Page 228 of Boy of Ruin
Then I sigh, looking to Mav.
“You heard her.” I shrug, rolling my eyes. “Guess I’ll go fuck shit up at Council again after all.”
Mav laughs, but he’s looking at Sid, and when he says, “Except it’ll be at a new location,” I can feel the happiness radiating off of her. “Someone burned down Sanctum.”
Jeremiah fucking Rain.
I guess we are brothers, after all.
That night we’re wound up in each other in our bed like we always are, exhausted from a run in the forest while it was still light outside. She kept up really well, and I cut our mileage in half, not wanting her to overexert herself.
She claimed I was being overdramatic. It wouldn’t be the first time, and probably won’t be the last. Not with this girl.
“You miss him, baby girl?”
She picks her head up from my chest, facing me. She looks nervous. Hesitant.
I reach for her hand, thread my fingers through hers, our scarred palms touching. “It’s okay, Lilith. You can talk to me.”
She glances at our joined hands, and my stomach twists into knots, anticipating what she might say. But she’s told me she loves me more in the past few days than she has our entire relationship.
Whatever she feels for Jeremiah, I know she loves me, too. And while I don’t want to share her love, I feel better, knowing she wants me.
“It’s not…” She starts to say, then trails off, still staring at our joined hands. The lamp on her side table is on, a book of poetry she was reading face down to save her page. I had grabbed it from her hands, tossed it there before we fucked after our run. Now I feel a little bad about it, but not too bad. She takes a deep breath. “He was just there...when I needed him.” She bites her lips, glancing at me. “He was always there.”
I swallow down my anger. My jealousy. Instead, I try to understand. Mav was that for me, always there. Ophelia, in her own way, but my relationship with Maverick more mimics hers with Jeremiah than anything I ever had with O.
I take a few moments to respond, ensuring I’m composed. Letting her know I really do want to hear everything her pretty little mouth has to say.
Finally, I’m able to speak without cutting words. “I’m here now, baby,” I tell her, my eyes searching her gray ones. “I’m here now. And you just have to trust me. That I’m going to take care of you, Lilith. Take care of our kid too.” I bring our joined hands to my lips and kiss the back of hers, see her soft smile. “Always,” I promise her, dropping our hands to my chest. “You’ll never need anything, baby girl. Not anymore.”
Three Months Later
It’s pouring rain at the coast when the message comes through. It’s an unknown number, and I know if I were to call it, no one would answer. It’ll probably never be used again. It’s a burner phone. A piece of shit.
I know, because I bought it.
“Let me see!” Ria squeals, bouncing up and down on her toes on the deck of the beach house, the awning covering us from the summer storm.
“Let him have his moment, damn,” Nicolas says with a laugh, and I see him wrap his arm around Ria, hug her close.
She graduated after all.
Lucifer Malikov’s father has a science building named after him at Alexandria University. My father, although thinking of it that way still makes me feel sick, but it’s good I have that connection. Lucifer put in a call, and Ria had her diploma. We guarded her at graduation, then of course, we had to come here.
But the 6 are busy looking for whoever killed Cindy, stalked Sid, abducted Edith.
Maverick never asked how I knew about Lucifer’s psychotic break.
I knew because Ezra knew.
And Ezra told someone that’s done a lot of work for me. But I called them off of it, after Sid went to the hospital.
Paid them a fuck load of money, too. Never met the fuck, but some of the deadliest criminals in the world operate on the dark web, which is how I found them. Cindy and Cory’s deaths were to keep the 6 off of my ass. I didn’t authorize them, but I found out afterward, and it worked out pretty well.
The killer was good.
“Let me see!” Ria screeches again, jerking me back to the present.
