Page 55 of Dark Restraint
“No, I am done with your lies.” Minos lifts the gun and points it directly at my chest. “You said it yourself—if you wanted to follow my orders and kill my traitorous daughter, you would’ve done it by now. I’ve been distracted, so it took me a little longer than normal to figure it out. That’s done now. I’ve passed the order to someone more capable and loyal than you will ever be.”
Fuck. Fuck. It’s exactly like I suspected. Worse than I suspected, because I would have preferred Minos attempt to kill me before he sent someone else after her. There’s no time. We have to get out of here. Now. “Who did you send?”
“You won’t live long enough to figure it out.”
Icarus moves first, tearing himself from my grip and throwing his lean body in front of mine. I see the exact moment Minos decides he doesn’t care if he shoots his son in the process of shooting me. Damn it. I grab Icarus around his waist and shove us against the wall as Minos pulls the trigger. He’s so skinny. It’s easy to shield him with my body.
I scramble for the doorknob, my hand closing around it as fire explodes in my shoulder. That motherfucker shot me, and not even well. I’ve been moving through pain for my entire life; a shoulder wound sucks, but it’s not the worst I’ve experienced. It’s nothing to get the door open and shove Icarus through it ahead of me.
We hit the hallway at a dead sprint, or as close to it as we can manage with him stumbling drunkenly and pain flaring with every step I take. The elevator will take too long to get to us, and we’ll be sitting ducks while we wait. Instead, I hook him around the waist and haul him through the doorway to the stairwell.
He tries to stop three flights down, but I grab his arm and keep him moving. Blood is a hot, wet cascade down my back. My head feels a little woozy. That isn’t a good sign. When my adrenaline crashes, I suspect it will be a crash in more ways than one.
On the second floor, I tighten my grip on Icarus’s arm and hold him back. “Need to go through a side door.”
He’s panting and his sweat is more alcohol than water, but he already seems a little more sober than he was a few minutes ago. “You think he called security?”
“He doesn’t have to when he has his own people to call.” I take the chance and grab my phone. We need to keep moving, but I can’t stop thinking about what Minos said. Ariadne is in danger. I don’t know who the fuck he sent, but I’m not with her to protect her.
She answers immediately. “Asterion? Is everything okay?”
I’m sure as fuck not about to tell her that in the time since she last saw me, I’ve gotten myself shot. There are more important things in play currently. “Your father called in someone else to take over the job. Your brother and I are on our way to you. Be ready when we get there. We’re getting the fuck out of here.”
28
Ariadne
Asterion hangs up before I can ask any questions, but it’s just as well. There’s no time. If he was anyone else, I might assume that he was overstating the danger. He’s not. I knew that there was a good chance I’d have to escape in a hurry, so I already have my bag packed. I’m just vain enough to mourn leaving so many of my gorgeous new clothes behind, but I have to be able to move quickly, and I can’t be weighed down. Asterion might be a machine, but Icarus and I are hardly people capable of long-distance cardio. Better to plan to carry my own shit.
It’s tempting to start for the street, but with Dionysus’s security in place, the penthouse really is the safest place for me to wait. Maybe. Hopefully. He did mention increasing security after…last time. Surely it’s enough to deter whoever my father has sent.
If Asterion has my brother, that means he’s coming from our father’s apartment. It’s a good ten-minute walk, give or take, depending on if they’re running or trying to move stealthily.
I drop my bag on the floor near the chair by the entrance and pull out my laptop. It takes seconds to let myself through the back door I created in the building’s security system. I make a mental note to tell Dionysus about it after I’m gone so that he can fix the problem—or to just fix it myself—as I pull up the feed from the security cameras.
I may not have had much interaction with my father’s people aside from Theseus and Asterion, but I know most of them on sight, thanks to my research. I click through the feeds of the entrances, wondering who my father will send to kill me. There’s a small possibility it will be one of Circe’s people they snuck into the city, but I don’t think so. Admitting his daughter turned traitor and that he needs help to deal with her is far too much weakness for my father’s liking. No, he’ll deal with this in-house.
It’s entirely possible that I’m being paranoid. A smart assassin will try to draw me out from my defensible position or simply wait for the perfect opportunity. But my father is frustrated with his recent failures, and he’ll be looking for a win. Since Asterion and Icarus are together, that means… Honestly, I’m not entirely certain what that means.
Asterion went to the apartment to keep my father happy so that he can maintain access to the team planning the bombing of Dodona Tower. If he is warning me off, it means something went wrong. It means he took my brother and they’re running, and he wouldn’t have done that unless he had to. There was a fight, maybe. Definitely a confrontation with my father.
If that’s the case, then my father knows he’s lost his pet monster and likely both his children as well. He won’t want to wait. He’ll send his pet assassin now, and it won’t be with some clever ploy to pry me out of the penthouse.
Tension courses through me as I flip through the security screens again. Maybe it’s paranoia, but I’m certain I can feel the hunter closing in. The desire to run is almost overwhelming. I breathe deeply and slowly, but it only makes my brain buzz harder.
I catch a familiar face just as I’m clicking away from the current screen of the hotel lobby. I click back and lean closer. The cameras are only slightly higher end than what you can find in generic buildings, which means zooming in will cause too much pixelation to see the person clearly.
They walk across the lobby in a loose, ambling gait. I click through the cameras situated around that space, but they always seem to have their face averted.
As if they know where the cameras are and they don’t want to be seen.
The small hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. The sensation only gets worse as they chat with the security guard and pass over what appears to be an ID. There’s nothing overtly wrong, and yet I can’t shake the feeling that I’m staring at a predator.
The security guard laughs at something they say and waves them toward the elevator. The person turns, and I finally get a proper look at their face. All the blood rushes from my head. Phaedra. They grin at the camera and give a little salute.
As if they know I’m watching.
They don’t hesitate in their path to the elevator. It’s only when the doors slide shut behind them that I realize what’s happening. They’re taking the damn elevator directly to the penthouse. “Shit!”