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My throat clenched, stopping the retort before the thought even materialized.

Of course he kept his sleeves pulled down. He was hiding the marks of his little minions.

“We thought Piper was flirting with him,” Lukas said, speaking directly to Daphne.

“Fuck,” Daphne cursed low. “She must have known he was involved.”

“Shit, he probably charmed her into it,” Lukas quipped. To Sebastian’s credit, he was incredibly charming. He was the perfect god of art, music, medicine, and the sun.

But he didn’t carry the quiet authority that made Adrian so perfect.

The room lit as another flash of lightning illuminated the water. “That journalist started out in medical reporting,” Adrian said, his grip on my hands tightening.

Daphne inhaled sharply at another thought. “Avery…”

“He worked at a hospital,” Lukas practically cursed.

Adrian was seething, his chest rising and falling with weighty breaths. And the entire room was looking to him for guidance. After a moment, he finally spoke. “He’s planning something. Soon. He wouldn’t have gone after Reyna if he wasn’t. That’s the final blow. Attacking me personally.”

Daphne looked at me. “He doesn’t know you two are in a…well, that this is an arrangement?” Even she didn’t sound like she believed that.

I couldn’t answer. We all knew that. But Adrian supplied the truth. “It doesn’t matter either way at this point. He found his leverage.”

I fell harder into his side, helpless to resist the pull to be closer to him any longer. I had nothing to hide now anyway. He knew. And I had a feeling he wouldn’t let me out of his sight or the sight of someone he trusted with his own life until he had this under control.

Daphne nodded, sparing me a comforting glance. “Which of the projects do you want me to prioritize now?” she asked Adrian.

He ran a hand down his face. “The other one,” he said, alluding to something he was keeping me out of the loop on. “This is escalating. If you areconfidentshe’s not on Sebastian’s side, you can get Sabina involved.”

Daphne nodded. “Done. What else?”

“We handle this privately. Get our own leverage and plan together. But we can’t take this public. We don’t have someone to replace him,” Adrian said, finally straightening. He leaned back against the couch and threw an arm around me. “And the bastard is well-liked. We shut this down privately. And if I happen to kill him while we’re at it fine, but I’m not going to take this public.”

The room nodded in agreement. Adrian said a few more things about meeting with Dominic and Rose, but kept his words short, settling the matter for now. Enough that Daphne rose and came over to me, stealing a quick hug. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered in my ear. “I hope you gave him hell.”

I managed a short breath of laughter, but couldn’t offer any other response. Lukas stood to follow his wife,giving me a short nod. Then he looked over at Adrian and whatever he saw on his face made him laugh. “Remember what Dom and I told you?” he asked. “Might be a good time for that.”

Adrian just flipped him off and watched them head out.

“Adrian,” I said, when we were finally alone. This was feeling all too familiar.

“Let’s finish that conversation from earlier,” Adrian said, pulling me to stand.

“Wait,what?” By the time the words left my mouth, we were back on Olympus.

Chapter 29

Reyna

“I told you I’d let you go after tonight,” Adrian said. He was standing to his full height, his shoulders bracketed by the small glimpses of moonlight coming through the clouds. Coming through the window in hisbedroomI realized. “You were right.”

“Are you kidding me?” Suddenly, all conviction and reason I had earlier in the day was nowhere to be found. Well, now that Adrian knew about Sebastian, it only made sense for us to stay together.

Adrian ran both hands down his face. Then shucked off his suit jacket, roughly rolling up his sleeves. “I don’t know how else to protect you. Sebastian already thinks he can use you against me. He alreadyhas.” With every word, Adrian was growing more and more furious, the intensity in the room kicking up until I could almost see it.

“You have got to be kidding me.” A fury quite unlike anything I’d ever felt was pumping hot through my veins, making me want to grab something and rip itapart.

Adrian reached for me and I knew the second he got his hands on me, he’d try to pull me through a portal back to my house. I stepped away from him quickly, coming around to the other side of his bed to put distance between us.