Page 33 of Unleash Hades
Rose lifted a brow and frowned, glaring at Bellamy’s arm on my backrest.
“Are you with him?” Her accent was unusual. Bellamy had listed her name’s ethnic makeup. Her voice wasn’t Irish, or Russian therefore… Filipino?
I did not want this woman to think I was with Bellamy. I didn’t want Hugo to think that either.
I was used to assumptions and lies. But this one time, foroneman, I wanted the truth to win. It was an indulgence that would kill me, one day. Trust was a weakness, not a virtue.
It was bad enough that I was married, but the thought that I was a cheater withBellamy?Maybe I was naive to still think that I could consider myself Hugo’s. Or maybe I never was and I had simply built it all in my mind, brick by brick. A defense against the cruelty of my existence. But if an illusion kept you alive, and breathing… then it was a life raft.
You breathe life into it.
“Fuck no.” The conviction in my voice was more than what I wanted, but still less than what I felt.
“Okay,” she said, with a curt nod.
Then Rose left. Up the aisle, without a backwards glance. I chewed my lip, knotting my fingers.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake! Journalists are the biggest cretins in the world,” Bellamy said, his head falling backwards as he looked to the sky in an eye roll that should have dislocated his neck. “Follow her.”
I flinched, “What?”
“Follow her. She’ll lead you to your Legionnaire,” he repeated. I opened my mouth ready to deny it, but he flicked his fingers in a dismissal and said, “Go!”
By then, I had lost sight of Hugo. And I was desperate to see him. I needed him. I wanted him.
It was like forgetting the indulgence of sweets until a cake was placed beneath your nose. Then all of a sudden, you realize what you had been missing, and you want that more than anything else in the world.
I stumbled up the aisle, trying not to run, as I fast-walked behind Rose.
She walked out a set of doors, down a hall, then turned down another hall. I almost ran into her when she suddenly stopped, and turned, pushing a door open.
She didn’t go through it, but just let it swing into the darkness behind it.
“It’s not the Ritz, but it’s the best I could do,” she said, nodding for me to go in.
Was Hugo there? If he was… was she helping me? Or was it a trap? Was she one of Richard’s pawns? One of their spies?
“If you hurt him,” Rose said, her face impassive, as she didn’t look at me but instead stared into the darkness that lay beyond the open door, “I will kill you.”
Then with a tough, strong hand, she grabbed my shoulder and shoved me into the room.
The door closed shut, plunging me into darkness, into silence, where I could hear nothing but the sound of my own breathing.
I waited.
For a chance to see Hugo? I’d wait in the darkness of the Underworld for an eternity.
Chapter 10
Hugo
The sound of herlabored breaths were my guide.
My hand crept into the space between us, until my fingertips grazed her shivering abdomen.
“Hugo,” she whispered, and I heard her shuffling in the inky blackness.
I didn’t need to see her to know that Calissandra was here. I couldfeelher. Her pomegranate scent perfumed the dank space around us, shooting a sensation down to my groin. My cock stood so rigid, that I thought I would lose my mind.
