Page 19 of Unleash Hades (Ungoverned Spaces #5)

Calissandra

M y boys were home and it was a short time before they would disappear for university. Then they may be gone for good - off to their own grand adventures, and far too important to spend time with their Mum.

My boys had said they wanted to stay in, read, watch movies, play video games, and order terrible American Chinese food. They shooed me out of their rooms, telling me to come find them for lunch, because after the overcrowding of boarding school, they wanted a moment alone.

It was going to be hard to have them so far away from me again, even if it was for the best. It felt so much like Chloe… how I had packed her things and sent her off without a word. Worried that if Richard knew I loved her that he would… that…

One year into marriage, when our father mysteriously passed, I knew.

I suspected, but couldn’t confirm, but deep in my bones…

I knew what Richard was. My father’s death was unlikely to have been an accident.

A simple medical emergency. Something sinister had happened.

I could see it on Richard’s barely repressed smirk, as he went about planning the funeral.

I knew enough to send Chloe away.

So why did you still love him? Why did you beg, plead and wish for him to be your prince?

My inner bitch voice was always there to fill me with shame.

It had taken a long time for me to know the answer.

It was because I had no one else. Because if he turned around and decided to be decent to me, then I would have gotten my sister back, the Company would have been safe.

The legacy my father died for. The one he sold me in marriage for… it would have all been safe!

Maybe not a happy ending, but it would have been happy enough.

A tentative knock on the door pulled me from my spiraling misery. I wiped a tear I didn’t know I had cried from my lip. I coughed and put a smile on my face before I answered, “Come in!”

Romulus looked through the door.

“What is it, darling? You can’t be hungry already.”

Teenage boys could eat a whale in one sitting, I swear. They cost a fortune to feed.

“No, Mummy,” he said, his hands in his pockets. “You have a visitor.”

Was it Hugo? Surely he wouldn’t come here.

“It’s Lucien Bellamy.” My son had hearts in his eyes. “He looks even better than he does on television.”

“He’s a first-class twat,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose as I stood up and approached my boy.

“Mummy!” My son looked offended, placing a hand on his chest like his heart would leap out from behind his ribs.

“You’re about to go to uni,” I said with a slight chuckle. “It’s time you started tolerating more colorful language.”

“Not from you , Mum.” He pouted, slightly… or at least as much as a teenage boy could. “From father, maybe…”

My sons had never called Richard anything but “father”. There was a formality and distance there that had never registered for me. The separation between me and Richard was so vast that I never realized that the same may exist between him and the boys.

They were made in his image, but the boys had Adelia’s heart, through and through.

“I love you, son,” I said, holding his face in my hands - a motherly indulgence that Romulus had learned to tolerate, even as Remus pulled away. They were far too grown up at seventeen.

Even now, when Romulus was taller than me, he could still look at me like I was bigger and stronger than he was.

Romulus had striking green eyes, and rust-colored hair that grew in waves that perfectly tucked behind his prominent, graceful ears.

He’d make a handsome man, when teenage gangliness left his features.

I already knew he’d inherit chiseled jawline from his father.

I just hoped he wouldn’t weaponize them as their progenitor had.

I wanted my Romulus to stay sweet.

“Show Mr. Bellamy in,” I said, tapping his nose with my index finger. “And give us some privacy, alright?”

“Are you having an affair?”

I almost flinched.

“Why would you say that?” My heart thumped in my chest. I swallowed the growing lump in my throat.

“Mum… I…” He scratched at the back of his neck, tugging at the little hairs on his nape. “Nevermind.”

He turned around, and I grabbed his arm to spin him back to me.

“Why would you say that?”

Romulus looked sad. He wouldn’t look at me.

“I wouldn’t blame you, Mummy.” I watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed with a loud swallow. “We know what Father’s like.”

“Rom…” What did they think?

“I should go get him.” Romulus pulled out of my grasp, walked out the door, leaving me speechless. He had said “ We know what Father’s like.” The ‘we’ he was referring to meant Remus too. Did they suspect me of an affair? Did their father?

Hugo…

Footsteps approached, and that damned apricot ascot came flouncing down the hall, with patent brown shoes, and a blazer covered in maroon silk threads patterned like falcons in the dive.

Bellamy’s clothes always announced him like a beacon.

No one else would dare wear something so…

extravagant. Especially not at ten in the morning.

I suspected that was the point. He needed to be the center of attention.

“Sorry, dear boy,” he said, waving his hand in the air. “I grew tired of waiting, so I hope you don’t think me horribly rude.”

“No! Not at all!” My son said too quickly.

“Thank you.” Bellamy gave him the slightest bow. “Would it be a huge imposition if I got a minute alone with your mother?”

He lifted a brow and smiled at my son, who jumped eagerly.

“No, of course not, Mr. Bellamy,” he said, a little too eager to please. “I was just leaving. Please tell me if you need anything. Just shout, and I’ll come straight away.”

My son had a crush. I didn’t like it.

“Oh, we’ll be fine,” Bellamy said. “And if you permit me to call you Rom, then you may call me Lu.”

I had never heard Lu as a nickname. Everyone always called him Bellamy or Lucien.

“Of course, Lu.” My son blushed. “Not many people can tell me and Remus apart.”

He was delighted. I could see it in the slight flutter of his fingers. He was moving on from a crush, to being completely enamored.

“You’re the nice one,” Bellamy said, patting my boy on the head.

If my son blushed any harder, he’d turn into a tomato.

He turned and left, and I suspected he would have skipped away, if we weren’t watching.

“Delightful boy,” said Bellamy. “Your son’s an angel walking among us.”

Bellamy pushed into my office without invitation, closing the door behind him. He took a seat. Without a word, he pulled a silver flask from his jacket, and twisted the lid and it separated into two shot glasses.

He poured amber liquid into each, then took one dainty little thing in his hand, lifting it in a toast, and swallowing it down, before slamming it on my desk. Then he refilled it again.

“Drink,” he commanded, flicking his finger to point at the untouched shot.

His voice was low, and sounded… different. Relaxed. Possibly drunk.

“It’s a little early,” I said, lifting my brow, walking around him to take the seat behind my desk.

Bellamy wasn’t a lush. He was indulgent, and in love with a decadent lifestyle… but prone to drinking too much? No. At least I didn’t think so.

“You wouldn’t drink with me last night. Drink with me now.”

“No, thank you.”

He shrugged, put the flask to his lips and tipped it bottom’s up, swallowing loudly as his neck bobbed above the ascot. When he brought the flask down, a small droplet trailed down his lip, traveling down his jaw, until it tipped to the ground from the cleft on his chin.

“Don’t write about the Underground Circuit.” He put the flask down on the desk.

I scoffed, “Really? You think you have editorial power to tell me to kill a story?”

I leaned back in my chair, feeling it tilt back against my weight.

“No, I don’t, which is why…” He let out a long, aggrieved sigh. “Can I pay you not to do the story?”

“Bellamy,” I drawled. “You might have a name as old as Great Britain, but the Laurents are far richer than you. There’s nothing you could give me that—”

“Hugo Martin,” he said the name, silencing me mid-sentence.

“Originally, Christian Saint-Martin, of Amiens. His family traveled to Marseilles, after which his father got involved with some criminals, and was killed. His wife disappeared after getting involved with a known smuggler, and is also presumed dead. Then our dear Legionnaire became a Legionnaire. It seems he may have witnessed something, and needed to disappear.” He took the second shot, then refilled it with the flask. “Did you know all that?”

My heart thumped in my chest.

“I don’t know who you mean.”

“Don’t be daft, Cali!” he knocked his fist down on my desk, and I jumped. “Christ.”

His outburst hadn’t been loud, but it had been shocking. He was serious, his face grave. His voice had… changed. It was deeper, and not as flippant. The affectation had disappeared.

He pinched the bridge of his nose between his index finger and thumb.

He took another shot, refilled it, and leaned back in his seat.

“I don’t want to do this, Cali.” His eyes were faded, un-focused. Like his mind was elsewhere. “You’ll do a great job exposing the seedy underbelly of the Underground Circuit. Truly. I believe that. You’re a good investigative journalist.”

The compliments slapped me in the face. It was so out of character.

“It’s hard keeping up with you, even with all my advantages,” he looked to the side, staring at my wall where several trophies stood. “And now, I’m coming to you with my arse hanging out, so-to-speak. You cannot do a story on the Underground Circuit.”

He was always a talker. But he never spoke this directly.

“Why?” I asked, cautiously, looking at the drinks on the desk.

“The people who run it are…” He smiled, looking to the side. “Far too dangerous.”

His face didn’t match his words. It was as if he was fond of the people who were in charge of it.