To Die for... Virtue

ONE

ONE

WHEN IN THE AIR on the way to London, the miles had stretched between her and Daire. Those miles didn’t feel any shorter on the bus ride to Miami.

Leaving him in the Beast, giving him permission to follow his gut, was the least she could do. The guy dealt with an overwhelming sense of responsibility. Since birth, it had been drummed into him that Olympus was his everything.

Given the explosion, the potential devastation, of course he should be with his people. His Olympus comrades were his family, or the closest he had. That didn’t change just because they had feelings for each other. Daire’s priority was Olympus. His life was Olympus.

The television news mentioned fatalities. Any number of Daire’s underlings could’ve been killed in the blast. And his superior, his mentor, the man he looked up to as a father, who also happened to be her biological father, whether he’d kept his life was still unknown too.

For her, in their relationship, her Heart said he wanted to be uncomplicated. Tess wanted to be his freedom. Whatever he had to do, whatever was right, her love would endure.

The Sunshine State was beautiful, shrouded in glorious light. Just like she remembered. It hadn’t been so long ago that she and Daire enjoyed it together. Well, her and Danny.

From her current angle, it didn’t look quite the same, yet it was so welcoming, comforting. All her memories of being there with him were positive. Even the not so positive ones. In Miami, the truth of her mother’s death hit her hard. It was in Danny’s arms she’d found solace.

Danny, Daire, one and the same. Almost.

A lot of time was spent thinking about her past. About their past too. Daire had taken over her life. No, he’d taken over her heart. Her soul. Her breath. Her being.

Running away together sounded romantic, though it wasn’t really an accurate description. After freeing her from the thug escorting her for Zeus, rather than letting her go on the run alone, Daire hitched his travel-trailer to his truck and fled with her.

They’d been less than five hundred miles from their destination when they learned about the desert house explosion on the TV. In a convenience store. While they were making out.

Damn. Hadn’t she told him she wouldn’t compromise his integrity? She’d tried to be strict. Well, she’d said the words they should be strict about being platonic, because he belonged to Olympus, not her. In theory.

If that was true, she wouldn’t be so worried. Her father, Harry, also known as Hades, may have been caught in the Vegas blast. Her father could be dead. She’d known him for less than two months and might have lost him already.

All her life she’d been with her mother. Only her mother. They moved from town to town, city to city, trying to escape the Olympus shadow. Not that she’d known it at the time. They were running from some unknown something, that was all she’d known.

By complete accident, after her mother’s unexpected death, she’d found a stash of letters. Love letters she later learned were from Harry. Written in vague terms with coded references, making immediate sense of them was impossible. Those letters started her on the path of discovery, determined to find out about the writer and the ominous specter in her wake.

As part of that mission, she’d gone to a junkyard to search the remains of the car her mother died in. It was there she met Danny Winger. Hauling Danny’s trailer, they traveled across the country and back again, pursuing her mission.

In the end, it turned out Danny was dropping the breadcrumbs she was gobbling up, believing that they were making progress. But it was all a lie. A con. A double-cross. He wasn’t Danny Winger at all, he was Daire Canon. Protégé to her father.

His ruse ended at the Olympus Beta site, where he’d been raised to be the perfect operative. Elite expert and the supreme agent, Daire was the pinnacle of a lifetime of constant training. Thrust together by tragedy, Harry fulfilled the role of tutor and parent, and the ward dedicated his life to winning his surrogate father’s approval.

She’d learned so much in such a short time. Six influential and affluent individuals from different areas of government, crime, and business created Olympus. They recruited three young soldiers to be trained as the principal agents. Hades, her father, was one of those three principals. Poseidon, James Garrick, was another.

The third principal, Zeus, was a man named Ulysses Sherwood. Heading up the strategic section, he was the overarching leader.

Overarching and overbearing.

Ideas above his station led to the benefactors, known as the Six, bringing Operation Zulu to Harry. Its aim? To eliminate Zeus and restructure Olympus. Of course, the plan was secret. Top secret. Classified. The process was slow; the timing had to be perfect. As the months went on, Harry brought in individual subordinates to inform them of Operation Zulu, so as to minimize disruption after the assassination.

Except it never happened.

Lowell, the only remaining original member of the Six benefactors, informed Zeus of the plot. Harry only just managed to send an alert to his men, saving their lives by telling them to flee.

Long story short, the Exodus happened. The principals and agents disappeared in the wind.

Daire hadn’t been aware Zulu was on. While Styx, Daire’s surrogate brother, was chosen as the assassin and had been the first person Harry told.

Just like any family, they had their issues.

The brothers hadn’t seen each other since at least the Exodus, just over a year ago. Harry hadn’t seen Styx since then either, or maybe even before that. Where was Styx when it all went down?

She’d have a chance to ask him. Soon.

Back to the Danny/Daire duplicity. She’d discovered that in the Olympus Beta control room when Daire tricked her into meeting her father. The men faced off in there, any of them could’ve been killed in a snap. Daire’s feelings for her and acceptance of his father’s apology prevented him from following through. Whether her father knew about her and Daire’s intimacy was still a mystery. They’d never been blatant about it, and he’d never asked.

Sort of by accident, the three of them met up with Poseidon. Through the Zone project, he’d gathered some of the Olympus agents. At the time of the Exodus, most of the agents were taking part in an experimental process that infused them with some kind of synthetic isotope. That isotope was traceable within a certain radius of the control unit.

Garrick had taken a couple of operatives into the field to try tracing others. As far as she knew, they were still out there. If that intel was accurate, they wouldn’t have been around during the explosion.

The explosion.

It was so fantastic, in the most horrific way, that she almost couldn’t wrap her head around it.

Zeus sent her to the desert house to retrieve the keys he needed to revive Minotaur, the Olympus mainframe. They weren’t there, Tess knew that, but she’d gone anyway. Just as she knew her running away would piss off Zeus.

But she couldn’t have imagined…

Clinging tighter to the bag on her lap, she stopped looking at what was outside and stared into nothingness. They didn’t know for sure what or who caused the explosion. If it was Zeus, it was on her. The man was used to being on top, used to dealing with disciplined, obedient agents who respected his authority. That wasn’t Tess. Her attitude tended to center around acting in the moment without a lot of consideration for the future.

Except this time, it was possible her impulse had cost lives.

Olympus might be intrinsically linked with her existence, that didn’t mean she wanted it to rule her life. Funny that a big part of the reason she’d started down the rabbit hole was to free herself from the looming threat. Getting away wasn’t so easy. The more time went on, the deeper she got pulled into the mess.

All she wanted was Daire’s happiness. If that meant Olympus, then she planned to deliver for him. Hence Miami. For her rendezvous with Styx. The brother Daire didn’t know she’d allied herself with while in London.

In the busy, fast-moving European city, Styx tracked her down and they got to know each other a little. At the same time, they’d hatched a plot to steal the two keys in Zeus’s possession and meet again in Miami.

One of Styx’s conditions for helping her was keeping their association a secret. She had, which meant it probably wasn’t such a bad thing she’d left Daire behind.

Presenting the brothers to each other without warning could be a disaster.

Fox Den. That was the name of the club where they were meant to regroup. Inside, across the bridge, past the seating and through the curtain. Easy as pie. Other than knowing the club was in Miami, she wasn’t sure of its exact location… or what kind of club it was.

People began to move around as the bus approached the terminal. It wasn’t super busy, so she didn’t have anyone next to her. Still, she’d kept her carpet bag in her lap as opposed to stowing it or even putting it on the seat next to her. It contained most of what she’d had in London and some of her Vegas clothes. In it would be something club suitable to wear, and maybe some makeup, enough that she’d be able to fit in.

She’d get a cab and change in the back. There was no point finding a motel or setting herself up anywhere until she’d seen Styx. Perhaps he wouldn’t be there at all. Maybe he’d had an involuntary detour of his own. If he was there, she’d get the keys and… What next? She’d really intended to give them to Daire, except he wasn’t with her, and his people were in a precarious position. If she put those keys in his palm, there was a good chance he’d hand them straight over to Zeus to protect what remained of his men.

Everything she and Styx had done would be for nothing. Ultimately, it was Daire’s choice, but she didn’t want him to regret it. Didn’t want him to be manipulated by a man who didn’t understand the meaning of honor.

The explosion.

Images from the TV news flashed in her mind’s eye. Her father could be dead. Zeus might have killed a man who’d been in his life for decades, since they were basically kids. And to kill his own men. Bodies had been taken out of the smoldering mess. The news reporter said they were unidentified. Who could they be?

Harry had no reason to set charges. Despite not being close or knowing each other well, she couldn’t imagine her father, who’d dedicated his life to rearing agents for Olympus, would execute the men he’d nurtured.

Putting it out of her mind wasn’t so easy. Except she had to. Would Styx know? He’d have seen the news. That was a reprieve. She didn’t want to be the one to tell him his fellow operatives could be dead.

The bus pulled in and came to a stop. People got up to retrieve bags and organize themselves as others filtered down the aisle. She didn’t leap up but was in no mood to loiter either.

Slipping into the aisle in front of a guy who gestured for her to go first, she offered a smile in thanks. Without being too pushy, she excused herself around those blocking the way and eventually got to the front.

Tossing her rebellious hair from her eyes, she went down the stairs and jumped onto the asphalt, only to turn toward the sidewalk and stop.

There, leaning against a pole, was a man she recognized. Arms folded, ankles crossed, he was waiting… for her.