I hoped that would work in my favor if Waylon discovered my little encoded grocery list. But there was always the chance that Wedding Dress Girl wouldn’t understand what I was asking for—what I needed from her to make this escape plan work. There was also a chance she was full of shit.

A lot of people are—I discovered that the hard way the first time Hades brought me to a nice party outside his underworld and I tried to ask for help. He’s a cruel bastard by birth, but he’s also smart. There’s a reason he makes me dress like this—especially when he takes me into what I privately call the overworld. Places where women wouldn’t get PROPERTY OF tattoos in the first place, much less openly display them.

I watched Wedding Dress Girl from underneath my slitted eyes, but she didn’t glance my way that I could see. Not even once. I could hear a couple of the Fairgood wives talking about what to do with me over in the corner. But she seemed to be pretending I didn’t exist altogether.

Also, she appeared mighty comfortable underneath Waylon’s arm—the total opposite of how miserable she looked when he drove her off in a black pick-up truck. Maybe she didn’t want to run from him anymore. They had that New Couple Alert air about them that I remember some boyfriend-girlfriend pairings shining with when I was in college.

College…that seemed like a million years ago. Before Hades took me. Before the tattoo. Before I received my real education.

But hope flared in my chest when she said no thank you to the thirty-year Glendaver bourbon Hades brought with him to the party—his supposed business gift. I wonder if that country music star cousin of his would’ve drunk it if he knew how he really got the bottle.

It didn’t matter. All the men drink it just like I knew they would.

I’d been forced to trail behind Hades long enough to know there was just something about bourbon and men. Unless they were alcoholics, they never turned it down.

In this case, it was no different. All the men drink the bourbon just like I wanted.

And luckily, Wedding Dress Girl didn’t look suspicious because a couple of the Fairgood wives turned it down too—though, Kyra Fairgood knocked one back and bragged about how some cousin of hers that couldn’t make it to the party worked as a nurse in Olivia Glendaver’s office and even named her little girl after her.

I vaguely recognized the name from my pre-Hades life of swanky parties and needing to know who was who on the old money Black American list. I’m pretty sure she’s that one Glendaver heir the family adopted from some country in Africa.