Page 248 of Like Grim Death: Part One
“Get the fuck off him.”She’s screaming over his words, and the weight of Tomas’s body lifts from mine completely and I turn on my side, curling up into a ball, squeezing my thighs together to protect my groin, cradling my hand to my chest, unable to open my eyes because everything fuckinghurts.And I think I’ve left my head to find a better place to be.
“Hetoldme to—”
“Get. Out.” There’s a fierceness in the words that makes me proud, and I must be in Heaven now.
“Ella.” The way he says her name, like heknowsher, claws under my awareness, but I can’t hold onto the oddity. “It wasn’t what it—”
“Get out, get out, get. Out!”She snarls the words in a way I’ve never heard her speak before.
There are footsteps.
A door slams.
Something drops, clattering with a loud, resoundingthud.The hammer.
Is it over?
God, I think it’s over.
Someone is running to me. A shadow falls over me, and I try my best to open my eyes, but everything is raw, everything is heavy. I blink, and I think blood blurs my vision.
Red hair.
Pale skin.
Green eyes.
Fingertips reaching but scared to touch me.
She’s on her knees.
“Mavy,” she whispers. “Maverick.” My full name, it’s said with fear and hopelessness. Then she’s doing something I can’t make out as my eyes close, and I hear her speak again a second later. “Come down to the basement,” she says, talking fast.“Please.”
* * *
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18
Pluvia
“How long?” Lucifer’s raspy voice sinks under my skin. His back is to me as I lie in bed and he stands by the bay of windows of the largest suite. The penthouse, usually reserved for mob bosses, but maybe we are that now. He has his hands in his pockets. Black hoodie, black pants, skeleton bandana. Same Lucifer as only hours ago, but things feel different right now. He’s the leader of all of us, and yet I feel I’ve spent most of my life taking care of him. Propping him up.
Now, I’m in bed, high as fuck thanks to edibles Ella called in from Queen View that a guard went to pick up, and he’s babysittingme.
The memories of last night—early morning? I don’t know anymore—are fuzzy. Ella kicking Father Tomas out, her calling Sid, the Malikovs coming down while Brooklin and Ezra watched Rain sleep, Cain standing guard outside of the bedroom door. We’re all here in the penthouse, Tomas too, I presume—if Luce didn’t order him killed—and it’s like we’re just waiting for Mikhail to burst through the fucking doors and doing nothing about it.
And Lucifer is questioningme.
Probably for the best though, because I’m not exactly sober right now.
I flick my gaze to the high ceilings, the chandelier in silver overhead. The covers are pulled over my body, and I don’t have a shirt on. My wrist is wrapped up, but it isn’t broken. Tomas must’ve held back. Bruises are forming and staining my skin, along my inner thighs, higher up. One eye is swollen but not completely shut, and there are blotchy purple marks on my cheekbones, and one black bruise on my spine.
Nothing hurts right now though. A smile curves my lips. “Doesn’t matter.” I glance at my brother, standing behind the couch on the far side of the room. Darkness filters in from the window, but it’s a lighter shade. It’s almost been twenty-four hours since he found me and called in a private doctor.
I see tension ridge along his shoulders.
He laughs, but it’s a throaty, dark sound. “Don’t fuck with me.How. Long?”He still doesn’t look at me. The drapes are pulled open, and he’s staring at the thin tendrils of sunrise starting their climb over the city down below.
I close my eyes, one hand on my abdomen. I want to laugh too. I want to dismiss his question. But all I can manage is, “A long time.”
