Page 80 of Desperate Crimes
Until ten minutes after I’m back in my Manhattan apartment, surrounded by my things, the scent of my candles, the silence I used to crave.
Then my phone lights up.
And I see it.
Hades.
That’s what flashes across the screen.
Not Nico. Not even his full name.
Just Hades.
My breath catches.
He changed the contact in my phone.
Somewhere, somehow.
The sheer violation of it makes my stomach twist.
But the worst part?
I don’t delete it.
Because he’s not wrong. That’s what he’s become.
The god of the underworld.
My shadow.
My captor.
My something.
I stare at the screen like it might shatter from the weight of his presence alone.
Like the phone will burst into smoke and ash and he’ll step through it, dressed in darkness and fury, dragging me back to his domain with fire in his eyes.
But it doesn’t.
Because this is real life.
Even if it feels like something darker. Older. Fated.
My heart pounds as I swipe to answer. I don’t say a word.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going, Princess?”
His voice slices through me—razor-sharp and ice-cold, burning with a fury I can feel through the line.
It is his name, after all, and he owns it so well.
I walk to the window, looking down at the street like I expect him to be there.
A storm in a suit.
Thunder in his chest.
