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"Wow, Madison, that’s a lame analogy."
"What do you want me to say? Did you two fuck like rabbits?"
I hear a deep laugh in the background. "Oh, God! Is Zeus there?"
"He is. Now answer quickly—I’m about to get busy. My husband can’t hear me say the ‘F-word’ without wanting to ‘discipline’ me."
"Too much information, sister. As for your question, let’s just say I got a great introductory lesson in what it means to belong to him."
Athanasios
CHAPTER THIRTY
"Apologies for the delay, gentlemen,"Odin says as he walks into Zeus's conference room. He shakes each of our hands before sitting in an empty chair beside Ares.
My day is nearly consumed with back-to-back responsibilities, and I endured hellish traffic in Manhattan to get here. But nothing could stop me from attending this meeting. I’m obsessed with finally uncovering the truth about the bastard who deceived Brooklyn.
"I’m on a tight schedule," I say. "I have surgery in three hours." I have no doubt their schedules are packed too, but in my case, a life depends on me being there on time.
"Did you drive here?" Dionysus asks.
"Yes, and I regretted the hell out of it. I wasn’t sure if your helipad was available."
"I’ll arrange for the pilot to take you back," Zeus offers.
Normally, I don’t accept favors, but I can’t risk spending hours in traffic again. "Thank you."
"Since we’re all pressed for time, I’ll get straight to the point," their cousin begins. "Moses Raines—or Wren Floding, DeanCornell, or any of the half-dozen other aliases he used—was, in the past, an FBI agent embedded in a criminal organization primarily involved in human trafficking."
"What?" Zeus asks, and I can’t hide my shock either.
Since the video call we had on Saturday, I’ve entertained dozens of theories. That was definitely not one of them.
"An FBI agent?" I repeat, stunned.
"Ex-agent.His real name was Jordan Rogers, but he stopped using it years ago, and I’ll explain why."
"Holy shit!" Ares exclaims, standing. "I thought the bastard was involved with the mafia, a common criminal, not a former agent."
"He became a common criminal in the end. From what I’ve gathered, Jordan spent years embedded in the mafia. He and his partner, fellow agent Shelley Edward."
"Enya!" I exclaim.
"Exactly. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let me lay out the timeline. The story is much more twisted than you can imagine. Jordan and Shelley were two of the best agents of their time. From what I’ve found, they were also lovers. Both were assigned to infiltrate the Chinese mafia."
"The Chinese mafia? But from the photo I saw, he was blond," I point out.
"Yes, they use Americans—people of various nationalities, in fact. The point is, both Jordan and Shelley executed their roles brilliantly. Jordan rose as a trusted man within the organization, Shelley as the lover of the mafia boss's son."
"How long were they undercover?" I ask.
"Years. At least five, from what I could uncover. In the end, they managed to dismantle the operation. However, their lives were ruined. They had to reinvent themselves, or they would have been killed. They entered the witness protection program, leaving behind their pasts and families."
"So, the false identities . . . is this tied to that story?" Zeus asks.
"No. I’ll explain. From here, there’s about a year’s gap in their lives, so what I’m about to say is my educated guess. They disappeared, were given new identities—everything that happens in witness protection. But I believe they’d spent too much time immersed in the criminal world, and that changed them."
"‘If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you,’" Hades says, quoting Nietzsche.