The last thing I need is to pile more shit on Zeus’s plate, but having either of the Donatos sniffing around is never a good sign. And if Gabriel is also playing house in Rox City, then those odds of trouble are literally doubled.
“Ten minutes,”Jackson warns from his command post at the dining room table. He’d decided that after last week’s rocky start, we needed to formally regroup, and somehow that’s translated into turning the entire meal area of his apartment into our war room.
By the looks of it, he’s also come ready to cauterize some of the more significant bleeders that were causing friction between him and his younger brother.
Because thereZeusandApollosit–shoulder-to-shoulder, identical tablets and glasses of whiskey at the ready.
Something I must try to wrap my head around—both the adopted monikersandthe biological connection.
The resemblance really is fucking uncanny, though. And not just in the dark swathes of hair, blue eyes, and sharp jawlines—it’s in the way they wear their dual mantles of leadership.An echo in the carriage of their shoulders, in the way twin gazes sweep across their team. Checking in and then double-checking again.
Dotting everyIand crossing everyT.
And I find having double that steadiness to rely on soothing.
Whatever it was, it’s given me the first glimmer of hope that we might make it through this in one piece.
Hermes sits in front of a pair of borrowed monitors, furiously bolstering firewalls and sorting out ping issues for each of our newly encrypted connections to the variousImperiumnetworks and databases.
In contrast to Hermes’s manic energy is Sabine. Something is off with her today, though I can’t quite put my finger on it. Her complexion seems paler, there’s a wane pull to her cheeks, as well as a subtle blue bruising below her eyes. Perhaps she hasn’t been sleeping well.
Though I don’t think many of us have been, to be honest.
Especially after hearing her so blithely explain the story behind her scar.
We had spent almost seven years collectively wondering just what the fuck happened to Sabine Winters. After she had disappeared without a single trace from our lives, one day in December.
I have no memories of anything before the accident.
A passing comment for her, and yet a colossal bombshell for us.
I force my gaze away from her, wrestling with the compulsion to run my knuckles over the phantom pain in my chest.
The only restless members of our group seem to be the three Enforcers—taking turns cleaning their weapons and stalking through the apartment like caged animals.
All in all, there’s still a lot of work to be done, with neither party able to rely on the safety net of our employers like we had in the past. But no matter the nature of the next task, we were at least more ready to dive in than we were during our first attempt.
I glance back down to the tablet in my hand, calmly swiping through various camera feeds.
Now that the secret seems to be out between Sloane Walker and my brothers, I’ve been interested to see what hermovements look like around the Academy. So far, either she’s gotten really good at detecting my blindspots, or she’s been spending an inordinate amount of time off-campus.
Either way, she’s become somewhat of a ghost this last week.
“Get ready,” Apollo calls, right before Zeus’s phone flashes and the Herald’s chime fills the space.
The two of them immediately lean their heads together, taking in the announcement.
“Okay, this is what we have,” the older Grayson calls out.
I look down at my own screen to find a forwarded copy of the broadcast.
>>>>START OF ENCRYPTED MESSAGE
>>> THE TWELVE LABORS OF SUCCESSION
>> TRIAL II
>The beast with many heads rises with new growth