Page 103 of Like Grim Death: Part One
I don’t bother hiding my confusion, my brows pulled together as I wait for him to elaborate.
“We have ceremonies and traditions for areason.To bond us. Pull us together. You break down your mind enough that you’d doanythingfor your brothers, for your wife, that’s how true loyalty is forged, Lucifer. I know you’re upset about last night. I know you’re angry that Mikhail is here. That a girl gave you a lap dance and the boys gave you a blowjob.” My blood heats, the way he says it like it means nothing. “But it is all proof of what you are willing to do for us. For your brothers. It is exactly what I need to see, whatMikhailneeds to see, for Ortus.” I watch his throat roll as he swallows. Then he adds, very quietly, “And so Sid doesn’t end up just like Julie.”
Ice cold wrath stretches inside my veins with his last sentence, but I do my best to ignore it. Tolisten,instead of simplyfeel.Ihaveto pay attention.
And it shouldn’t surprise me that my uncle would have to approve my ascension. Still, I feel a jolt with the admission. I don’t want to have to prove anything to Mikhail. I don’t want to talk to him, see him, perform for him. I don’t want anything to fucking do with him.
But I know if I don’trise,there’s only one way to go.Down.You either climb ranks or you get buried in the fucking ground. There is nothing in the middle.
Elijah studies me for a long moment. Then he sighs and glances down at his clasped hands. “I know you feel as if you betrayed Sid.”
I swallow, my skin feeling tight around my bones. I press my fingers deeper against the wood, almost wishing this chair would fucking snap in half. My blood is pounding so loudly in my ears, I want to cup my hands over them to silence it.
But I don’t. I don’t move at all.
“Just remember, Lucifer…” Elijah trails off and he’s still staring at his hands. For one of the first times in my life, I wonder what he’s sacrificed. What he and his wife, Edith, have done for the 6. For each other. For Ezra. Elijah is a black man in power, leading a mostly-white organization. What has he had to do, to hold down this position?
I wonder about the secrets I know Ezra is keeping, drowning them in the bottom of a bottle.
Why are we so fucked?
“If you hadn’t donethat…”He finally looks up at me, but his chin is still dipped down, and from this angle, he looks exhausted. I can see the circles beneath his eyes. The red in the whites of them. “Your son would be in danger.”
I don’t breathe. It’s an inhale, then nothing.
I think of Rainy in my wife’s arms. How it feels to hold both of them. Love like I’ve never known. Like I know I couldn’t find with anyone else. As much as I love Maverick, as deep as our bond goes, it’s got nothing on how I feel about my wife and son.
And if someone tried to take them away from me…
I exhale, slowly, like the air is rattling its way up my lungs.
If Elijah thinks what I did to my dad was something… If he thinks I’ve shown my ass before… Well, he has no fucking idea what I’d do to him and the 6 if they came anywherenearmy family.
I don’t speak any of that though. If I say it out loud, he’ll find me juvenile, and it makes the threat less real. Words don’t mean much to me, or him.
Instead, I ask, “Who was she?” My stomach crawls as I think of the girl my dad had on her knees for me in his office, from Moscow, when Sid was tied to Maverick’s bed. It wasn’t the first time my father gave me an offering. For a split second, I wish he was alive so I could murder him all over again.
Elijah tilts his head, watching me. “Why do you want her name?”
Again, Lazar Malikov is in my head. Names are currency. Names have meaning. It’s why I never knew Sid’s, and it’s just as well. She’s always been Lilith to me, and nothing has changed there.
I don’t answer Elijah.
He sighs, tapping his fingers on the table, wrist lifted as he drops his gaze. “Our pianist.” Surprise jumps in my stomach that he’s even offering that much, but I don’t let it show, keeping my expression neutral as I think back to a week ago. The first initiation ceremony and the music playing.
He shrugs his shoulders, the white button up pulling tight as he does. “She has many talents.”
I grind my teeth and press my palms to the stone table, dipping my chin so my eyes are fixed on my uncle in everything but blood.
He slowly lifts his gaze to mine.
“Who. The fuck.Is she?”
He drops his hands back to the table, clasping them together as a smile tugs on the corner of his mouth. “Are you worried she might spill your secret?”
Am I worried she’ll tell my wife what happened?We’ve got far bigger issues to contend with, but I think of when Sid thought Nikita was some woman I was going to fuck her over with. It was a nice surprise, her possessiveness.
Maybe she wouldn’t give a fuck about last night, but I hold onto the hope she would.
