Page 125 of Boy of Ruin
So fucking far away.
I can’t stand her.
I would’ve left her, just like I told her I would. I would’ve left her, let the 6 find her. I don’t need her. We need her piece of shit foster brother to tell us what the fuck is happening to everyone around us, who the fuck he’s pissed off, but we don’t need her.
The 6’s greatest fear is she’d go public with what my father did to her. What Maddox did. But no one would believe her. She’s nothing in this world.
She’s nothing to anyone except Jeremiah Rain, and he’s currently where he belongs—in a goddamn dog crate—so she’s nothing at all.
Fucking. Nothing.
Even if she’s everything to me, and I hate that.
Mav turns down the music with the control on the steering wheel and I grit my teeth, annoyed that he’s indulging her.
“To my house.”
My eyes fly open. “The fuck we are,” I cut in, turning my head to face him. He doesn’t even look at me, but I see his jaw tighten. “We’re going to my fucking—”
“No.” That word is harsh. Cold.
But it doesn’t mean shit to me. I straighten in my seat, twist around to face him. “Yes, we are. She’s my fucking wife—”
“I’m not letting you be alone with her,” Maverick says, flicking his gaze to me. “And I know what you’ll have at your house.”
My mouth goes dry as I think about Lilith behind me, listening to these words. I don’t know why it matters. I want her to hurt. I want to break her fucking heart.
But I know that when I do, it’ll break mine, too.
My fingers tighten around the cigarette and it breaks in half. I slam my fist into the door, toss the broken thing out the window.
“I don’t care what you know,” I keep going with Mav, because no way in hell is she staying at his house. I think of what we did. With Ella. I think, too, about the fact that Mav has already fucked my wife, and that shit is not happening again. “She’s coming home with—”
“Shut the fuck up, Lucifer. I don’t want to listen to your bullshit right now.” Then he turns the music up so loud that I can’t even hear myself think and as I stare at his hand clenched around the steering wheel, see my wife’s name in the lights of the dashboard, tattooed diagonally across his goddamn hand, I think about killing us all.
I could jerk the wheel, drive us all off the fucking road. Get rid of the four of us, just. Like. That.
I’ve contemplated my own death many, many times. And since now I know shit is never going to work with me and Sid, seems like a good time to go.
But just as I think about really doing it—really going for the steering wheel—Sid speaks again and Mav hurries to turn down the music so he can hear her.
“What’s happened?” she asks, and her voice isn’t hesitant. It’s angry.
I see Mav glance in the rearview mirror, no doubt meeting her gaze, and that pisses me off even more. I ball my hands into fists, my pulse racing, the desire to get the fuck out of this truck growing ever stronger.
Mav’s eyes are back on the road when he answers her. “Someone has been targeting the 6. Elijah’s guard is dead. A dancer at Jeremiah’s club too. And there’s been photographs…” He blows out a breath. “Of you.”
There’s a lengthy silence and my lips pull into smile as I imagine Sid taking this in, because I know she’s going to say something fucking snarky when she finally responds.
And I’m not disappointed.
“If someone killed a dancer at Jeremiah’s club, why the fuck would you think he had anything to do with this?” But I know she isn’t done. She takes a breath, then mutters, “And everyone in the 6 deserves to die.”
Her words ring out in the cab of the truck, and I can’t hold back my fucking smile. That’s my girl. Angry and bitter and out for blood.
But as much as she makes me proud in some sick, twisted way, she doesn’t really get this shit.
Even though she’s lived it, she was a product of it, and I found her because of it, she doesn’t understand how much of the workings of the world depend on the 6 and the shadowy organizations that operate within them. The world isn’t built upon elections. No. It’s constructed from cults and dark magic and things that are beyond the average person’s comprehension, which is exactly why most people never know we exist. But without us, life as we know it would vanish.
