The Sea Witch (Wicked Villains 5)

It just never occurred to me that Alaric might be one of those people.

“Is she going to beat me?”

“Do you want her to?”

I don’t know. A few days ago, I would have conclusively said no, but now I’m not sure of anything. “May I see?”

Alaric considers me for a few moments and then shrugs. “If you want to.” He rolls over and settles himself face-down on the bed.

I should be asking questions right now, demanding answers, but I shift closer and tug the blanket down to bare his back. Just like I suspected from my glimpse, he’ll be sporting quite an array of bruises by morning. It spreads down his back and farther, disappearing beneath the blanket. “What did she use?”

“A flogger.”

She’s been very careful, I think. There are welts, but no cuts mar his skin. “Does she ever make you bleed?”

Alaric shifts restlessly. “Sometimes.”

My body flushes hot, but I can’t quite quantify my reaction. Am I jealous that he got this part of Ursa after I was sent away? Am I afraid that I’ll be asked to submit to the same thing? Do I want to submit to the same thing?

I don’t know. I just don’t know.

I move away. None of this changes anything. I can’t let myself get distracted by curiosity. “Tell me why.”

He sighs and turns his face toward me. “I wasn’t lying when I told you how I ended up at the Underworld.”

“But you weren’t telling the full truth either.”

“No, I wasn’t telling the full truth, either.” He looks at me, really looks at me. “Do you know what your father does for Poseidon?”

“He’s the second-in-command.”

“Yes, but do you know what that really means?”

I search for the answer he’s obviously looking for. “He handles a lot of the day-to-day stuff at the marina, the imports and export schedule and the like.”

Alaric’s mouth twists. “Yes, half of which is illegal.”

I blink. “What? But why would he do something illegal? Olympus is a port city. It has an incredible economy.” Olympus is dangerous. I know that, even if I sometimes believe my father exaggerates the danger to keep me and my sisters under lock and key. The Thirteen rule and they’re all but above the law. It takes something as simple as catching Zeus’s eye or pissing off Aphrodite and an entire person’s world can come crashing down around them. But my father? A criminal?

“Zuri.” He clears his throat. “Zurielle. That’s incredibly naive. The illegal shit funds just as much of Olympus as the legal stuff, if not more. Poseidon and your father have their hands on all of it.”

My father is involved in illegal activity? I’m already shaking my head even as I try to wrap my mind around what he’s saying. “Impossible.”

“Hardly.”

“My father is one of the most uptight and overprotective people in existence. He has rules upon rules upon rules. A person like that doesn’t break the law. He worships the law.”

“You know better. Those rules apply to his daughters—to you. Not to him.” He sighs. “But all this is to say that I, ah, misplaced one of the shipments.”

Easy enough to read between those lines. “You stole.”

His lips quirk. “Yes, I stole, though it was already stolen goods, so it wasn’t like he had a leg to stand on when it came to morals. Your father didn’t see things that way.”

I shake my head. “I don’t understand.”

“He tracked me down, but I’d already, uh, found the item a new home. So he offered me a choice—reimburse the amount owed or he’d take out payment in broken bones. If I chose the latter option, I’d run out of bones before the debt was fulfilled.”

It’s so brutal, I don’t want to believe it. But Alaric says it drily, as if it’s barely worth noting that my father apparently was willing to use deadly force as a form of punishment. “He wouldn’t.” But then, what do I know of my father’s work, really? I’ve already proven woefully inadequate at asking questions to get to the truth. I was wrong about Alaric. Who’s to say I’m not wrong about my father, too?

He has a tremendous rage. He always has. When he’s furious, he gets so red, it always terrified me as a child, even if he never touched us in anger. But we’re his children. Does he show the same restraint with people he doesn’t love?

I don’t like the turn my thoughts have taken. I don’t like them at all. “You’d sold it. Why not just use that money to repay him?”

“It went elsewhere.”

I frown. “What do you mean, it went elsewhere? What did you spend it on?” Alaric has worked for Hades for nearly eight years. He’s paid off most of the debt and he still had a quarter million left to go. How could he have possibly spent it before my father got to him?