He watched Persephone as she peered down at the bar, and he hoped it was rather underwhelming.
No blood, he wanted to say. Or whatever she’d imagined after her encounter with Kal.
Her fingers traced a line down the window.
“Can they see us?”
“No,” Hades said.
In fact, from where they sat, this part of his office was mostly in shadow but would appear as a solid black wall. Despite this, none of his members were ignorant. They knew every movement they made, every word they spoke, was being recorded. It was the price they paid for their membership at Iniquity, but in exchange, they received his resources, which were invaluable and, as many were discovering, needed to survive in this part of New Greece where he too ruled.
“So you spy on them from up here?”
She looked back at him from over her shoulder, and he liked the way the light haloed her, even if her question was delivered with an element of coldness.
“You can call it spying if you like.”
She turned back to the window. After a moment, he heard her intake of breath as she began to recognize faces below.
“That’s Madelia Rella,” she said.
“She is in debt to me.”
“How?”
“I loaned her the money to start her first brothel.”
It had begun that way, at least. Now she owned the whole of the pleasure district, which meant she was, essentially, a landlord, and while she owned every building in the district, it came with a great deal of responsibility.
Though Madelia was more than willing to take up the gauntlet. Prior to his deal with the madam, she was already a staunch supporter of women and sex workers’ rights. It was how Hades had become interested in her proposition—she wanted to own the pleasure district and reform it. Under her direction, she had promised to create safer spaces for the workers, something she had succeeded with when it came to her own brothel.
So he agreed.
“Why?”
“It was a business opportunity, and in exchange for the money, I have a stake in her company, and I can ensure the safety of her escorts.”
Though he did not have to worry as much, because Madelia was a force to be reckoned with. Those who disobeyed her rules, depending on the severity, found themselves fired or dead. It was as simple as that.
“Send me to Tartarus,” she had told him once. “I will gladly face eternal punishment for the lives I take. It likely means I have saved ten more. ”
Hades had smiled at that. “If I sent you to Tartarus, Madelia, you’d likely decide that my choice of punishments was not good enough. ”
“Who else is down there?” Persephone asked.
Hades came to stand beside her and searched below, looking for people she might know, not because of their involvement in the criminal underworld but because of how they presented themselves to the public.
“That is Leonidas Nasso and Damianos Vitalis. They are billionaires and the bosses of rival crime families.”
“Nasso?” Persephone asked. “You mean…the owner of the Nasso Pizzeria chain?”
“The very one,” Hades confirmed. “The Vitalises are also restaurant owners, but they make their real living from fishing.”
Nasso and Vitalis both specialized in gambling and loan sharking, and only a single road separated their territories within New Athens. Under the rule of Iniquity, they could continue to expand their reach with the caveats that a percentage of their income had to be funneled into charities and they could not make or deal drugs.
“If they are rivals, why are they playing cards?”
“This is neutral territory. It is illegal to cause harm to another person on this property.”
Though Nasso and Vitalis had a truce since joining Iniquity, and so long as they continued to work together, they were on track to becoming the two most powerful mortal families in New Greece.
“I suppose you are the exception to that rule?”
“I am always the exception, Persephone.”
“These people…they are the elite of New Athens.”
She wasn’t wrong. Outside this den, they were known for their wealth, and while some might suspect their involvement in crime, there was little
evidence to support such a claim.
“They are the rich and the powerful, but they are rich and powerful because of me.”
Each member was attached to a string, and so long as they obeyed the rules, they were given more and more slack. Fuck up and the string was cut.
Hades nodded to a few other colorful characters. “That is Alexis Nicolo,”