Page 52 of The Hard Way

“Oh, come on,” Odin said. “Their username is admin. Their password is one-two-three. You saw it as well as I did.”

“You both noticed all that when we were there?” I asked.

Odin turned his amber eyes to me. That would be ayes. A really sexyyes. Odin saw so much, it was scary sometimes. He was smart, beautiful, and more dangerous than ever. Right at that moment, I would probably even do hu-cow with him if he asked.

“The three of us are in the Pig,” Zeus said.

Odin’s expression grew dark, but then Annie came back, and it was time to order dessert. My guys each ordered their own. Our marriage might involve group fucking, but my guys drew the line at one-dessert-with-four-forks action.

I still smiled to think about that. We had amarriage. And things were looking dire, yes, but together we could do anything. I really did firmly believe that.

We’d get through this.

My optimistic mood lasted exactly one second longer, because just then, Hank Vernon himself entered the restaurant.

Hank Vernon.The man who destroyed our family.

I forced my gaze to the saltines.

“What is it?” Odin asked.

I felt my guys all staring at me. They probably thought I was having a bad reaction to the food. Or maybe I just hated the saltines.

“Isis?” Thor said.

My heart pounded as I tracked Hank’s movements out the corner of my eye. Hank was maybe fifty, and he was with a younger version of himself—one of his cousins. He wore a nice houndstooth sport coat with a turtleneck, and he had his sunglasses perched atop his swept-back hairdo like the avid downhill skier he liked to remind everyone that he was. He led his cousin to the corner booth, the nicest booth, without waiting to be seated. It was like he thought he owned the place, which of course he probably did. He’d barely sat down before he began waving and pointing violently at the table, as though to call a dog onto the carpet.

I looked over at Annie, who was up at the bar—ordering Hank’s drinks, I guessed. She’d lost her sunny expression. She looked a little scared, even.

Bile rose up in my throat. It wasn’t that I worried Hank would recognize me. He probably wouldn’t even recognize me without a disguise—he was that self-absorbed. It was just that I couldn’t bear to look at his smug, demanding, overprivileged face. I couldn’t not think about Mom and Dad, so desperate to keep our family together on that farm that they perished out at sea doing a job they had no business doing. I’d always suspected he probably laughed when they died, astounded at his good luck.

And there he sat.

He was saying something to his companion. It looked like he was scolding him, but you couldn’t tell with Hank. The man probably burned through hundred of dollars of skin care products a week, but not even an act of God could keep the meanness off his face.

Annie sped across the place with two drinks loaded onto her tray. She set them down with extreme care.

Hank addressed her, saying something with that smug look of his. That look had always gotten to me. He was so proud of himself, so satisfied. He felt powerful and smart, and he could do whatever he wanted—that’s what the smug look had always said to me.

“Do we need to go back to Margie’s?” Thor asked.

“She’s not sick,” Odin said, directing his gaze to Hank and his cousin. “It’shim.”

Zeus stiffened. “Vernon.”

They’d never laid eyes on Hank, but they knewme.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said.

“Motherfucker,” Thor said.

“You guys! Don’t sit there staring at him. Let’s just go.”

“Agreed,” Thor said, with a quick glance at Odin, who was definitely more than staring at Hank. He was assaulting the man with his eyes.

Zeus pulled bills out of his wallet. Several hundreds, double what our meal probably cost. He set the money on the table, and we stood. “We’re not here to draw attention.”

Odin had different ideas, it seemed. He grabbed the money and his jacket and headed over to Hank.

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