Page 115 of Like Grim Death: Part One
“I don’t give afuckabout Natalie.”
“That’s your problem. This is a brotherhood, motherfucker.” Despite his words, he doesn’t raise his voice. His tone is still indifferent, and it makes his words eerier somehow. “We have to be here.For each other.”
For a wild second, I suddenly want to tell him about Julie. It feels like a heavy secret, because of Finn, wherever he is, and maybe that’s why I’m acting so unhinged. This shit is getting at me. But I can’t burden Sid with it and Cain might want to share it. I cannot do that with the implosion that’s about to happen in Sid’s life when Lucifer brings this initiate home. We haven’t had a proper introduction with him, aside from the sexcapades in the deprivation room.
I don’t even know his fucking name.
But I could talk about it with my brothers. Everything we did. Isn’t that what Cain is getting at?
“Your mad because your girl gives a fuck. BecauseEllacares. Well I’ve got news for you, Maverick,someoneneeds to check on Atlas.” His annoyance slips through his words. “After what he saw, don’t you think he needs us?”
Just wait until you find out what happened to Julie.
But I don’t say it though. “Yeah? What the fuck areyoudoing about it?”
He smiles at me then, his mask back in place, but he ignores my question. “You need to start treating him like a brother, before the wrong people do.”
I grind my teeth together, remembering that laughter in the dark after the night I saw him. Did he see what happened to me? Where the fuck is the brotherhood inthat?“I asked him if he’s okay,” I say reluctantly, because I don’t want to explain myself to Cain, but I feel cornered. “He doesn’t wanna fucking talk about it. Not to me, anyway.” I thrust my hand toward the door at his back. Just then, it opens, and he glances over his shoulder before he steps aside, letting Ella through.
She closes the door again behind her, her face still flushed and her chest heaving as she stands beside Cain.
I feelrelief,knowing she chose me instead of Atlas, but I hate that feeling.
I keep my hand aimed toward her when I speak again as her big eyes find mine. “Please continue though, Cain. I want to hear the rest of all the things I’ve done wrong while I’m trying to keep my girl close.”
She stares back at me. “Keepmeclose?” She scoffs. “Right in front of me,” she says through a clenched jaw. “You were all over Sid when we first got here yesterday,right in front of me.”Her chest is heaving. She’s really mad about that shit which is news to me, and I don’t know why, but it makesmemad.
“You know what? Never mind. I don’t want to listen to either of your bullshit tonight. There are far more important things to worry about—”
“That’s a good way to get cheated on, Maverick,” Cain says coolly.
I take a deep breath in, grinding my teeth as I stare at him, taking in the remnants of his black eye for the first time. “I don’t care what kind of fights you get in with your free time.” I narrow my eyes. “But I’ll fucking slit your goddamn throat if you try to insert yourself into my relationship again.”
Cain smiles, a dark thing as he lifts his chin, exposing his throat. “Come do it then.” He cuts his eyes to Ella, then drags them slowly back to me. He lifts a finger to his eye, the one that’s swollen and puffy and dark purple. “You know it was a girl who did this to me.” He smiles. “Maybe you should knock some fucking sense intohim,Ella. It might help.”
Before my girl can say anything, beforeIcan say anything, the three of us hear an electronic beep, and I know someone is at the door.
I don’t think, after a lifetime of beingon.Instead, I sprint quickly into the kitchen, reaching over the stainless steel fridge and grabbing my Glock from the cabinet above it, where I stowed the weapon while Rain was up. My finger comes to the trigger as I walk back toward the back door, facing away from Cain and my girl.
She comes up beside me as I head through the house, but I push her behind me and hiss, “Stay.” A small huff of annoyance leaves her lips but she doesn’t move with me as I tiptoe through the house.Obey me, even when it’s hard.A strange feeling of pride and protectiveness grows through me when she does just that.
I hear Cain behind me, silent and focused now that we could be in danger.
I know Rain must be upstairs in his room—which is why he wasn’t with Cain and the baby monitor was in his place—and I practically run to the spiral staircase. I quickly try to calculate the distance between the front doors and the second floor and how many seconds I have to shoot whoever the fuck this is, when a dark shadow steps inside, looming tall in the foyer.
The door closes, but the figure doesn’t lock it.
It steps forward, and I smell him before I see him when lights flicker on overhead from his movements.
Nicotine. Pine.
Demon blue eyes are locked on mine, and he glances once at the gun in my hand, his lips twisting into a snarl. “Is my son down here?”
I lower the weapon, moving my finger from the trigger, but I don’t put it away because he didn’t lock the door. Cain is quiet behind me.
“No,” I answer him.
Lucifer glances toward the spiral staircase.
