Summer Queen Read online

  This is unlivable.

  There’s no more viscera on my hands, but it left its imprint on my sleeves. My shirt. It hurts to bring my own reflection into focus in the surgery window.

  It’s an image of a haunted man.

  My heart drives blood through my veins in a violent drumbeat. Deny it, deny it. Deny the urge to tear down the operating room and leave nothing but rubble. That won’t get me where I need to go.

  Where the fuck do I need to go?

  The answer filters through my pain like an icepick, chipping away at a frozen core. If Conor was with me now, that dog would be fucking frantic. He’d throw his body against my legs until I moved. We’re well past the time when a warning could prevent this—prevent any of this. Perhaps it was too late to change course months ago. I remember the moment. My office. Conor growling. The words that slipped by my own denials.

  I have torn rooms apart. I have torn people apart. But I couldn’t tear apart my own desire for Persephone without killing myself in the process.

  Maybe I tore her apart, too.

  Sick worry explodes in my gut, a land mine made of bile and rage. Where the fuck is she? Where did he take her? Who paid him more than I did?

  My fist hits the glass with earth-shattering force.

  The glass is reinforced, bulletproof, and it holds. Dr. Martin’s shoulders go up toward his ears but his hands don’t stop moving. What the hell are they doing? It was one bullet, not a hail of them.

  One of the nurses looks up, says something to him, looks back down. I can’t hear anything but my own heartbeat. If Conor doesn’t have a heartbeat, I will raze the city to the ground. I’d do it for less. I’d do it for Persephone.

  Zeus did this.

  Ah—there it is. The knowledge that’s been circling my brain like a buzzard. Of course he didn’t pull the trigger himself. He wouldn’t dirty his hands. But he set it in motion.

  He paid for it.

  Who else would have the money, or the inclination?

  Most of the people here fear me and worship me in equal measure. How could they not? I’m the reason for their lives. That’s what it is to sign a contract with me. Zeus and I have many contracts between the two of us. The most important one is unspoken. It’s a cold war. He doesn’t attack my mountain, and I don’t attack his businesses.

  Something changed.

  I slam my fist against the glass again, and this time there’s a faint crack from one of its edges. I’m stronger than reinforced glass, even with pain slicing its way through my brain and radiating down the back of my neck, all the way to the base of my spine.

  “Mr. Hades.”

  “What could you possibly need right now?” It doesn’t occur to me that my teeth are gritted until I have to answer Oliver. His reflection appears next to mine in the window. “I’ve given orders not to be disturbed. Do you have a fucking death wish?”

  “It’s been a long time.” Oliver sounds gruff. Why?

  I rip my eyes away from the surgery to find him offering a pill bottle.

  There is only one occasion that I let myself slip in front of Oliver.

  It was five or six months ago at the end of a long period of unrest in the mines. A late shipment from Demeter set all of it off. It set everything off, didn’t it? I could kill her. I should have killed him for knowing about me then, rather than feel this…exposed. I think of killing him now, just for the suggestion—just for the idea that I could be weak enough to need what’s in that bottle.

  A bitter rage burns my throat.

  He’s fucking right, isn’t he? A bloodbath in this hallway wouldn’t prove him wrong. This is the consequence of having a so-called inner circle. Inevitably errors are made. Inevitably knowledge seeps through the cracks. The walls come tumbling down.

  I snatch the bottle out of Oliver’s hand.

  It’s a relief to feel the smooth, plastic shape of it in my palm. Fuck him. Fuck Oliver, and fuck all the people in that operating room who are making me wait in this light.

  One pill—that’s all it takes. It goes down easy, because it always fucking does. That’s the nature of things a person needs, even if they’re poison in disguise. These pills are not poison. They are an illusion.

  It doesn’t feel illusory, the way the pain releases its grip and flees. The way the room comes back into focus. The way my heart stops its jagged throes and calms the fuck down. I drop the bottle into my pocket. Until Conor’s better again—and he had better fucking get better—the bottle will have to be with me constantly. No more mistakes.

  Oliver stands at the edge of the operating room window, watching me. Of all the people in this mountain he’s one of the few who has the courage to look at me directly. It’s a risk, and he knows it. Lucky for him he’s lived a lifetime of frankly insane risks. I’m just one more.

  “What happened?” My voice is hoarse.

  He shifts. Puts his hands in his pockets. Glances into the operating room without flinching. He wouldn’t fucking flinch. He’s seen worse than a dog with a bullet wound. “I reviewed the tapes. Every single one of them.”

  I say nothing.

  “The maid was involved—she led the way. Got her out of the room and brought her to one of the workers from the mines. He had a gun, which—” Oliver inclines his head toward Conor, through the glass. “I don’t know what else he was planning to do.”

  It wasn’t just any worker, was it? It was a specific worker. I can see him now, standing on my factory floor, his head yanked back while I dip my fingers between Persephone’s legs.

  More pain, this time not from the light, from my head. It’s deeper than that. It’s like a wave lapping at the shore. I’m the fucking shore. The pain is an ocean. I’ll never swim out of it. Not until I get her back.

  “He took Persephone.”

  “Yes.”

  “The maid?”

  “Gone. The cameras lost her on the platform.”

  The maid. Persephone’s maid, the one who brought her food throughout the day and helped her dress. Dark hair, dark eyes. She wasn’t plain, was she? In the right outfit, with the right makeup...

  The scar running down Oliver’s face stands out, redder than usual.

  I stand up straight and put one hand in my pocket. Oliver already knows about the fucking pills, clearly. He had the good sense to bring them to me alone. No one in the operating suite has so much as turned in my direction, so I don’t need to end their contracts over this.

  “What do your people in the city say, Oliver?”

  He has as many men in the city as I do. More, probably. It’s one reason he’s exceptionally useful to me. A crazy motherfucker like Oliver inspires a kind of loyalty. I’d rather expend my resources here. And I’ll have to, because the mountain has been compromised. There is a crack in my defenses. There has been theft. Theft of the worst possible kind.

  “A group met them when they got off the train.” He takes a deep breath, though I can’t imagine why he’d be nervous to tell me what I already fucking know. “Zeus’s people.”

  The firm boundaries that have kept Zeus, Demeter, and I from killing each other all these years crumble and fall. He’s gone too far. Too fucking far. And if he’s willing to do that, then I’m willing to retaliate using every goddamn weapon I have.

  Dr. Martin stands up straight and hands something off to one of his nurses in a flash of metal and red. I do not have fucking feelings about my dogs. That ended for me a long time ago. But a certain numb horror comes over me as he strips off his gloves and tips them into a biohazard bin. He goes to the sink and hits the switch for the water. He washes Conor’s blood from his hands and wrists. There’s no help for the surgical gown. I want the window to shatter so I can feel the shards bite into my own skin.

  Oliver moves back and Dr. Martin comes forward. Will I kill him over this? It’s a possibility that lives in the ache of my hands and the tension across my back. If it’s bad news, then I might answer with my own bad news. It would be a breach of contract.


  Letting my dog die would be a breach of contract, too.

  The door to the surgery opens and Dr. Martin steps out into the hall. It’s the one place in my home that I’ve allowed to be white, and only because the sterile environment requires an exceptional amount of bleach. Pill or no pill, it hurts to be here.

  Dr. Martin tugs down his mask with shaking hands. My heart barely beats. Inside the operating room the rest of the team in their blue scrubs move back and forth in a sick dance around the table. What the fuck are they doing? Covering him for burial or making him comfortable for recovery?

  “Mr. Hades.” Dr. Martin rubs the back of his hand over his forehead. “We’ve cleaned Conor’s wound and repaired the damage to the muscle tissue from where the bullet entered.”

  I restrain myself. Instead of lifting him off the ground by his neck, I only dig my hand into the front of his scrubs and twist, pulling him close enough to smell the disinfectant and soap clinging to his skin. And then, and then, I fucking can’t ask the question. It stalls on the tip of my tongue and digs its heels in, refusing to come out.

  Will he live?

  Dr. Martin’s eyes widen, his face pales, and for the third time today—tonight—whatever the fuck time it is—someone else is looking in where they shouldn’t be. Someone else is seeing the things I never wanted anyone to see. His heart beats wildly in his chest. It feels like it’s making direct contact with my knuckles.

  He takes a deep breath. “He’ll be all right, Mr. Hades. Conor is going to make it.”

  I shove him away. He’ll be well compensated. Him and his family. His whole team of surgeons and nurses. They belong to me. Here in this fucking mountain, I own more than diamonds. I own lives. Just not the ones I want. Never the ones I want. Conor could have died. And Persephone? She might already be dead. No. The pain sears my eyes, my head, my whole goddamn body. It blinds me more surely than the sun.

  I force it back. Pain is a strong hand, a fist. A vise.

  I’m stronger. “It’s time to leave the mountain.”

  3

  Persephone

  My eyes are dry.

  With men closing in around me and Decker backing away, it seems normal that I’d cry. Appropriate, even. But that only happened on the train and with Hades. A switch has been flipped, and here, on this platform, not a single tear falls. Is it because I’m courageous, or is this shock? Warm air swirls up from the platform, laden with summer humidity. This isn’t how I wanted to come to the city.

  For a moment I can breathe. For a moment there’s space between me and the men. It shrinks and shrinks until finally one of them reaches out and takes my arm.

  They’ve been waiting for this—to see if I was going to fight back. The hand above my elbow makes me sick, it makes me nauseated, but what am I going to do? What am I going to do? Terror is cold, like ice, like snow. Every breath is sharp.

  Another man comes alongside me and takes my other arm. Then it’s a hustle through the bright lights of the platform building and out the other side. Into shadow. Into darkness. Each heartbeat is a call to run, run, run. Get out of here. Get free. But my thoughts won’t line up in a neat row. Or else they’re too neat. It all makes too much sense.

  Decker had to get paid. Decker sold me. How long has he been planning this? From the very first time we met? No, that can’t be right. Can it?

  The men surround me on the sidewalk. It’s a clear night and even amid all the tall buildings the air is alive in a way that it wasn’t in the mountain. In the mountain, everything is tightly controlled, from the temperature to the mines. And me.

  I can’t think about it too much. It’ll make me fall apart. It’ll make me collapse onto the concrete and sob. I shouldn’t want to go back there, but I do. A bird shouldn’t want to live in a mine.

  And why, why? I want to go back to a man who made me sign my life away to him in exchange for Decker. I want to go back to a man who put his hand around my throat and his fingers between my legs and made me come in front of his entire factory floor. I want to go back into the dark, where he hurt me, where he ended me, where he made me finally live.

  I do.

  Because there was something in his kiss. There was something dark and wretched and hungry. I wanted it. And he wanted me. There was something pure about that desire.

  A big black car comes down the street and pulls up at the curb. The men tighten their hands around my arms like I’m going to make a break for it. Where would I run to? There are four of them, plus Decker. There’s nowhere to go.

  My pulse crawls, then runs, my heart shaking the bars of its cage. How did it come to this? All I wanted was to be free. All I wanted was to visit those lions outside the New York Public library. All I wanted was to stand in the sun and not have anyone’s hands on me. Not my mother’s. Not Decker’s.

  Things have changed since then.

  Now I want one person’s hands on me, but Hades isn’t here.

  A scream catches in my throat and I swallow it, the sound as sharp as broken glass. I have to hold it together, at least for now. Holding it together is the only way I’ll live through this nightmare. The city is dangerous. That’s what my mother always told me. Buildings loom over us, the black car gleams in the night, and I am trapped in a circle of men who could do anything. Anything. My lips are already numb. My fingertips will be next.

  My lungs will freeze, unable to get a breath, and then—

  One of the men steps forward and opens the door.

  The other two shove me forward. No, no. I twist in their hands, struggling to get purchase on the sidewalk. I was going to cooperate, make it easier on myself, but I can’t, I can’t. One of them claps a hand over my lips and gives my face a violent shake.

  “Not so hard.” The voice from inside the car is surprisingly mild. “It won’t make as good a gift if you damage it.”

  The man grunts and lets go of my face. Then they’re lifting me, setting me into the car. My head goes under the doorframe. This is it—this is the last moment I could have escaped. I squeeze my eyes shut in spite of myself. There’s no point in seeing who did this. Is there?

  I open them again.

  A man sits on the other bench seat in the back of the car, facing me. But he’s not looking at me. He’s looking down at something in his hand—a phone, or a small tablet—and the light from the screen caresses his face.

  He’s gorgeous.

  There’s no other way to describe him. Languid and luxurious, in clothes that were undoubtedly made for him. Charcoal pants. A white dress shirt with the collar open. He’s unbuttoned in a way that Hades never was, but it’s...purposeful. The hairs on the backs of my arms stand up.

  I’ve read books before, illicit books, that describe characters as tall, dark, and handsome. I don’t know how tall this man is but from the way he fills out the seat, my guess is...tall. Almost as tall as Hades. But where Hades is clean-shaven, this man has a dark fall of stubble and dark curls to match. Curls that seem barely contained by his precise haircut. How old is he? My mother’s age at least.

  I find my voice. No more sitting here in silence. No more.

  “I’m not a gift.” The phrase falls flat and awkward, a bit shaky. Not how intended.

  He looks up from his tablet and smiles. Perfect teeth. Glittering eyes. It’s the most charming thing I’ve ever seen, and the second most dangerous.

  “You’re conscious, then. That’s good.”

  “Who are you?” I am not going to let my voice shake. I’m not a little girl anymore. I might have been when I stepped on that train, but enough has happened since then to make me a woman. It has. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but I’m not—I’m not property that you can take and give.”

  He considers me, using one finger to flick off the tablet. The light goes away, leaving his dark eyes visible by the lamplight.

  “I’d venture to guess that you are property, Persephone. I’d venture to guess that you signed a contract in recent days.
Did you not?”

  How could he know?

  “Anything I sign of my own free will is my business, not yours.”

  “Your mother would beg to differ.”

  My mother doesn’t have anything to do with this. Or she has everything to do with this. If she’d let me have a life, I wouldn’t have had to make plans to escape from her. Either way, I’m not going to discuss her with this stranger.

  “You don’t know anything about my mother.” My palms are slick on my lap. “I’d appreciate it if you’d let me out. Right now.”

  The man tips his head back and laughs. “Into the city? By yourself? That would be an insane thing to do, especially when I have something so valuable.”

  I seize on it. I can’t help myself. “That’s right. I am valuable, which means you should put me back on the train.”

  “The train to where?” He sits up and balances his elbows on his knees, closing the distance between us. “My sister’s compound or my brother’s mountain? Which one, little Persephone?”

  His casual, mocking tone stings…and then the meaning sets in.

  “Your—your brother?”

  His sister.

  Horror fills my mouth with bile. I’m going to throw up. If they’re siblings, that makes Hades my uncle. And that can’t be.

  That smile flickers over his face and stays, getting wider. “You didn’t know,” he marvels. “How could you not have known?”

  “We didn’t discuss his relatives.” An old instinct for honesty stabs me in the back. I tried for scorn and missed by a mile. My thoughts race, chasing each other, tangling up together until it’s impossible to tell one from another. Hades’ brother? I can’t imagine him having a brother, or parents. Maybe he would have told me about them if there had been time. There wasn’t time. Or he didn’t want me to know. I hold it together through sheer force of will.

  “What did you discuss, if not family ties?”

  Punishments. The things a slut like me would moan and scream for. The way he would ruin me. The way he did. I discussed things with his mouth and his fingers. His cock. “That’s none of your business.”