I’m anchoring him. He’ll agree, in the end, because one of his secret fears is that I’ll bar him from the whorehouse entirely.
He considers it. “It’s been a difficult month.”
“Then let me know when you’re stopping by next. I’ll have the chef tend to you.”
Morris’s eyes light up. The chef is not my real chef, but one of the girls who likes a bit of role play. She’s one of his favorites, and she’s been at Olympus long enough that there’s not much she’ll say no to. “Good. That’s very good.”
I give him a few heartbeats with his fantasy before I lean in. “There’s something else.”
This, Morris finds even more interesting than the prospect of a naked woman serving him food in one of the private back rooms. “What is it, Zeus?”
“I need your help.” I say it with just enough humility to convince Morris that there’s no other way. A certain amount of worry in my eyes sells it. “I have a new girl at Olympus.”
“Oh, I know.” He taps his fingertips together, and a sick chill shivers down my spine. “Brigit. I’ve heard all about her.”
I didn’t recognize any of his men in the lounge last night. Word spreads fast in the city, and faster in its underbelly, but it’s only been a matter of hours since I made her come on my fingers like the little slut she is for me. I didn’t take note of any of them, but was I looking very carefully? No. I was concentrating on her. I can’t make that mistake again. “I need some information about her.”
“A background check?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” Morris is the one leaning in now, practically licking his lips. “Are you using her for something specific?”
Me. For me. “There are things that would be useful to know. She arrived under unusual circumstances.”
The cardigan, for one. And now that the cardigan’s off, she’s still hiding, still hedging. I don’t know anything about her, other than what her eyes look like when she orgasms and what her pussy feels like around my fingers and on my lips.
“I’d like to propose a trade.” Morris is so fucking jovial that I could kill him. “I’ll look into her if I can fuck her tomorrow night.”
“No.” Too quick—it’s a dead giveaway, but I cover it with a smile and a shake of my head. My blood burns through my veins, tensing my hands and blocking out reason. “She’s not ready. She won’t be ready until the party, at least.”
His eyes narrow. “Savannah, then.”
A bargain—one for the other. Savannah always refuses him. Always. She’s never once taken him to her room. Twice, she’s brought me drinks and begged for me to step in.
But Morris is the fastest way to get information about Brigit. I have people in the city, but they tend to clash with Hades’s men. I don’t want another entanglement with him. Not when our arrangement is so tenuous. Not when Demeter, our foster sister, has gone dark at her house and is rumored to be up to her old tricks. It’s fucked, but the quiet way to do this is to go through Morris. Keep it in-house.
I stand up again, and this time he scrambles to his feet to shake my hand. He takes down Brigit’s name and her neighborhood, which is all the information I have. “I’ll make Savannah amenable.”
14
Zeus
There are too many pieces in motion.
They rearrange themselves on a chessboard in my mind on the way back from the police station. The city, on the verge of coming apart. Xavier Morris, who wants Brigit. The line of men Reya has in her notebook. They turn around and around until there’s nothing but paranoia left. I shouldn’t have gone to the police station. Brigit has been defenseless without me all this time.
And if someone else touches her….
I’m feverish with anger by the time the car lets me out at the front. That fucker. Even asking me about touching her, as if his men didn’t tell him she’s mine. If she isn’t mine now, then she will be… just as soon as I find her.
They could be connected.
Things started tearing at the seams when I shut down the trains. Hades nearly killed me with my own window. And then Brigit appeared. There are invisible threads running between all these things; I’m fucking sure of it.
I’m equally sure that something happened while I was out. I try to shake off the rage, but it clings to my skin. I hate it. It clouds my