Page 29 of Like Grim Death: Part One
My mouth goes dry as I drag my gaze up to meet hers. There are a few feet between us, and I want to close them and demand to know what the fuck that was. She said he was better. I know they fuck rough, and so do I, but that’s…No.
I glance at their bedroom door, violent thoughts of me snapping Lucifer’s neck slicing through my mind.
“Maverick.No.”She repeats the same word I’m fucking thinking, her voice cold.
I cut my eyes to hers, arching a brow. I don’t say a fucking word.
Her arms are crossed, and her chin is lifted high. “It was consensual.”
I don’t look away from her. I don’t speak.
She narrows her gaze. “Leave it alone,” she snaps.
“That’s a really big bruise, Angel,” I say quietly, my voice deceptively soft. My blood pressure is skyrocketing in my veins, and I want to fucking murder my brother. “If he’s hurting you…” But I trail off. Catching myself. Reminding myself IknowLucifer. Iknowhow he feels about her. He can’t live without her. He wouldn’t truly hurt her.
Would he? No more than they usually do to each other, right? But maybe last night he was fucked up from everything that happened at Sanctum. Maybe it’s no longer just the usual to him.
I feel sick, imagining it, and I see the scar on her brow now, something I didn’t pay attention to before. It’s just become a feature of hers, like her pillowy lips, gray eyes, and short dark hair. But now I’m thinking about how she didn’t used to have that scar.
About howheput it on her.
I swallow, my throat feeling thick.“Tell me.”
She doesn’t relent. Nothing in her body language or her facial expression falters. “There’s nothing to tell. You don’t get to decide how I like to fuck.”
I clench my teeth together, thinking about a belt. Her throat. I take a deep breath in.Out.“Let me find out he put his fucking hands on you—”
“Go home.” She squares her shoulders.“We’re good.”
We stare off for long moments. I know, right now, if Lucifer comes walking through their bedroom door, I’m gonna fucking wreck him.
But he doesn’t.
He’s asleep.Better,she said.
I see the splotch of color from the dark bruise inside my head.Yeah fucking right.
But what can I do if she’s saying she wanted it?
After the tension has built sufficiently between us, I just nod once, feeling like I’m failing, like I’m missing something, and she watches me head down the stairs. I take them quietly, only for Rain’s sake, but I want to fucking break his dad.
When I get to the landing midway, she calls out two words at my back. “Be careful.” Two words full of meaning. Of last night. Of cult secrets, a body, a brutal initiation. Maybe she’s nervous for all of us because she’s finally found a family, and she wants to keep it.I know the feeling.
I nod once, because if I turn around and say something, I’m going back upstairs and beating the fuck out of her husband.My brother.
My thoughts linger on him and Sid all the way out of their house. If he’s hurting her, if he’s putting his fucking hands on her in any kind of malicious way, I think I could kill him, now that Rain is in the picture. I try to relax, breathing in and out, because maybe it’s just what she said.
He wouldn’t.
He. Would. Not.
I brush my hand over my face as I escape into the night through the garage and turn to enter the code to lower the door. We have guards and a gate, but it’sus. We can never be too fucking careful here. Still, I can’t help but wonder if I’m trapping my sisterinsidewith a monster.
Let it go.
The door closes and I spin around, shoving my hands into the pocket of my hoodie. I try to shake Sid from my brain. There’s nothing I can do about it right now anyway. Just like with Atlas.Nothing I can do.
I think instead about getting home to Ella, pressing my nose to her neck. How she’ll be sleepy and warm and all fucking mine, andno onewill touch her like Lucifer let our brothers touch Sid.
