From Darkness (Hearts & Arrows Book 3)(40)

Ares sighed and stretched out in bed, folding his hands under his head as he stared up at the ceiling.

Ana was right; he wasn’t over Dita. He never would be, and he’d never pretend to be.

He’d known the second she stepped foot in Olympus, and in the days since, he’d been consumed by the nearness of her but the chasm between them was unpassable. But there was nothing to be done, not yet at least. Not with everyone watching him like he would start flipping tables at any given moment. And he couldn’t see her alone; if Zeus found out he’d been to her apartment, things would get ugly, fast.

So he’d taken to loitering in the common rooms, hoping he’d see her, hoping to catch her alone, but his patience was wearing thin.

Not that he knew what he’d say to her when he did finally get to her. What could he possibly say? There would be no forgiveness, not yet. He would have to wait and practice restraint in the hope that, given a little time, he would find an opening to exploit.

But patience and restraint never had been easy for him. What his heart wanted overrode anything his head had to say on the matter. And, if he found himself with the opportunity, he didn’t know that he’d wait at all.

All of Olympus had been gossiping about her, and her absence had only made it worse. The longer she hid away in her room, the more they considered it confirmation of their rumors. But no one brought her up to him, not after he’d thrown a lesser god through a wall for cracking a joke about her.

Ares wondered what she was doing right then, if she was sleeping or planning for the competition. The match was one he was interested in—not because of the players, but because Rhodes was involved. The psycho bastard was one of his own and had been inspired to kill by Ares more than a few times.

Rhodes was calculating and methodical, feeling nothing but apathy outside of each kill. Something in him was twisted and sideways, and he knew it. He knew he didn’t belong, but he knew how to survive, going about unnoticed, living every day for the time he could kill again, a compulsive ritual that completed a cycle for a sociopathic killer.

Yes, Ares liked him very much.

He looked in on Rhodes, who was descending the stairs into his dark basement.





Rhodes flipped the switch on the wall.

The naked bulbs hanging from dusty exposed beams flickered to life, throwing long shadows and hard highlights across everything the light could reach.

It was behind the crawl space. He could feel it—he could always feel it—like his own beating heart. He knelt, moving the folded up cardboard boxes out of the way, reaching between the beams.

Relief slipped over him when his fingers grazed the side of the cherry wood jewelry box.

He picked it up and reverently carried it to his old tweed couch where he sat, setting the box on the worn coffee table.

For a moment, he looked at it, laid his palm on the top of the smooth wood, the harsh light illuminating his fingers and the grain of the wood.

And then he opened it up—his box of treasures, that which he held most dear in all the world.

He reached in and picked up a necklace—a heart pendant hanging from a thin gold chain. She’d said her name was Cindy. He could see her face as clearly as if he’d only seen it weeks ago, though it had been years since he held her neck in his hands until her heart stopped.

Rhodes laid it back in the drawer with its sisters, trailing his fingers over his collection—one piece of jewelry for each girl. And when he touched them, he was taken back to the moment he’d taken them for his own.

Images flashed through his mind like a flip book, each memory captured as he’d stood over them, looking down into his hand as he touched his keepsake at the height of his high. The bulk of his trophies were cheap and gaudy, nothing of monetary value, but that didn’t matter. Not to him.

Hookers were the simplest choice, girls who were untraceable, expendable, women who no one looked for. He’d pick them up and bring them home, in through the attached garage and to the basement.

There was always a moment, a single moment in time when they figured it out. Sometimes it was before they’d even made it down the stairs. Sometimes it wasn’t until his hands were around their necks.

Either way, the end was always the same. But the moment they realized their fate had impressed in his mind. It was the beginning of the end.

His method had been honed over the years—only prostitutes, twice per year at most, strangled on the cement floor of the basement, wrapped in plastic, dumped in a waterway.

He never, ever strayed from his method.

Not until Hannah.

The first time he’d seen her was just after Labor Day the year before. He’d been mowing the grass after he came home from work and remembered turning to trudge back up the lawn to see a flash of red—her cheerleading uniform—as she crossed the street, heading toward him. He’d stopped moving. The mower had sat idle in front of him as he watched her, and he’d reached down and pulled the bag off, playing as if he’d meant to stop even though he’d just emptied it a few minutes before.

She’d given him a small smile as she walked past his house with her ponytail swinging.

Hannah had been more than he could resist. All he could see was Jane when he looked at her, and Jane…

Sweet Jane.

Rhodes smiled as he opened the bottom drawer of the jewelry box, which was empty, save for Hannah’s small diamond earrings and a necklace with a gold J hanging from it. He’d given it to Jane on her birthday that year, 1984.