None of it will make a difference or ensure Eris lives.
Ariadne hesitates. She looks around and steps closer. “I heard about Aphrodite. I’m sorry.”
“Ariadne.” I take her shoulders and lean down, getting in her face. “Where the fuck is your father?”
“Are you going to kill him?” she whispers.
I don’t ask her if she’d try to stop me. Minos’s relationship with her and Icarus is no less fucked than his relationship with me and the Minotaur. It’s just a different flavor of fucked. Maybe she doesn’t know if she wants to stop me or get out of my way. That’s fine. I don’t know what I want right now, either. “Where is he? I’m not going to ask again.”
“Get your fucking hands off my sister.”
I look over slowly to find Icarus in the doorway. He’s got a baseball bat in his hands and while he doesn’t look like a stone-cold killer, I have no doubt he’d take that damned bat to my head and waste both our time. I drop my hands from Ariadne’s shoulders. “My fight isn’t with either of you. Tell me where he is and I’ll go.”
Icarus adjusts his grip on the baseball bat, but doesn’t lower it. “She’s Olympian, Theseus. Surely you’re not going to burn bridges with all of us over your wife.”
“I am putting a stop to this.”
“It’s too late,” Ariadne whispers. “There’s no stopping it.”
I give her a sharp look, but I’m not about to fold now. It doesn’t matter if we can’t stop Minos’s greater plan. I don’t give a fuck about this city as a whole. But I’ll be damned before I let Eris stay in the crosshairs. “I’m not going to ask again.” I don’t want to hurt either of them, but if they stand between me and their father, I will go through them to get to him.
“He’s meeting with the Minotaur downstairs,” Icarus says. “In the apartment they’re both pretending we don’t know about.” He rattles off the floor and number.
Minos has a secret residence. Of course he does. He’s never one to keep all his eggs in one basket…or to leave incriminating evidence lying around where one of his children might happen on it. The fact he didn’t tell me about the apartment is just more proof that I am expendable to him. I’ve played my role and now he has no more use for me.
Later, that might hurt. Maybe. Right now, I’m too fucking furious to worry about it.
I turn and head for the door. Every step sends pain flaring in my knee, but I ignore it just like I’ve been ignoring it for days. I’ll pay for the negligence later. If there is a later.
It doesn’t take long to get down to the floor and apartment Icarus directed me to. It’s only as I’m raising my fist to bang on the door that I pause to wonder if he steered me wrong and I’m about to barge in on some innocent.
But when the door flies open, it’s the Minotaur glaring at me, his scarred face pulled into unforgiving lines. “What are you doing here?”
Instead of answering, I shoulder past him into the apartment. One look around confirms it’s exactly what I’d expect. A command center. There’s a desk with several computer monitors set up in front of a fancy chair. No other furniture.
Minos walks out of the doorway leading into a hall. “What’s all this?” He almost misses a step when he sees me, but Minos is too good to be thrown off by my presence. “Son, you have blood on your hands.”
“Call them off,” I tell him.
He raises his brows. “What are you on about? Call who off?”
This is how we’re going to play it? I expected nothing less, but I still want to wrap my hands around his neck and squeeze. I flex them, and his gaze falls to clock the move. His brows rise higher. “Looks like you’ve had an eventful night. Fill me in.”
“No.”
His eyes flash. “What do you mean, no?”
“I am done playing this game. You set me up to be expendable, and because of that, my wife is on the operating table right now. I don’t give a fuck about your plan or your goals. If she doesn’t survive the night, I’ll kill you myself. Fuck you, and fuck your plans.”
Just like that, his charming mask falls. “Check your tone and try that again. You don’t get to tell me when you’re done. I tell you when you’re done. You’re a weapon, if a piss-poor one. Your only job is to annihilate whatever enemy I point you at.”
I knew it, but hearing him state it so clearly breaks the last string of his hold on me. “Not anymore.”