Club 22 (Hades Book 3) Read online

  "Sit the fuck down," Zed grumbled. "Food is already getting cold."

  Cass took the seat beside Lucas, which left me to sit beside Zed. I took my seat gingerly, my butt cheek still burning from Cass's handprint. But if I was being totally truthful, I was also feeling all kinds of awkward. Yes, Zed had made his intentions clear and we'd kissed before, but this... this felt different. Way more intimate. Which, I guess, made sense seeing as he'd just made me come on another guy's dick.

  Wow. Yep, now I understood where Madison Kate was coming from. There had to be some kind of medical term for the intoxicating addiction I was in the throes of. Dick drunk. That's what I was.

  Lucas and Cass traded a couple of good-natured barbs while dishing up their food, passing the plates back and forth like we'd all lived together for years. Zed had cooked, and it smelled incredible. Slow-roasted lamb shoulder with dauphinoise potato, green beans, honeyed carrots... fucking heaven.

  After a few minutes of dead silence between Zed and I, he reached under the table and dragged my seat closer to him.

  "What?" I asked, giving him a frown.

  His raised brow in return said he wasn't buying my shit. "You know what."

  "Fuck you." I stabbed a carrot with my fork and took a bite.

  Zed continued staring at me with a slight smirk. "Please do."

  I choked on my carrot—just a little—but enough that my cheeks flamed and I earned curious looks from across the table.

  Unable to form the appropriately sassy comeback needed, I simply ignored Zed and glared at Cass and Lucas as if to say shut the fuck up, both of you.

  Lucas was the first to take pity on me and change the subject. "So, now that you're officially dead and buried," he said to Cass, "will you fill us in on the plan? I'm assuming there was a plan in play."

  Cass gave a nonchalant shrug, his mouth full with food. Zed placed a hand on my knee under the table, his fingers stroking the inside of my thigh.

  "Dare's been avoiding that question for a full week, Gumdrop." His tone was salty, even though his hand still gripped my leg. "What makes you think she's going to crack now?"

  "I'm right here, asshole," I snarled. "Don't fucking talk about me."

  "Well, then speak up," he snapped back, his grip on my leg tightening. I didn't hate it, either. What the fuck did that say about me?

  "Chill, De Rosa," Cass drawled, then sipped his beer. "It was my plan." Then he grunted. "Sort of."

  Lucas gave me a considering look, then hopped up from his chair and went to the kitchen to grab me a wine glass and a bottle of sangiovese. I winced when he held it up and shook my head.

  "White," I told him, wrinkling my nose. "I don't think I can drink red wine again for a while." Not after having the smell of rich, earthy cabernet sauvignon mixed with Cass's fresh blood imprinted permanently in my memory.

  Lucas returned with a chilled bottle of pinot grigio and poured me a glass while Zed and Cass just watched him with curious gazes.

  "You two have something to say?" I asked, bringing the glass to my lips and taking a sip. "Thank you, Lucas."

  "Anytime," he replied with a grin. "So, I sort of figure the whole fake death has something to do with freeing you from your gang?" The question was directed to Cass, but his gaze flicked back to me like I was magnetic.

  Cass grunted again, putting his beer down. "Reapers are old school."

  "No such thing as retirement." Zed gave a small nod of understanding.

  I took another sip of my wine and explained those statements better for Lucas's benefit. "Reapers don't let members just quit. Once you're in, you're in for life. There have only ever been a couple of exceptions and never for a gang leader."

  Zed blew out a long breath, his hand still warm on my knee. "I suppose orchestrating another massacre like we did for Arch would have been a crapload more work than this."

  "No shit," Cass agreed.

  "But... why did Chase think you were dealing his drugs?" Lucas pressed, his brow creased in confusion. "Why was he so confident you'd betrayed Hayden?"

  Cass met my eyes across the table, his gaze steady as he replied. "Because I did."

  Lucas's eyes widened, and Zed jerked like he'd been slapped. I rolled my eyes and stabbed at a piece of meat on my plate.

  "Calm your tits," I drawled. "He did not betray me. Grumpy Cat is getting dramatic in his afterlife."

  Cass huffed a short laugh, and Zed glowered. "Explain."

  "Chase had been working on flipping the Wraiths for a hell of a lot longer than we realized. His original agreement was with Ferryman, and Skate just inherited the bullshit. Instead of wiping out the Wraiths entirely, Cass thought it might be useful to simply... let them continue and watch what they did." I paused to eat some of my dinner because I was hungry and it was delicious.

  "So you knew Chase was using the Reapers to distribute angel dust?" Lucas asked, a frown of disbelief creasing his brow. "But... why would you ever be okay with that? Your history with drugs and Chase and—"

  "Because you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs," Zed answered for me. "But what I want to know is why the fuck I didn't know about it."

  "We," Lucas corrected, and Zed shot him a withering glare.

  I bit the inside of my cheek. Zed's hand was still on my leg, but the tension in his grip told me how pissed off he was, despite his relatively calm voice. The truth was that I’d had no good reason to keep it from him. I just... had. Cass had already committed to the plan prior to informing me, and while I’d been mad as hell at the time, I agreed with his reasoning. But Zed would only have seen it as a betrayal.

  Fuck. Nothing I could say in response to that was going to make things better. It was why I'd been avoiding the whole fucking thing all week since shooting Cass and making Zed and Lucas think I'd really gone and killed him.

  One silver lining to that scenario, though, was the three of them seemed to be rocking a stronger bromance than ever. It was just me that two thirds of them were pissed at and rightly so.

  "Um," I mumbled, then took another bite of my dinner. "These potatoes are really good."

  Zed's grip on my leg tightened, and Lucas shot me a frustrated—yet amused—glare.

  Right as I started to sweat my weak-ass reasoning, Zed's phone rang loudly on the kitchen counter. I arched a brow and tilted my head in the direction of his phone.

  "You should probably get that," I suggested. "Could be important."

  He glowered. "It's not."

  I shrugged. "You don't know. Maybe it's the most important call of your whole life."

  Zed just continued glaring, but his grip on my leg softened somewhat. I still hadn't slapped his hand away, and I couldn't explain why.

  Lucas pushed back from the table and headed over to grab Zed's phone. "It's from... uh, 3982? How is that a complete number?"

  Zed jerked upright, startled, and held his hand out for the phone. "It's not," he replied. "It's a code name."

  Lucas tossed the phone to him, and Zed answered the call in one smooth motion as he brought it to his ear.

  "Danny," he said to the caller.

  My brows raised, and I indicated for him to put the call on speakerphone. If the mercenary guild was calling, then maybe they would help keep Seph safe in Italy.

  "Zed, hey," the woman on the other end replied. Her voice was husky and low, like I remembered. I'd only met her once, briefly, but goddamn, she scared even me. "This is a friendly heads up," she said, sounding hushed. "You've pissed someone off in the Guild. They've assigned someone to Shadow Grove, and I don't think it's to help you out."

  A ripple of apprehension ran through me at that, and I licked my lips. "Danny, it's Hades," I said. "Have you heard anything about Chase Lockhart?"

  "Speakerphone. Cool," she replied, "Lockhart... Wasn't he one of the scumbag traffickers you offed in the Timberwolf massacre?"

  "Yeah, he was. Except he didn't stay dead." I didn't think there was anything to be lost in revealing that information.
Chase wasn't going to any great lengths to maintain his Wenton Dibbs identity now that the curtain had been pulled back.

  "Shit," Danny muttered, sounding distracted. "Sounds like you're in a world of trouble down there."

  Zed huffed an annoyed sound. "Yeah, you could say that. I submitted a job request to the Guild this morning..."

  "Don't hold your breath," she replied in a dry voice. "Like I said, someone is not happy with you guys." There were some voices in the background, then the line went dead.

  A tense silence filled the air before Cass broke it with a long exhale. "Well, that can't be good."

  "No shit," Zed snapped and threw a carrot at Cass's head. For a dead man, Cass had impressive reflexes. He caught the vegetable before it smacked him in the face and took a bite of it instead.

  "This is about me, isn't it?" Lucas asked in a quiet, thoughtful voice. "Whatever my uncle was doing with the Guild... or whatever he had planned for me?"

  I wanted to reassure him, to tell him this likely had more to do with Zed and me or with Chase and the war he was waging on the Timberwolves. But... the Guild had never involved themselves in gang politics before; why would they start now? At that thought, it was unsurprising we hadn't heard back on help to protect Seph. They might have viewed Chase and his sham company Locked Heart as a gang dispute and declined on that basis.

  "Probably," Zed admitted before I could think of a nicer way to say it. "The arsenal under your house raises a whole heap of red flags. Hell, I'm still not one hundred percent convinced you're who you seem."

  I groaned. "Don't fucking start with that shit again."

  "He's got a point," Cass rumbled, side-eyeing Lucas. "What if Gumdrop is some kind of sleeper agent and one day a duck will quack and he'll murder us all?" This time all three of us looked to him in bafflement, and Cass just shrugged. "It's been a long week being fake dead," he admitted. "I watched a lot of Netflix."

  A slightly hysterical laugh was bubbling up in my throat, so I swallowed a couple of times to hold it back before turning my attention to Lucas. "There's a good possibility it has to do with you, yes. But whatever it is, we can work it out. Obviously, your uncle tried to train you up as a kid, but I think your mom took you out of town to keep you safe."

  "It'd be useful if she could give us some more information," Zed said, drumming his fingers on the tabletop.

  Lucas screwed his nose up and shook his head. "Yeah, I don't think that's happening any time soon. Every time I see her she seems to have lost more of her lucidity. It's weird, like there's something else going on, but her doctors haven't found anything outside of her MS."

  "I'll look into it," Cass muttered, turning his attention back to his food and ignoring the way Lucas stared at him.

  "Look into what?" Zed snapped. "In case you forgot, you're officially dead. You can't freaking leave the house, or we'll have the entire Shadow Grove Reapers breathing down our necks."

  Cass's tiny smirk was way too fucking smug. "Who better to fly under the radar than a ghost? Don't worry, Zeddy Bear, I won't get caught."

  Zed spluttered, choking on the sip of beer he'd just taken and turning red in the face. Lucas just grinned so wide I thought he might burst out into laughter. And as for me? I didn't know what to fucking do with that. Cass had just given Zed the most ridiculous nickname in gangster history, worse than Gumdrop, and I had a psychic hint it was going to stick.

  "I'll come with you to see her tomorrow," I told Lucas, deliberately sidestepping Zed's new nickname. "Maybe she'll be having a better day."

  Lucas shrugged, looking dejected. "Yeah, maybe." Then he flashed me an appreciative smile. "Thank you."

  Warm bubbles of emotion fizzed through my belly as our gazes connected, and I smiled back at him. It was impossible not to.

  Zed's phone rang again, and he showed me the caller ID displaying Alexi's name on the screen.

  "Take it," I told him, pushing back from the table.

  Zed gave me a nod and answered the call as he moved away from the dining table to find out what Alexi was calling for. Cass tried to help me stack the dishes up, but I gave him a stern look and eyed his sling.

  "You've done enough tonight," I scolded. "Go watch a movie or something. Just chill and let that shoulder heal." His eyes narrowed and his lips parted as if to argue back, but I hardened my glare. "That's an order, Cassiel. Don't test me."

  "Better do what she says," Lucas offered, stacking up dirty plates and carrying them into the kitchen. "You wouldn't want to get shot again."

  Cass scowled in Lucas's direction but reluctantly did as he was told. I picked up more of the dishes from the table and took them through to where Lucas was already rinsing and stacking plates in the dishwasher.

  "I've got this," he told me when I tried to help. "Zed will probably have business shit to discuss when he gets off the phone anyway."

  I wrinkled my nose, not really even wanting to know why Alexi had called. When Cass had proposed the idea of faking his death to free himself from the Reapers, I hadn't even given it a second thought. I got it. Sometimes I wished I could kill off Hades, too.

  "Hey." I tucked my arms around Lucas's waist and rested my cheek against his back. "I'm sorry I didn't trust you with the details."

  Lucas didn't respond immediately, his shoulders bunching as he gripped the side of the counter. Then he exhaled heavily and turned around to hug me back.

  "I get it," he said against my hair. "I don't like it, but I get it. You've got no real reason to trust me, not with something as serious as all of that."

  I pulled back, wanting to disagree, but he silenced me with a gentle kiss.

  "Not yet, anyway," he amended. "But one day you will. In the meantime, I'm not going anywhere." Then his gaze turned sheepish. "If that's okay?"

  Flashing him a reassuring smile, I reached up and pulled his face to mine for a lingering kiss that filled me with those effervescent bubbles of happiness that he always created. "More than okay," I told him in a whisper as we broke apart, breathing heavily. "Want to leave this mess for later?" My intent was clear as I pressed my body into his and nipped his lower lip with my teeth.

  Lucas groaned, then shook his head. "So fucking tempting, Hayden. But I actually have a stack of assignments to do for school. I'm, uh, I'm a bit behind. If I don't catch up soon..." He trailed off with a grimace.

  A flash of guilt stabbed through me. Lucas should be completing his senior year at Shadow Prep and preparing to go to university, not learning how to fight and surviving a nearly fatal stabbing at the hands of his older lover's ex-fiancé.

  "Maybe I could get your help on my economics paper tomorrow, though?" he asked with a hopeful tilt to his voice. His arms were still banded tight around my waist, and I quietly never wanted him to let go. "Zed told me you're a little bit amazing when it comes to business subjects, and that's majorly my weak point."

  I huffed a short laugh. "Zed was the one who tutored me," I informed him, "but I'd love to help. I'll make sure I save some time in my schedule tomorrow."

  He responded by kissing me again, which quickly turned heated, and the next thing I knew he was lifting me up onto the counter and stripping my shirt over my head.

  "Gumdrop," Zed barked, stomping his grumpy ass back into the kitchen. "Don't you have shit to do?"

  Lucas dragged his full lower lip through his teeth, his heated gaze locked on my face as his hands caressed my breasts through the thin lace bra I wore. "Hell yeah, I do," he murmured, and I didn't suspect for even a second he was referring to his schoolwork.

  Zed gave an irritated sound. "Dare—"

  "Dial it down, Zed," I told him in a cool voice that only slightly implied violence. "Don't forget your place."

  His mouth snapped shut, but his glare intensified until I huffed and slid out of Lucas's embrace.

  "Raincheck," I murmured before rising up to kiss Lucas quickly, then I stalked toward Zed with my shirt in hand. "I take it Alexi wasn't calling for a friendly chat?"


  He gave a tight headshake, but his eyes were glued to my chest. Fuck’s sake. In an attempt to redirect the energy, I tugged my shirt back over my head.

  "Right," he muttered, shaking his head. "Let's talk in the office."

  He led the way, and I didn't argue. I got the feeling he was only relocating to the office to help his own head shift gears into work mode, not because he didn't trust Lucas and Cass overhearing what we spoke about. So I took his cue and gave myself a quick mental slap before we got to the office. Compartmentalizing was my sharpest weapon.

  6

  Zed didn't sit down at his desk, which was a smart choice. My patience was running thin with his attempts at bigger dick energy than me. It was a competition I had no interest in coming in second place for, so he was wise not to fucking test me.

  Instead, he stopped in the middle of the room and spun around to glare at me with blazing eyes as I closed the office door.

  "We need to talk," he snapped, "about what happened upstairs."

  I shook my head, the denial strong. "Nah, I'd rather not. What was Alexi calling for?"

  Disbelief flashed across his handsome features, and a frustrated frown creased his brow. "That's childish."

  "Is it?" I retorted, my face carefully expressionless and cold. "Luckily, I don't give a shit. What was Alexi calling for?"

  Zed glared at me a moment longer, then swiped his hand over his face. "He got a tip about a situation down in Arizona, some botched smuggling job that got busted by the feds."

  "Okay, so what does that have to do with us?" I folded my arms over my chest and stiffened my stance so I wouldn't be tempted to pace nervously. As it was, I could barely focus on keeping my game face on so Zed couldn’t catch me checking him out.

  Zed grimaced. "The shipment was girls. When the job got botched, someone must have tipped the smugglers off because every single girl was dead when the feds got there."

  I stiffened, ice forming in my gut. "Dead how?"

  "Alexi's guy didn't have the specifics but said it looked like they'd been poisoned." His gaze was hard, and I knew exactly what he was thinking.