Page 220 of Like Grim Death: Part One
I press enter on my phone, searching the translation as I walk through the kitchen, drinks and cups scattered all along the black marble counters, on the floor. My feet stick to the tile, but I ignore it all, including the girl whose thighs Cain is standing in between. But his dark eyes come to mine as I walk by, and I stumble, glancing at my screen and seeing the translation come up at the same time I meet Cain’s gaze again.
I tried.
I tried? What does that even mean?
“I could’ve told you,” Cain says as the girl kisses his broad shoulders, his shirt off. “You can’t trust that boy. He’s losing his fucking mind right now. Keep your mouth shut though, and you’ll be all right.”
Atlas.
He’s talking about Atlas.
He helped move me, Atlas claimed. But where to? And why did I wake up back in Atlas’s room?
What the hell is happening to me?
“Where have you fucking been?” Maverick’s voice calls my attention, and I quickly yank down the sleeve of my hoodie even as I know Cain sees it. He smiles, but turns back to the girl, his hands raking up her thighs, under her skirt.
Maverick grabs my wrist, pulling my phone from my hand. The screen has dimmed, and he doesn’t know my passcode. But he doesn’t bother looking. He shoves the phone into the pocket of his sweats, his brows pulled together, but his eyes are red, and I can tell he’s high.
Where have you been all this time, while I was…while I was…
“Keep your mouth shut.”Cain’s words ring in my head. I clench my teeth together.
Behind Maverick, I see Lucifer, holding Sid’s hand and she’s not wearing a shirt over her fucking bikini. My eyes find her flat stomach, a line down the center the only evidence of her past pregnancy. A tiger stripe, I heard Lucifer call it before.
Her hair is slicked back, a ring of eyeliner beneath her lower lash line, and Lucifer is in his swimming trunks too, his black hair dripping water, his abs and scars pretty impressive. He did that for her.
He did that for her.
And I glance down at Maverick’s hand on my wrist.
Her name.
All for her.
I want to scream.
But he killed for you.
Then he walked out on you and let Atlas drug you.
What the fuck is going on?
“You were getting high with them?” I snarl, unease and panic and anger growing and raging inside of me. It feels like I’m going to burst soon. I’m going to fucking blow up.
I notice Sid is holding a nearly empty bottle of Russian vodka in her hand, short nails tapping the glass.
“He can do what he wants,” Sid says, dragging Lucifer to stand beside Maverick, the three of them facing me.
Mav hasn’t let go of my wrist.
He’s breathing hard, thankfully wearing his shirt, but with Sid’s bare arm so close to him, and her nipples hard, and I can see so much of her body and—
“I mean, he didn’t ask your permission toinitiate me,did he, Ella?” Her words are full of venom. I’m thrown off, despite the fact the last time I saw her she was all over my boyfriend. Becausebefore that,it felt like we had made some kind of truce.
“I thought…” I stare at her with wide eyes as I say it. “With the papers and the—”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” There’s something in Sid’s gaze, beyond the bleariness of alcohol. Like she’swarningme.
