Page 135 of For the Love of the Gods

“What do you want us to do?” I asked.

“Cut off any reason someone would hate either of you.” Adrian twisted one of his silver cufflinks around. “We need to be able to differentiate individual discretions from this.”

“I don’t know if that’s going to be easy for me,” Rose said softly.

“We can tell them,” I said.

“If we do, they’ll just spin that against me too,” Rose responded.

I shook my head. “The details of how can stay private. But your father killed your brother. He instigated it, drugged you both. We release a statement saying he killed Pine and you never said anything in an attempt to preserve his legacy. But that your people needed to know the truth. Especially after the attack.”

Rose took in the idea and I could see her working through it.

“I’m in support,” Adrian said. Obviously he would be. Whatever kept the peace.

Rose blinked slowly then nodded to herself. “Alright. We move forward. And if this helps preserve the future, I’m on board.”

“I agree we need to keep this between us right now,” Adrian said. “Issues are blown up with the three of our Houses. Something smaller—donottell a single god I said that by the way—is a secondary issue.”

I chuckled, imagining heads exploding at the illusion we were more important. Can’t fight facts though.

I looked to Lukas, who was being eerily quiet, and caught his mouth opening slightly. He slammed it shut a second later, but that was definitely an almost admission of something.

“We have the press statement and sympathy for the attack to help weed people out,” I said. “Lukas, anything to add?”

Lukas lifted his head from the croissant he was staring at like it could tell him the secrets of the deep ocean. “No.”

His tone left no room for disagreement. Whatever that was about was between him and Adrian. He’d tell me when he was ready.

Adrian could handle the power issues. I was going to make him tell me about Daphne. It was eating him alive to keep it all locked up.

“Lukas, I want you to run some checks,” Adrian said. “End of summer catches are the biggest of the year and economic issues make people way more mad than a god killing a family member. Sorry, Rose.”

Rose lifted her hands in surrender. “No offense taken. You’re right. Money is everything.”

“Will do, Adrian,” Lukas said gruffly. Then, “I’ll go do that now.” And then he was up and out the door before anyone could protest.

“We need to figure out what’s wrong with him,” Adrian said, looking towards me with a weighted stare.

“You know what’s wrong with him,” I shot back. Nothing stole sleep quite like not knowing where your fiancée was.

Adrian scoffed, resetting his jaw. “This is good. Will keep him busy and his mind off her.”

Somehow, I knew that wasn’t true.

“You guys know what you have to do,” Adrian said, standing and buttoning his navy suit. “It’s on Lukas now.”

Adrian left Rose and I alone, returning to Olympus. To start obsessively preparing for war, I imagined. Begrudgingly, I had to leave Rose, but not without an extended goodbye and a promise to see her later.

And I would. If I could prove a theory.

Chapter 37

Dominic

I found Rose on the back deck. Her favorite place in our house, it seemed. She was on a lounge chair, tea in hand, when I approached.

Her eyes brightened when she saw me and a knife twisted in my chest. I’d never get used to that expression. Looking relieved to see me.

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