CHAPTER 114: STOP FLIRTING WITH ME!

Because if Hades didn’t blush after that line like he had done last night, then she really was doomed.

And then, to her utter horror, he sent a thumbs up.

Just. A thumbs up.

Alice stared at it. Blinked once. Then again.

A thumbs up?

What did that even mean in this context?

Was he agreeing with her? Was he rejecting her? Was he... mocking her?

But then, before she could spiral further, the typing bubble appeared again.

Hades: That was a useless mistake.

She paused. And then the laughter bubbled out of her, releasing all her tension.

Oh my God. He wasn’t even talking about her message. He was scolding himself for the emoji.

The sheer level of annoyance she could read in that short sentence nearly made her tear up from laughter.

He really had no clue how to use a phone, did he?

She grinned as another message rolled in.

Hades: Stop flirting with me.

That was when she lost it again. A loud laugh escaped her lips, completely unrestrained this time.

But under the laughter, her heart was flipping.

Because if Hades had truly wanted to shut her down, he wouldn’t have replied. He wouldn’t have corrected his emoji mistake. He wouldn’t have told her to stop.

And he definitely wouldn’t have sounded that rattled.

"Make me," she typed, biting her lip.

Then she hesitated.

Deleted it.

Wrote:

You first.

She typed it. Stared. Smirked.

Then deleted it again.

But before she could overthink another draft, his message popped up:

Hades: I don’t like you.

Alice blinked.

That was... random. And blunt. And so Hades.

She grinned.

Alice: I thought as much.

Send.

And then, before her nerves could catch up with her mouth (or fingers), she followed it up with:

Alice: I always knew you didn’t like women. That’s why you’re probably in a secret relationship with Gavin.

Her thumb hovered over the screen.

Send.

Her heart was repeatedly slamming hard against her chest like it was trying to break out of her ribcage and flee the scene.

What was she doing? Was she trying to get murdered?

Ping.

Hades: You must want to die.

She let out a loud, shameless laugh, sharp and startled and entirely unladylike.

Oh, he was pissed.

She could practically see him gripping his phone like it personally offended him.

But now that she’d cracked open something unstable and deliciously dangerous, Alice knew better than to push any further.

She exited the app.

That was enough chaos for one morning.

Let him sit with that.

Let him stew and burn and wonder if she was going to say more. If she meant what she said.

Let him question why she was still in his head.

Because irritation always came with awareness. And if he remembered her words later in the day...

It meant he was thinking about her.

And for now? That was all she needed.

After nearly 2 hours of driving, she pulled into the company lot of Serpentine Corp. She didn’t get down immediately. She took the time to retouch her make up and take in several deep breaths.

Warpaint on.

Time to go break a little more order in the world.

Her expression turned serious as she made her way to the intimidating structure.

She reminded herself not to be nervous. She wasn’t Alice now but Aurora Malay.

That name should be enough to get her in there.

She hoped.

****

Elsewhere.

The boardroom on the 40th floor was cloaked in corporate gravity; sleek suits, ticking pens, and the low hum of a very expensive projector. Everything was exactly the way it should be.

Except Hades.

He was seated at the head of the long table, perfectly still, save for the barely concealed irritation in his fingers as he refreshed the screen on his phone for the third time in two minutes. His expression, always unreadable, was strained in a new way today. Not the cold anger they all feared. Something tighter. Unsettled.

Someone was mid-report. No one dared pause. They kept going like their lives depended on it. Because, frankly, they might.

Hades didn’t say a word.

But he also hadn’t looked up in fifteen minutes.

Milo, seated two seats down, noticed. His eyes kept flicking from the charts to Hades’s phone to the tension in his boss’s jaw.

"Why does this building have a bad Wi-Fi?" Hades said suddenly.

The air in the room snapped still. The kind of silence that dropped jaws without moving mouths.

The presenter paused mid-slide. "Uh... sir?"

"The Wi-Fi," Hades said again, not looking up.

Everyone blinked at each other.

Some where already checking their mobile phones and computers and sure enough, the WiFi was perfect. So what was he talking about?

No one dared refute it.

Thankfully, Milo was there.

Milo tilted his head slightly, confused. He leaned closer, cautiously: "You’re not connected to the Wi-Fi, Boss."

Hades’s eyes flicked to him. "What?"

Milo whispered, "We don’t connect to WiFi! And our personal router is perfect. Is something wrong?"

Milo reminded him, wondering how he could forget that. Was connecting to public WiFi not a perfect way to tell your enemies... here I am... steal my data and maybe send us to jail for the things you find?

Hades made a low sound in his throat and turned back to his phone like the device had personally betrayed him.

No new messages.

Still nothing.

Milo squinted, trying to see the screen. Maybe it was a serious update, an encrypted alert, a hostile takeover maybe?

What kind of top-level classified information was he waiting for?

Hades refreshed the screen. No new message.

His brow twitched. His fingers tapped the side of the phone. Then he refreshed it again.

Milo blinked. didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but something weird was going on.

Hades never touched his phone during meetings. Hades never talked during presentations unless someone messed up. Hades never asked about Wi-Fi.

Something was up.

Milo sat back slowly, frowning now himself.