structure that only welcomed the country’s wealthiest and most evil. Every member of this club spent millions to have their darkest desires slaked, a side of them which they zealously kept hidden from the public. Even members of their own families didn’t know of their depravities, of their hunger to perform acts of heinous evil and see blood spilled for the sake of entertainment.
Afxisi, Helios said to himself as he took a deep breath. It meant ‘rise’ in Greek, and the word served as the cornerstone of their club’s foundation.
Again, he closed his eyes, his mind conjuring an image of MJ, which served to remind him what he was laying his life on the line for. He was halfway to emptying his bank account by now, five hundred million dollars burned to the ground, all of it gone to bribe and hire just about every damn expert in the world – anyone who could help him find out where MJ was before it was too late.
This time, however, he was struck with the change in his imaginary MJ. She was on her feet, dressed in her usual plaid men’s shirt, tank top, and jeans. He blinked furiously, the sight of it so fucking vivid and pure – God, she was so, so pure. How could someone so pure be in the hands of a monster?
His imaginary MJ smiled.
It nearly brought Helios to his knees. Don’t fucking smile at me, brat. I’m the reason you’re gone. I should have been there to help you. I should have known—
But MJ kept smiling, her eyes shining with love for him.
And she whispered, Afxisi.
Rise.
You still have our story to tell. A tragedy to overcome. And a cage to break me free from.
The words his MJ spoke were the oath that every member of the Afxisi took upon joining the club, a promise they made to themselves and to each other. Could the real MJ truly know of the same thing? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But it didn’t matter. Right now, the MJ in his mind told him so, and it gave Helios the strength to do what he had come here to do.
Pulling down the Venetian mask to partially hide his identity, Helios climbed the stairs and knocked on the massive pair of doors, its oak surfaces bearing impressively intricate carvings. They slowly opened, a nymph-like creature standing on each side. They wore leather costumes that bared more than it hid, their garishly red lips forming a smile even as their eyes screamed from the degradation they suffered.
They bowed at the sight of Helios, and as he stepped forward, the doors slammed shut behind him. It was only that time he saw the silent pair of men standing guard, and they moved towards him in unison, giving him a thorough body check for weapons.
The club’s grand lobby was tastefully opulent, with a magnificent chandelier hanging from its domed ceiling, its glittering lights shining down on the plush Turkish carpets with its swirl of colors and patterns.
Another individual slithered towards Helios. He was dressed like a maître d, and his tone was properly deferential when he asked, “Good evening, sir. I believe this is our first time to welcome you to our club?”
“You assumed correctly,” Helios murmured. “I believe most people here know who I am.”
“Of course.” But the man remained where he was, smiling and blocking Helios’ path. “You are Helios Andreadis—” The man stopped in confusion at Helios’ shake of his head. “No?”
“When I say you know who I am, I believe it is by another name.” He paused. “Some of you may have heard people call me…Thanato.” The moment he said the word, he shed everything that made him Helios and instead embraced the darkness that resided inside him.
For MJ, he would be Thanato, the man everyone called Death, and for good reason.
****
“I have the most delicious news, cara,” Evangeline murmured as she reclaimed the seat next to Gracie. A svelte brunette several years Gracie’s junior, Evangeline was known affectionately as Belt by the other club members, in honor of her favorite tool
for “training” slaves.
Gracie yawned. “Are you sure I’d be interested in it?” A beautiful ash blonde, she was known as the club’s Ice Princess because she was one of the toughest masochists to make a sub out of. Unlike most members, Gracie also had a sadistic streak in her, one that came out every time a man failed to make her weep in pain. True to her nickname, which had a double-edged meaning, Gracie liked to freeze the men’s testicles until they fell off as punishment.
“Oh, most assuredly. Because you will never guess who just walked into the club.”
One fine brow arched up. “The President?”
Evangeline laughed. “Almost. He’s a President, but not the President.”
“You’re speaking needlessly in riddles, Eva.”
Her friend pouted. “You’re no fun at all.” She gestured towards the entrance of the club’s private bar. “There. Do you see him?” Her voice lowered. “The President of Afxisi, Helios Andreadis.”
Gracie stiffened in surprise. Never in her life would she have guessed that the bastard son of the Andreadis clan would have the same proclivities as her. “Are you sure?” she demanded.
“But that’s not what’s going to get your panties all twisted,” Evangeline murmured. “I’ve heard from good authority that Helios is none other than Thanato.”
Gracie almost, almost gaped, which would have been embarrassingly uncouth. Her gaze flittered back to Helios Andreadis, who had finished talking to the club’s manager and was walking towards the stage, where a dozen naked women cavorted in abandon. All of them were bleeding in different parts of the body, the scent of their blood flavoring the air and feeding everyone’s hunger.
Could he really be Thanato, Gracie wondered, and the thought that Helios Andreadis was indeed so had her panties twisted, as Evangeline so vulgarly put it.
In their depraved little society, Thanato was a legend, a man who supposedly occupied such an exalted position in his real life that he relied on the most paranoid techniques to keep his identity a secret. But still, word of his perversities spread. He had supposedly killed a woman every week, sometimes three at the same time, and it was said that he could only come when he had a woman’s dying face before him.
Gracie crossed her legs. Oh God, if it was true…
She glanced at Helios again. He was so unbelievably tall, and his body was so strong. If he really wanted to kill her, she wouldn’t be able to fight him off. She wouldn’t be able to stop him from killing her. The thought had Gracie crossing her legs once more. Oh God, she was so fucking wet.
She hoped it was true. Because if it wasn’t, her disappointment would know no bounds and she might just kill Helios herself for crushing her dreams.
Chapter Six
Helios slapped the woman’s bare butt, his teeth gritting as he fucked her hard from behind. The force of his thrusts had her screaming even as it forced her down on the bed, her fingers curling against the bedsheets.
In minutes, she was gasping his name as she came.
Bile rose inside him, every part of Helios rebelling against the act of betrayal, but he forced it down, forced himself to concentrate on shoving his dick faster and harder into her butt until he, too, came, his teeth gnashing together as he spilled his seed on her butt.
When he was done, he pushed her away and the drunk girl moaned in protest, flopping on her back. She was lying on sheets wet with their sweat and come, but she didn’t seem to care. “Don’t go,” she whined as she watched Helios pull on his pants. “We can do it some more.”
Helios pulled down his shirt. “I told you, I don’t do one-night stands.”
“Then what are we?”
“One-fuck stands.” He left the hotel room without looking back.
When he got to his home, he threw up right away.
The sound of retching coming from the office’s private bathroom had Yuri, Kellion, and Andreus exchanging grim looks. When Helios emerged, freshly showered but white-faced with strain, Yuri said flatly, “You cannot continue this for much longer, President.”
Helios threw himself on the couch. Even after the longest fucking shower, he still felt dirty, his skin crawling at the mere memory of having another woman touch what should have only belonged to his MJ. “Unless one of you can come up with someone who can pass as my twin, this is the only thing I can do for her.”
No one spoke then, Helios’ words being the inarguable truth. All four of them had studied Manolito Chavez’s every move ever since he had risen to prominence as one of the world’s most successful human traffickers. He was a man who was careful to a fault, leaving nothing to chance. The only way Chavez would make a mistake was if he believed that Helios no longer cared about MJ.
Helios glanced at Kellion. “The photographer got some good shots?”
Kellion’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “The best.”
Helios nodded. “Make sure it shows up on the front page of as many tabloids as possible.” He glanced at Yuri. “Any news about James?”
“I’m on the last of the journals Ioniko Vlahos’ father wrote. It appears he and James Cartwright were once good friends, Vlahos being one of James’ regular sponsors. He speaks of the many clubs they used to haunt all around the world when James used to race. It’s possible James may drop by one of them. People like him usually do. They want to remember their glory days and are bitter when no one actually remembers it but them.”
“Can you really keep doing this?” Andreus demanded, no longer able to contain himself. Helios was so damn close to his breaking point. He was fucking sorry that MJ had been taken away, but he did not hold much hope that she was still alive. Manolito Chavez was a monster, and it had been two months since he had taken Helios’ woman. Unfortunately, it had also been said that no woman lasted more than a few weeks in the trafficker’s care.
“I’ll do what I have to do,” Helios said in a hard voice, “and for as fucking long as it takes until I get her back.”
“But what if she’s—”
“Don’t say it,” Helios snarled. “Don’t you fucking say it. MJ is alive.”
In his mind, MJ was looking at him and smiling, and he tried not to think about how she appeared more and more luminous with each passing day, more ghost than human.
Afxisi.
Rise.
Rise against everything that went against them.
His jaw clenched. “She’s alive, all right? I can feel it here.” He thumped his chest. “This one will keep beating as long as she’s alive. So trust me. She’s waiting for me.”
“Say she’s alive then.” Andreus ignored the warning look that the others shot at him. Maybe they were content to let their brother do something foolhardy, respecting his decision as President, but he had always liked to live his life dangerously. Even if Helios ended up kicking him out of Afxisi, no fucking way was he just going to stand by and let one of the few men he cared about risk his life so recklessly.
“Can you fucking say you’re taking every precaution to stay alive and actually be there to rescue MJ when the opportunity comes?”
Helios didn’t say anything.
“You’re risking too much. You’re using your heart, not your head, and that’s not what you fucking taught us to do to survive. You’re playing a dangerous game with that bitch Gracie. If she finds out you’ve been leading her on all along, she’s going to make you pay – and MJ, too.”
“What the hell do you want me to do then?” Helios shouted. “Just sit here and do nothing—”
“Fuck no,” Andreus shouted back, also shooting to his feet. “I’m saying let us goddamn help you. You can’t fucking expect us to bear seeing you kill yourself like this and do nothing.”
Helios tiredly ran a hand over his face, feeling like every second without MJ by his side was sucking the life out of him. “I can’t have any of you more involved than you already are. This is my fight—”
“This is Afxisi’s fight. And like it or not, we are as much a part of it as you are.”
Andreus looked at Kellion and Yuri.
“We would lay down our lives for you without being asked,” Kellion said.
“Like fuck I’ll ask that.”
“Let us at least help with the costs,” Yuri said quietly. “You’re down to – what? Two, three hundred mil? That’s not going to last you forever, Helios, not with the rate you’re buying just about every politician in the world searching for MJ. We’ve got more money than we have a need for. Let us use our resources, too.”
Helios wanted to argue, but he could see on his friends’ faces it wouldn’t do him any good. “Do whatever you want then.”
A smile cracked Kellion’s face. “Gracious as ever, President. You’re welcome, too, by the way.” The light-hearted taunt served to somewhat ease the tension in the atmosphere. and they all relaxed.
“There is one other thing you can do to expedite things,” Andreus said.
Helios glanced at his treasurer with mock irritation. “Another fucking suggestion? Don’t you only say more than a few words when you're with Hailey?”
Andreus ignored the dig. “Ioniko Vlahos.”
Helios stiffened. “What about him?”
“If any one of us were to make a move against Manolito Chavez’s business, they’d know we’re on to him. But if it was Ioniko who did it, and if he can use his influence without getting directly involved, you could exploit it and step in as a savior at the right time. You could offer your help…”
Kellion’s eyes glinted in understanding. “For the right price of course.”
The right price…being the girl who owned the key to his heart but was now trapped in another man’s cage.
In his mind, MJ was still smiling.
But this time, her eyes were filled with unshed tears, and her voice was softer, hoarser.
Hurry.
****
MJ sank to her knees in front of Manolito, her every move subservient.
