That was all the warning I got before Hades appeared out of nowhere and slammed Lukas into a wall.
They were around the same size. Both tall and broad. But whereas Lukas owed his muscles to a well-maintained gym routine kept up after four years of playing lacrosse for Tulane, Hades had earned his doing much darker things.
Those background differences became crystal clear when Hades pinned my ex-boyfriend to the wall and easily kept him there.
“Perhaps the tattoo on her back didn’t explain the situation for you, couillion. She belongs to me now.”
“Hades!” I cried out. “Stop!”
“What the hell are you doing, man?” Lukas demanded. “Secur—”
Hades barred a forearm across my Luk’s neck, choking off the rest of his cry for help.
“Aw, man, what the hell were you even thinking following her back here after she left you without a word of explanation?” Hades asked him, his voice perfectly pleasant. As if he were a concerned friend and simply curious about Luk’s motivation.
Lukas tried—he tried to answer but couldn’t form words underneath Hades’s arm. He couldn’t breathe. His face was turning red because the monster I’d been given to by my “poor” father was suffocating him to death.
Now it was my turn to call out, “Security!”
But the guard near the double doors just stood there, staring straight ahead, as if he saw nothing. Nothing at all. Was Hades a ghost?
Yes, I realized with a sick thud. The kind who paid attention to working-class security guards. And paid them in advance not to see anything he was doing or let his prisoner out.
This ball had never been the opportunity I thought it was. Hades had walked me into a different kind of jail. Just to show me the whole world was his prison. One I’d never escape.
Horrible choking sounds brought me out of that realization. Luk!
I turned back to confront my captor since the guard would be no help.
“Hades, please,” I begged. “Please, stop. Don’t hurt him.”
“You’re right. Maybe I’m being too dramatic,” Hades said. As much violence as he was doing at the moment, his voice sounded totally calm, without a hint of strain.
He grinned over at me, like it was just us in the bathroom while he told me about his day in the tub. “Why don’t you explain the situation to him, ma belle, so he understands why talking to you—I mean, even looking at you again—is not in his best interest?”
My heart stopped, but I knew in an instant that I needed to do as Hades suggested.
You truly are the most beautiful girl in the world.
That was what Luk told me on my birthday. But I felt like the ugliest girl now—the ugliest girl in the entire world as I told him the version of the truth that would get him out of the monster’s chokehold the fastest.
“I’m sorry I led you on. I shouldn’t have done that. The truth is, I was saving myself for him the whole time. I belong to him now—just like he said. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry….”
I wanted to give him a real apology, but that would only make the situation worse. The security guard continued to stare straight ahead, as if he couldn’t see or hear anything going on in this hallway.
As rich as Lukas was, Hades possessed a different kind of power. The kind that made heirs choke and security guards too afraid to intervene.
I clenched my teeth. “I’m sorry. I’m with him now. I choose him. Please, Lukas, don’t ever talk to me again.”
With those magic words, Hades finally pulled back his arm from Luk’s neck. And my ex collapsed to his knees in front of Hades. Like a servant cowed.
He inhaled and exhaled—big hideous breaths that sounded like he was coughing and trying to clear his nose at the same time. As he did, he looked up at me balefully, with snot and water streaming down his face. Tears of suffocation, frustration, or anger at me? I didn’t know. And I wouldn’t ever know.
Luk and I were done. We were done in a way that was so final, all the hope I’d felt when I saw Lukas standing there, like a movie hero in a white tux, died in an instant. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.
And as I stood there in the ruins of our relationship, in the bitter embers of the gentle love and friendship we once shared, I understood that my old life as a young Louisiana socialite was done too.
People love you when you put everything you’ve got into acting perfect, when you never actually need anything from them. But when you’re not perfect, when you’re weak and vulnerable in ways they don’t like, they design you out of their lives like the Benton Grand was designed to keep out the homeless. They hide basic facilities from you and treat you like vermin. They blame you for all your too obvious problems, then donate gobs of money to plants while you suffer alone.
