I had escaped him.
It took me a year of tattoo removal sessions and nearly every under-the-table dime I earned outside of rent and food to rid myself of his stamp. And after I achieved that goal, I made myself some vows.
I promised myself that I was done being a blood debt no matter what. I promised myself that I would never be the PROPERTY OF HADES again.
I promised myself that Persy was dead.
“Persy…”
I paused unlocking my bike when a voice called out that dead name behind me. A familiar voice. My stomach squeezed with a mix of emotions, but none of them was surprise.
And sure enough…when I turned around, there stood Hades, dressed in a black-on-black suit and grinning down at me like a Mardi Gras skeleton.
So I roundhoused him. Real talk, I wasn't even sure it would work. But it totally did! Take that, all those guys on Reddit who said you couldn’t teach yourself self-defense only using YouTube!
Hades went down like the cocky lead in an East Asian drama. Which gave me the time I needed to grab my bike and make a pedal for it.
Luckily, I’d memorized how to get to the bus station by heart from just about every location in the city. I also kept enough money for a ticket anywhere in my backpack, along with an extra set of clothes that I swapped out seasonally. I’d felt a little paranoid when I put in summer clothes a few days ago. But Hades had taught me to never get comfortable, to always stay prepared for the worst. And now, the worst had come for me.
“I didn't just find you, you know.” Hades’s voice rang out behind me just as I was about to jump on my bike. “I knew where you were all along. And if you run, I’ll only hunt you down again.”
His words made me pause…then turn around. Hades was on the ground but sitting up now, with a small white shopping tote I hadn’t noticed before gripped in his hand. Like he’s simply decided to have a little lounge and didn’t get knocked on his ass.
He appeared so relaxed I could only assume he’d brought back-up with him. Derelict or Jam—maybe both. I scanned the area for black trucks and white vans just to make sure I wouldn’t be biking straight into a trap.
“I came alone,” Hades said as if reading my mind. “I gave up my presidency of the Reapers. Now I’m just Galen Fairgood, the CEO of RR Homes.”
I’d tried to pay as little attention as possible to Hades’s underworld dealings, even though he’d forced me to stay in the room like human furniture for many of his meetings. But during our time on the bayou, he’d talked extensively about the legitimate construction arm of the Reapers’ business and how he’d planned to use it to develop the area where he grew up.
So, he’d finally done something that would make his mother proud of him. A bittersweet pang of pride pierced my heart. But I didn’t understand…“Why would you quit the Reapers? That biker gang was, like, your whole personality.”
Hades came to a stand and dusted off his trousers. “How about I take you to dinner and tell you the whole story. Then if you want to try running away again, feel free to go ahead. I won’t stop you if you just hear me out. There's a place over there where we can have us a long overdue talk.”
He nodded toward the diner where the cast and crew sometimes went after rehearsals.
I'd never been with them though. I’d had to save every extra penny in preparation for this very scenario. If I wanted to be able to disappear fast, I couldn't do things like buy food at a diner just for the thrill of my production mates’ company.
But if I were to go with him anywhere, some place where people knew me would be my best bet.
“Come on.” Hades said, before walking toward the diner like it was already decided.
Leaving me to choose if I’d follow or run.
* * *
I’d told Amira I was going to Vegas—a city where a girl could hide in plain sight without being seen. But the truth was after Amira and I parted ways, I doubled back to the South—Mississippi to be exact. A place I could live cheaply on the five-thousand Amira had stolen for me, lay low for a couple of months and still have enough money left over for a trip to Disney World.
Disney World had been the plan all along—the only thing that kept me sane during my years with Hades. Finally following through on the promise I’d made to my nine-year-old sister before Hades yanked me into his underworld—that was all that mattered in the months after I escaped.
It had been a relief when Daphne basically let me kidnap her from the girls’ home, no-questions-asked, even though she hadn’t seen me in three years. We spent a couple of days at the happiest place on Earth, and then I took her to Columbus to find a name on a Christmas card I’d found while cleaning out my mother’s things.
Countess Malloy. Luckily, the relative who appeared then to be my mother’s much younger sister not only had a somewhat unique name but also a ton of social media presence thanks to the shelter she had just founded.
I’d been unprepared for the bomb drop that Tess wasn’t just a random relative who sent a Christmas card my mother had actually saved. And I was even more unprepared for Hades telling me Daphne was the reason he’d been able to track me down years—not months—ago.
“I was racking my brain, trying to figure out why you were going out of your way to protect your father after what all he’d done to you,” he told me after our waitress dropped off two orders of cheeseburgers and fries. “Then about a few months in, it occurred to me it wasn’t him you were trying to protect, but the little sister you never said one word about. You knew there wouldn’t be anyone left to take care of her once your father was gone.”
Panic rose like a scream in my throat. My sister was only fifteen with a bright future ahead of her. If Hades was planning to use her as leverage against me, it would absolutely work. I’d have to—
“Now, now, take that scared look off your face, ma belle,” Hades said calmly. “I’m not trying to hurt you or your sister. If that was my intention, you know my power. It would have already been done years ago. I’m just telling you, I followed that hunch, and imagine my surprise when I found out she’d been formally taken in by an aunt here in Columbus, Ohio. I figured that was where I’d find you too.”
I inwardly frowned. Not because he’d figure out that I loved Daphne more than my own life. But because he didn’t know about the true nature of our relationship.
I supposed that made sense, though. The inner state paperwork had been a nightmare even Daphne’s millionaire father couldn’t quickly untangle. And even if he could, Tess refused to ask him for his help. So, my older sister had basically had to undo all the fraud our mother and grandmother had committed in order to get Daphne declared her legal daughter.
But if Hades figured out I’d return briefly to Louisiana to help my adopted sister years ago like he said, then it would have looked like Daphne was just being taken in by an aunt with the resources to take care of her back then.
Still, that begged the question, “If you knew where I was this whole time, why didn’t you come get me before now and drag me back down to Louisiana?”
“Because…” To my surprise, Hades swallowed, and he actually looked nervous, as he confessed, “Six months wasn’t that long of a time to uncover your location, but it was long enough for me to think about all the things I’d done to you…and what you said about how ma mère would’ve hated what I’d become. That sat on my soul. And by the time I tracked you down, I realized I didn’t have any right to show my face here. Not yet. Because I wasn’t the man you deserved. Becoming Galen Fairgood took some time. And I was still working out all the details. But then Vampire called, letting me know he tracked you down too—due to a Polaroid some cousin of his found of you and me. From Des-E’s birthday party. Remember that?”
Of course, I remembered that. It was the one memento I had from our three years together. And for some reason, even after everything he’d done, I hadn’t been able to throw it away.
“You didn’t throw it away,” he said as if reading my thoughts. “And that made me think…hope…that meant you hadn’t thrown me away. That if I promised to be better this time, to treat you like treasure and never hurt you again that maybe we could…”
He set the white bag he’d kept a hold of when I roundhouse him on the table. Now that I was closer, I could see the logo for Adler’s, a fine jewelry store on Canal Street in New Orleans.
It was the kind of place husbands went to get gifts for both their mistresses and their wives when they found out about each other. But if Hades thought a nice necklace or some earrings would make me forget everything that happened between us, he had to be out of his mind.
But instead of a large necklace case, he brought out three ring boxes.
And my heart nearly stopped beating when he opened each one up to reveal three stunning wedding rings.
“Choose whichever one you want,” Hades said. “It doesn’t matter. I wanted them to symbolize a possible future for us. One where you have choices and as much freedom as you desire. And I know I can’t magically change the past or wipe the slate clean. That’s impossible. But you kept that Polaroid, and I’m hoping there’s still a chance we can create a new future together. One filled with love and a respectable job and eventually children if you want to grace me with them.”
I…I couldn’t figure out what to say. And I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t figure out what to say. I mean, this was the man who terrorized me, who shot my father in cold blood in front of me. Of course, I couldn’t say yes to his outrageous three-wedding-ring proposal, get married to him like I was still a romance-stricken sixteen-year-old girl, and act like those three terrible years never happened.
Of course, I couldn’t do that.
So why wasn’t I able to open my mouth and tell him no?
I abruptly stood. “I…I have to go.”
Hades stood too.
“Ma belle,” he started to say, even though I was dressed in my new standard uniform of sweat shorts and a hoodie.
“You said I was free to go after I heard you out. If you’re serious about this…” I waved a hand at the three rings still sitting between our plates of uneaten food on the table. “Then don’t pressure me for an answer. Let me think. For once, give me room and let me think.”
Hades had swapped out his motorcycle jacket for a suit. But he hadn’t changed that much.
I could almost see his inner gator fighting not to bite down and keep me there with him.
But in the end, he told me “I’m staying at the Benton Columbus until the house I had built for us is done. Come find me there when you’re ready.”
When I was ready, not if. Don’t think I didn’t notice that he was assuming I’d actually go for this. That he’d built a house for us, apparently—all because of one silly Polaroid.
A Polaroid he should have never found out about in the first place.
Call it transference, when I got on my bike and left the diner, instead of going to my place to pack my things and run even if Hades vowed he’d find me, I headed straight over to Benjamin Brady Keane’s condominium.
* * *
Almost a year later I find myself on the foyer steps in the house Hades built for us, waiting for him to get home from his Sunday jog.
“Ma belle, what are you doing here?”
His expression is somehow awe-filled and wary all at once. As if I’m the beautiful alligator. Not him.
“I remembered. I remembered everything,” I answer, rising to my feet with the backpack I just grabbed from upstairs. The same one I was carrying the night of my accident. “Why didn't you tell me what really happened? You know, the part where you actually asked me to marry you? For real not pretend?”
He rubs a hand over the back of his neck and winces. “I didn’t think letting you know I had showed up out of the blue to propose the same night you got into your accident would have helped matters any.”
“No, they probably wouldn’t have,” I agree, thinking back to how confused I was the evening of his huge confession. “And maybe….”
I look down, then back up at him. “Maybe this was for the best.”
The hope I dashed when I left him behind in Iowa flares back into his silver gaze, even as he asks, “What do you mean?”
“You know, my therapist and I talked a lot about your cousin Woods before he cleared me to move on with my life,” I told Hades, fingering the backpack’s strap. “That story was so important to me. But now that I’ve gotten my download, I can’t help but wonder if maybe your cousin didn’t want to remember his repellant past. Maybe somewhere deep down inside of him, he knew if he did it would mess everything up.”
Back when he was a crimelord, Hades tended to have a smooth answer for most things. But tonight he actually stutters when he asks, “Wha—what are you trying to tell me? I don’t—I don’t understand.”
“No, of course, you don’t.” I come the rest of the way down the stairs and close a little bit more of the distance between us. “Because I didn’t understand, even when I had all my memories. That’s been bothering me, you know. That I lost such a specific amount time. Lucas and my father’s death—basically all the stuff that wouldn’t have allowed me to have a relationship with the dream guy I met by that pool.”
He looks even more confused now, and it’s my turn to give him an apologetic wince. “Anyway, I thought I hadn’t left myself any clues about the status of our relationship. But as it turned out, I did. I just didn’t know where to look.
I pull my old crocheting business notebook out of the backpack and turn it to the very last page as I explain, “I barely paid attention to this notebook. I thought it was just a bunch of numbers from some crocheting business I didn’t understand why I’d started in the first place. But after I remembered everything, I came back here and found this right where I left it. I wrote this letter to you in a coffeeshop right after I chewed Benjamin out about going through my things. It’s my response to your proposal. And I was headed toward your hotel to drop it off. Here, read it.”
Hades takes the notebook from me with a confused frown and starts reading out loud. “Dear Hades, Yes…”
His voice catches with emotion, and he has to swallow before he’s able to complete the first line of my letter. “Yes, I will marry you. Under the following conditions.”
He knits his eyebrow as he reads the rest in an increasingly bemused tone. “One: we date for at least a year to make sure you’re not still a total fucking psycho. Two: You never hurt, kidnap, or threaten me or anyone I love again—even if they don’t deserve my love like my father didn’t. Three: I get to punish you however I see fit. If these terms are agreeable to you, sign below and return this very informal but legally-binding contract to me at my apartment. I’d put my address on here too, but you’re a legit stalker, so we both know you’ve already figured out where I live.”
The last line is sort of funny but Hades doesn’t laugh.
"I chose you that night,” I softly explain into his silence. “I chose you. Just like I chose you when I was in that hospital bed. Then and now, I want to make it work.”
Hades says nothing. He only stands there, reading and re-reading my handwritten contract-letter. For so long, I begin to shift uncomfortably.
Should I not have made assumptions about how he’d respond to this letter? Is he cursing me for all I put him through in Iowa when my much-delayed memory download would have saved us a lot of grief? Is this contract something he had way too much pride to agree to, no matter what he said about wanting to make things up to me?
He answers all my questions with a sudden ear-splitting grin. “Hot damn, ma belle! Hand me a pen!”
Luckily, I just so happened to have one of those in my backpack as well.