Page 2 of Lovesick Titan (Lovesick #2)

Facing Cho to break things off and finally confess the truth.

Facing Ludgate again when he had no idea how to defeat him.

Facing his own image in the mirror the next time he passed one, wondering if and when his eyes would change black like Thanatos.

Facing the photographs and evidence of the dead guard, mutilated because Danny hadn’t been able to stop Ludgate sooner .

Before the safety of that numb feeling tore open and spilled forth everything else, Danny had taken two pills straight away. Never more than two a day, Lynn had said, but she hadn’t said he couldn’t take two at once.

That taste of bile didn’t leave him when he reached his office upstairs and remembered that Ludgate could very well have sent footage of Prometheus and Zeus making out in the museum to the authorities or the papers, maybe even footage of Cho and Danny or proof that Danny was Zeus—who knew what evidence the madman had—but nothing surfaced.

Danny went through his morning, his afternoon, his day , without any sign that Ludgate planned to out his secrets. Not yet anyway.

R

His phone buzzing beside him pulled Danny back to the present and the evidence on his desk. The fiber was indeed silver, but he wouldn’t know more until he sent it to Andre and got some results back.

Checking his new text message, he saw that it was another from Cho. He’d texted Danny earlier, right after he left the man’s apartment.

It’s Mal, Sparky. Not Cho. Don’t forget it.

Danny always made that mistake, and he’d done it when he left too—“I’ll see ya around, Cho.”

This time the message said: Gonna have to help me celebrate when this lip heals.

Danny smiled; Cho had also gotten pretty beat up last night. But no . He couldn’t. He couldn’t . He had to end this.

Cho didn’t even know the truth, that Danny had been lying to him, using him.

He’d confessed that he killed Thanatos but not the real reason why, that after killing Danny’s partner and friend, Thanatos had targeted and killed Danny’s mother the night of the power station explosion.

Cho had no idea that Danny once blamed him for all of it because he hadn’t been there to help.

The last thing Danny wanted now was to hurt Mal by telling him those terrible truths, even though, in the beginning, hurting him was what he’d wanted .

All he could think to text back was: Sorry. Stay safe.

Be easier to do that if we had a plan.

I know. Just give me some time to think.

Don’t keep me waiting too long.

“Another piece of evidence from the museum heist last night, Detective Grant,” a uniformed officer said as he entered Danny’s office.

“Hey, Boyd.” Danny set his phone aside. “Thanks. Just set it in the inbox. I should be able to get to it right away and pass everything to CSI.”

“Anything to please the captain, right?” Boyd said with a friendly smile, which fell when his eyes darted to the dusty remains of Rick’s desk.

He made scarce after that to escape The Tomb .

Danny couldn’t blame him. His deceased partner’s old desk might as well have been a headstone and Danny was the crypt keeper.

It was afternoon now, and while the pills had helped him get through the morning and the initial files and evidence he had, reaching a stalemate with the fiber, reading Cho’s texts, feeling like every turn led him down another dead end with every corner of his life closing in around him like his prison of an office and Rick’s empty desk across from him, had Danny wishing he could take one more.

He knew he shouldn’t depend on the pills just because his mood took another dive, but would one really make that much of a difference?

When he set the fiber aside and reached for the new bag of evidence, he nearly dropped it as it caught in the light. It was Cho’s earpiece. The comms Danny had ripped from his ear when he attacked him, thinking he was working with Ludgate.

Danny didn’t know where the comms had come from originally, but he’d never seen anything like them.

They had to be custom made. Cho probably had a tech guy somewhere with access to good quality equipment.

Or Hephaestus , one of Cho’s faithful Titans.

Some parts might be untraceable, but Andre was very good at his job as a CSI.

He’d likely be able to connect some of the components to the manufacturer and figure out what businesses in Olympus City sold them, which would lead the police right to Cho’s neighborhood.

This was exactly the type of thing Danny hoped for from a case.

But not today. Not when the evidence was Cho’s, and Danny doing his job could put the thief in the line of fire.

He was already wanted by the police after breaking out of jail.

Things could only get worse if the OCPD started lurking around his neighborhood and found out where he lived.

Danny fought the urge to throw the earpiece in the trash. Which of course he couldn’t actually do .

Could he?

Evidence went missing all the time. Or got misplaced. Mislabeled. Maybe it was for a different case and Boyd had been wrong when he brought it to Danny. Maybe it got stolen. There could be so many reasons for it to disappear…

And catch the attention of Lieutenant Liu from Internal Affairs.

No. Danny couldn’t. Cho hadn’t asked him to do anything. This was just him doing his job, running the earpiece through the usual scrutiny and tests.

But as he held the item in his hand, only separated from his skin by the thick plastic bag it had been catalogued in, Danny couldn’t help thinking that he owed Cho.

After all, Cho wasn’t really the culprit this time.

Ludgate had the diamond. He was the one who’d killed the guard.

Going after Cho would just lead the police in the wrong direction.

As long as Danny got the fiber to point at Ludgate or figured out some way as Zeus to prove Ludgate was behind this heist like the others and catch him, it wouldn’t matter if one tiny earpiece went missing.

Before Danny could lose his nerve, he shoved the bag into his bottom desk drawer and pulled out his pills to take one more. He’d dispose of the comms later.

R

Mal frowned again at the slew of stilted text messages from Danny.

The younger man wasn’t giving him even an inch.

Ludgate had gotten too deep inside his head, driven a wedge between them that treating each other’s wounds and snuggling on the sofa exchanging words filled with raw emotion hadn’t been able to remedy.

Frowning harder, Mal glanced around his apartment.

He’d tried to rest after Danny dashed off.

Tried to busy himself with cleaning up his place when he got antsy from sitting around doing nothing.

Took more painkillers when his head started to ache.

Iced his lip and eye with the touch of his own frosted fingers.

Considered one too many times whether or not to just tear away all the coverings Danny had placed over his reflective surfaces.

Did it even matter? There had to be something Mal was forgetting, something small enough for Ludgate to eavesdrop through, even if he couldn’t physically get to him using a reflection that size. Not that Mal wanted to look in the mirror any time soon anyway. Probably looked like shit.

Sitting on the armrest of the couch, he started and deleted a dozen more messages to Danny. His nemesis would come around. He would . Mal just had to be patient.

The sound of a key turning in his locked door lasted for far too long before Mal reacted. He blamed his concussion from the fight with Ludgate as he rushed the door, fists ready just as it started to open.

“Hey!” Lucy called out, jerking back into the hallway before scowling and storming inside past his raised hand still clutching the phone. “You expecting an ambush, slick? It’s just me.”

Mal tried not to groan as his heart rate stuttered back to normal.

His adrenaline had been spiked too high all day, waiting for Ludgate to make some move.

Waiting for Danny to answer him with something other than deflection.

“Just because you have a key doesn’t mean you can enter without knocking,” he snarled, shutting and locking the door behind her.

“Shit, Mickey, what the hell?” she said to his beaten face. Standing in his entryway, arms crossed, the truth of her concern was only visible in the twitch of her eye.

Mal pushed past her and tossed his phone onto the coffee table. “Not in the mood right now, Luce.”

“Not in the mood? Are you kidding me?” She bounded after him, hovering menacingly when he dropped down onto the sofa feeling every one of his bruises jostle.

The cushions still smelled like Danny. “You look like someone’s punching bag.

You know, I could have come over the second I woke up this morning, and believe me, I thought about it.

Figured if I did though, Zeus might be down to his smallclothes and you’d be pissed at me for seeing just how low he can blush. ”

Mal snorted. His sister was in rare form today. “Lucy…”

“You’re welcome .”

With a sigh, Mal closed his eyes. “Thank you. For being patient and waiting to come over.” When he opened his eyes again, she nodded in satisfaction.

Practiced eyes followed the shades of purple and ugly green across his face as she sat down beside him. “Ludgate did this?”

“Not…technically.”

“Meaning?”

Mal didn’t answer.

“ Zeus ?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Complicated?” She flared with rare fury, and Mal instantly regretted his choice of words. “Why? Coz he didn’t mean it? Coz you deserved it? Or just coz you made him mad ?”

The same questions from a dozen—hundreds—of episodes with their father over the years made Mal’s insides twist. “That’s not what this is,” he said and held her gaze until she relaxed, marginally, into the cushion behind her. “You think I’d go for that bullshit?”