Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 95187 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95187 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
By all accounts, there’s no reason to keep me alive. I might have a wealth of knowledge about the key players in Circe’s inner circle, but it’s not like anyone in this city would believe me. The only person who gave me the benefit of the doubt sailed off with her monster of a boyfriend. The Minotaur will protect Ariadne. That, at least, I don’t have to worry about.
I don’t have to worry about…anything. Not even my unwelcome guest. I’m not going to survive this. My chance of obtaining freedom is gone forever, and maybe if I live long enough I’ll mourn that loss, but right now all I feel is relief. There’s no one left to disappoint.
None of that explains why this man is in my room, though.
I stretch out carefully and prop my arms behind my head. “Go ahead. Look your fill.”
He looks at me like I’m dog shit on the bottom of his shoe. “I don’t expect you to know this, but when your people killed Triton, there were others caught in the crossfire.”
My bravado threatens to buckle. I had nothing to do with any of that. Responsibility would require my father to trust me enough to tell me anything. It would require me to be something other than the son he never wanted. The son he claimed he never needed. Apparently, my failure as a son was so spectacular he had to foster two sons to fill the void created by my disastrous performance.
“Sorry?” I don’t quite manage to sound as irreverent as I’m aiming. The word crumples around the edges. “That wasn’t my op.”
“But it was your father’s. He bribed Triton to bring people into Olympus. And once he did, they murdered him and his guards. Including my sister.”
Growing up as Minos’s only biological son, I may not have had a front-row seat to all of the sins he committed, but I was privy to enough of them to develop a thick skin. It was the only way to survive. He wasn’t going to change his actions just because I find murder stomach-turning. If he knew how much I hated everything he did, he would have taken away the sliver of freedom that made my life worth living. I could say I didn’t have any other choice, but somehow I don’t think this stranger wants to hear it. “I’m sorry,” I say again, managing to make it sound more sincere this time.
“Maybe.” He lifts his hands, and I go cold at the sight of his leather gloves. “You will be sorry. I’ll make sure of that.”
I don’t stop to think. I burst into motion, rolling across the bed away from him. Some part of me already knows what I’ll find when my hand lands on the knob: it doesn’t turn beneath my grasp. Locked. Of course. This person, intent on revenge, wouldn’t leave anything up to chance. Of course he locked the door behind him when he came to murder me.
He grabs my arm before I have a chance to decide on a different course of action, spinning me around and slamming me back against the door. He pins me there with a hand across my throat. “What is Circe planning?”
I might laugh if I had the breath for it. So, not a murder. An interrogation. Of course. It was my mistake for thinking Poseidon’s honesty would prevent him from getting his hands dirty—or allowing his people to get their hands dirty. Naive of me.
“Answer the question.”
I let my head fall back to rest against the door. “The answer to that is above my pay grade. But even so…it doesn’t take a genius to look around and draw the obvious conclusions. Her squadron is in the bay, so she intends to take the city.”
He tightens his grip around my throat and slams me back against the door. “No shit. Give me the details.”
“I don’t have details.” If I did, I would’ve bargained for my freedom and my sister’s freedom long before now. Gods, that is what I should have been focusing on. If I’d managed to get those details, I could have saved us both.
It was only in the last couple of weeks, when our father turned on my sister, that I realized there was no coming back from this. There was no gaining his approval. We had disappointed him one time too many, and he’d rather see us dead than see us turn against him.
If I live long enough, eventually I’m going to have to deal with the truth that he turned a gun on me, with every intention to pull the trigger and end my life. That my sweet, precious sister killed him first. That she bloodied her hands to keep me among the living. That she will bear scars on her soul because of my failures.