Page 244 of Like Grim Death: Part One
My fingers flutter to my throat. I should have told Lucifer about the papers Sevryn gave me sooner, but I’m glad it’s out now. I just wish we could have known it would lead to… this. Maybe then I would have never told him at all though. I would have done anything to shield him from that truth.
I step closer to him, staring up at his head of dark, curly hair. I want to reach for him, but I’m not sure that’s what he wants. I don’t know what to do right now. Our marriage has never been full of comfort, and even though I long to give it to him, I don’t know how because my life has never had it. We are very good at baring our teeth. Exposing our souls though, that’s a thing we never got much practice in.
“Luce,” I whisper. “Baby.”
He keeps his head bowed but after only a second of silence, he whispers, so quietly, “Come here, Lilith.”
I step to him, relief flooding through me that he’s telling me what he needs, because I can’t decipher it. Not right now.
He turns, throwing his arm around me and dragging me to his side. He sits on the windowsill, pulling me along with him, so I’m straddling his lap, my hands cupping the smooth planes of his handsome face, my thumbs grazing his lips as his arms band around my low back.
He stares up at me in the darkness while our son sleeps behind me.
His eyes are shining. But surprising me, he says nothing about his mother. Instead, what comes out is, “You did so well tonight.”
My knees are grinding into the wood of the windowsill and it’s a little uncomfortable, but right now, I don’t fucking care. Those words, that compliment from my very own devil, it means the world to me.
I smile at him even as tears prick behind my eyes.
“You driving that car, fucking whipping it right behind me…” He trails off, blue irises lighting up as he grins at me, dimples flashing in his pale face. I know he’s probably trying to stop from thinking of his mother. Of what happened to her. Or maybe he’s attempting to take back his life, the reins, to protectme,so the same fate doesn’t befall me. Whatever reason, with this handsome smile on his face, making him look years younger, I’m eating that shit up. His hands trail down from my hips around to my ass as he squeezes hard. I dip my chin, my arms around his neck, our temples pressed together. “That was fucking sexy, Sid Malikova.” He enunciates my proper name carefully, the lingering wisps of the Russian accent he gained from his father curling in the letters.
I grind my hips against him, feeling how hard he is.
“You saved us,” I whisper. “You knew what to do.” I tilt my head, my lips brushing his. “You protected your family.” And it’s fuckinghot.
But his lips turn into a frown, his eyes fluttering closed even as he holds me tighter. Slowly, he exhales a breath. Then, “No, Maverick did,” he whispers. “He knew what to do.”
I tangle my fingers in the curls just above the nape of his neck. “Butyoudid it.”
He swallows hard, then his eyes flick open to mine. “Who gave you that information, Sid? The papers?” I showed them to him when we got back to this room after he spoke to Maverick alone for a few minutes. He didn’t go to the website. He took my word on that. I don’t think he wanted to see the sickening evidence in his face about his son’s birthday being key to open up a buried website with an online history of a dead boy.
I knew he would get to this though. I just wanted to delay it a little longer, because he’s not going to like the answer.
But I tell him the truth anyway, because I feel so connected to him right now, I would do anything for him. And maybe because despite everything happening around us, this feels like family. It’s something I’ve never had, not really, and I don’t want to let it go with more lies.
“Sevryn,” I whisper. “And I don’t know where he got them,” I rush to explain. “He wouldn’t tell me, baby.”
Lucifer nods once, closing his eyes again. And all he says is, “Okay.”
But I know before the day is over with, he’ll be torturing Sevryn to get an answer out of him too.
“I don’t want him here.”
I stay silent, staring at the wall in the hotel room that’s linked to the girls and Rain’s. I press my fingertips together, my head bowed as I sit at the small round desk in the room, the scent of a luxury suite usually one to calm my nerves, but not tonight.
In my head, I think of Brooklin being surrounded by wolves my own parents sent her to, and that was before they set her on the streets. I think of what she said, about Liar’s Island, the kids there being happier than Malachi.
I think of pushing him.
His scream as he fell.
“I don’t want him—”
“He’s on the way. He’s the reason we got our asses saved.”
“I won’t allow the concierge to let him in.” Lucifer paces somewhere beside me, and I know he’s thinking of his mother. Of all the things he couldn’t do to save her. Maybe he’s remembering why he was at that house too. Shadow Villa.
Acid City has too many fucking secrets and the only one the 6 cared to gut was one which didn’t even matter. Julie and Finn.
