Page 44 of The Duplicity of Thieves

“I’m going to talk to Hades about it,” I promise her.

“Wow, first name basis. Didn’t realize I was sitting in the company of a royal asshole. Are you the king’s treasurer or something?”

“Something like that.”

“Anyways, enough about my work problems. You’re here to ask me something.”

I clear my throat, finally getting my bearings. “I was wondering if you could tell me where to find your sister.”

“And let you get murdered? I can’t have that kind of blood on my hands.”

“I had a good time with her the other night. I just wanted to tell her that.”

“You mean like you did in the alley a few years ago?” she snorts.

Josie must have told Vivian everything. I’m not sure what I expected. The closest thing to siblings that I have are Minos and Hermes, but they’re idiots. It makes this conversation a little easier if I don’t have to dance around things.

I relax a little. “So you know about that?”

“Oh, I know all of it. I’m not telling you where to find her. Hell, I don’t even know where to find her half the time.”

“She said you were close,” I mention, confused.

“We are.”

“And you don’t know where to find her?”

Vivian clears her throat and sets her sandwich back on the wrapping. “Jo is like the sun,” She uses her hands to speak. “You can look up at it, but if you touch it, it burns, right?”

I thought it was a rhetorical question, but she waits for me to nod.

“But sometimes clouds cover it and it can get dark. It dips below the horizon at night to recharge away from everyone and everything it touches. Everything. So do I know the sun will rise eventually, even if I can’t see it? Yeah, of course. Do I worry it might not? Also, yes. Maybe one day it doesn’t. I can’t control that.”

“You would let your sister disappear?”

“Think of me what you will, but Jo is a big girl. She can handle anything on her own. I wouldn’t have survived this life if it wasn’t for her.”

“She said you two have been through things together.”

“That’s an understatement,” Vivian snorts, then covers her mouth as if she just gave away a monumental secret.

“I want to ask her on a date,” I admit.

“You and everyone else.”

“Comforting.”

“Yeah, and you’re some saint? Tell me something, if I told you Jo wasn’t interested, I’d bet you’d go get Jess’ number.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” I answer earnestly.

I fucking hate what Josie is doing to me. It would be so easy to go inside, grab the receptionist’s number, and see her later, but the thought of it already makes me want to gouge my eyes out.

Vivian opens a granola package and takes a bite out of it. “What do you really want with her?”

“Like I said, a date.”

“You don’t know what you want with her. Yeah, maybe you take her on a date, which fat chance she says yes, by the way, but after that? Say she does sleep with you, then what? You don’t see her again? I’m not saying that Jo would be upset. Most likely she wouldn’t even think about it, but that’s not what I want for my sister. I can’t contribute to that,” Vivian explains.

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