Unlike Meg.
Unlike Leda.
Impossible not to conflate the two, even though their situations are hardly similar. Leda was attacked. Meg is… I’m not really sure what’s going on. All I know is that a powerful man holds her leash and orders her to do things like fuck strangers. I thought she enjoyed what we did, but knowing the context I can’t be sure. If he forced her, can she even give consent?
The thought that I might be more like my father than I could have dreamed haunts me. I can’t sleep. I can’t focus on work and keep making stupid mistakes. I even go so far as to type out a text to Leda, though I have enough control left not to send it. It’s not fair to look to her to make me feel better. I promised not to contact her again, and I will keep that promise.
Again and again, my mind goes back to Meg. If she’s as trapped as I fear…
Smarter to leave it alone. If I couldn’t make a difference as Zeus’s son, can I really make a difference as a nameless waiter in a city that’s not my own? I don’t even have money to offer as a payout, though I suspect no amount of money would make a difference. I’ve seen that man’s type before. I used to know plenty of men like him. Ambitious and cruel and willing to trample over anyone who gets in their way. People like me.
People like Meg.
It takes me all of two days to figure out who he is—Hades, the owner of an exclusive club called the Underworld. I spend far too long looking at his picture on the website, the distinguished silver in his hair and the classy black-framed glasses. He’s attractive. Really attractive. His mouth, curved in the same soft smile he’d worn when he caught me eating his woman’s pussy, makes my stomach clench in a way that’s not altogether unpleasant. Like he knows a secret that I don’t and finding out will either please me greatly…or be something I regret for the rest of my life. There is no middle ground there. I shouldn’t crave that any more than I should desire Meg, a woman who only fucked me because she was ordered to.
Yet when my day off rolls around, I find myself pushing through the doors into the building that houses the Underworld. I half expected some Victorian house that looks haunted and full of secrets, but it’s a skyscraper in the middle of downtown. The lobby is like a thousand other lobbies—tile and neutral colors and elevators. That’s it.
I check the directory and head to the correct elevator bank. It’s only when the doors close me in that it hits me how out of line I am. Whatever game Meg and Hades played, it was obviously between them. I didn’t ask for an audience, but it’s not like I would have objected, given the right circumstances. I don’t mind being watched. Hell, I like it.
Charging in here to save Meg is high-handed at absolute best, and deliriously misguided at worst. I should turn around and walk out and move on with my life.
I should…but I don’t.
The doors open, and I walk straight to the desk situated in the middle of an empty room. It houses a Black man who is possibly the most beautiful person I’ve ever laid eyes on. His dark skin is so flawless, I’m half convinced he doesn’t actually have pores, and he wears a suit that’s worth about six of the one on my body.
He gives me a similar rake of his gaze and then presents a wide smile. “What can I help you with, handsome?”
“I’m here to see Meg.” If we could have a conversation, maybe it will dial back the protective impulse that drove me to this lobby in the first place. If I can reassure myself that she’s not trapped, that maybe I misunderstood what happened after we had sex in that apartment… Maybe then I can let this whole thing go.
His face snaps into coldly professional lines. “I’ll see if she’s available. Sit, please.”
I turn and find a cleverly hidden bench in the same stone as the floor. A waiting room can be its own kind of defense, its own kind of weapon. It sets up the power dynamics before an audience is ever granted. I recognize that, but I don’t have a choice to do anything except play this game. I settle down to wait.
In the end, it doesn’t take long. Ten minutes after I arrive, the man clears his throat. “You may go in.”
“Thank you.” I move around the desk to the large black door. It’s meant to intimidate and it’s successful. My nerves try to get the best of me, but I shove them down deep and fall back into my old habit of masking my expressions. A vital survival tactic in what my father likes to call his court. I wonder what Hades calls his inner circle, but that thought has no place here.