Page 84 of Carry Your Debt

My eyes dart over to Hades. My lips roll in when I see the hollow expression on his bladed features. “Nope.”

“But—” Hermes tries before his words seem to fail him. His head drops forward, shielding the rest of his face from me.

Was that a…bottom lip wobble?

I jolt when Zeus’s warm palm slips over the thin material of my leggings to squeeze my thigh. “Right now, I’m more concerned with the first Labor,” he cuts in smoothly, and I could just about fucking kiss him. “We only have forty-eight hours to both locate and engage the target. So what do we know about Senator Georgiou?”

I can still feel the weight of four sets of questioning eyes fixated on the side of my head where my scar is. I keep my eyes trained on the mole on the back of his left hand instead.

“Senator Leandros Adrian Georgiou, 43. Multi-term Class III Senator for the State of Washington. Staunchly Republican. Married for eighteen years, with three children,”I recite, drolly.

“And why wouldConcordiawant us to quote, unquotesearch for bones in the lion’s den?” Zeus throws out to the room. He’s got the phone unlocked again and is back to staring accusing holes at it.

“No—it saidnotto go searching in the lion’s den,” I correct, a small crease lining my forehead.

“Okay,notto.” Zeus nods. “But it lists this first Labor as a neutralization task—nota discovery task. Do we think the search would then be figurative instead of literal?”

My finger rubs along my scar as I consider.

It very specifically saysneutralization.The word may have multiple connotations in other settings, but in the Underworld, it only means one thing.

If we go byOccam's razor, then there’s a good fucking chance the Red Court has simply sent us a generic kill order wrapped up with a pretty word puzzle bow.

So if that’s the case, we’re better off just concentrating on the target itself.

“The last sweep we ran on the House of Representatives and the Senate showed he was likely to be a swing vote on an upcoming bipartisan bill.Ifit passes, the new legislation would grant additional surveillance powers for any agencies involved in federal investigations,” I muse out loud.

Dio leans in around the chair and tickles my hip. “Can you translate that into Neanderthal for us, babygirl?”

I shoot him a considering side-eye, knowing he’s prompting for the sake of our newly minted teammates.

“In the most basic terms, it would allow the powers that be to use theclaimof an emerging threat to national security to be able to legallyhack, wiretap, monitor, spy—you name it—without having to obtain a warrant first,” I explain. “Anask forgivenesskind of deal. Although, they wouldn’t even be expected to provide credibility for the claim, just be able to justify theirsuspicions.”

Apollo leans forward, steepling his hands. The movement involuntarily pulls my focus. “When you say powers that be, does that extend to theImperium?”

“If they have enough pull at the Federal level, yes. Imagine being able to run acarte blanchetap or trace on a competing faction?” I nod, rolling my wrist.

“Or a Sovereign,” Apollo adds, pointedly.

“Or a Sovereign,” Zeus agrees, dragging his fingers down the side of his beard.

I’m still watching the stroke of his hand down his cheek when it suddenly dawns on me that while I might have been correct about concentrating on the target—I had the anglesall wrong.

I shouldn’t have been concentrating on who the targetwas, but who they were targetedby.

“Or…an organization responsible for governing an entire criminal empire,” I blurt.

“Fuck,” comes a chorus of cursing realizations.

“So the Red Court’s just using this as an opportunity to protect its own ass?” Dionysus grimaces.

“Doesneutralizationmean literally assassinating an actual member of the United States Senate?” Apollo asks, carefully holding my eyes now. “Or do they want us to simply remove him from office?”

There’s a thoughtful look on his face that’s such a mirror to Zeus’s that it’s almost scary. From our recruitment screening, I already knew he was highly intelligent. He speaks at least three languages, plays several sports and instruments, and is on track for a spot in the pre-med program at the University of Roxborough. Nobody will come close to shaking his spot for Valedictorian, either.

But what the file didn’t—orcouldn’t—tell me was how analytical and observant he was under pressure. How detail-oriented and forward-thinking he could be.

“That’s still unclear, but my gut feeling says this has to do with the vote,” I hum. “Which points to termination.”

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