Page 173 of Like Grim Death: Part One
My mouth is dry, my eyes so heavy. I can’t open them. I can’t find the will to argue, but I’m going to because Rain isn’t going to Liber. “I don’t know how that place is any safer than here.” And despite what Sevryn did last night, keeping guard, I still feel uncomfortable with him so close to my son.
I don’t want to get to know him. I don’t want to speak to any more of my father’s mistakes.
“It’s like a fortress. Easier to defend. Boaz won’t know yet what went down, but he will soon, and I don’t want to be at this house when he does.”
I let my heavy eyes drift open. Lucifer is leaning against the doorframe, his arms crossed and a devilish curl to his mouth.
“What you did last night was fucking sexy, Lilith. But I’m still going to be the one looking afteryou.”
My chest tightens. I flex my arms tighter around my son, his cheek pressed to my heart. “What didn’t you do that you were supposed to, baby?” I ask Lucifer quietly. “What are you running from?”
He stares at me in the dim, rising light spilling from behind the heavy drapes of the sitting room.
Then his jaw unclenches, and I watch his chest rise, then fall, his eyes flutter closed, long lashes nearly sweeping his cheekbones. “There is…something going on. Something is happening to me.” He speaks in broken rasps.
I bite down on my back teeth and slowly shift to sitting up. I glance behind Lucifer, to the hallway that leads to our spiral staircase, but there’s nothing. The house is silent.
I flick my gaze to the ceiling.What are you here for, Sevryn?
“After it’s over,” Lucifer continues, an expression of pain passing over his face, the way his dark brows pull together and his entire body seems to stiffen, “I’ll have more sway. I’ll have… more power. I will be able tochangethings, like you want.” He still doesn’t look at me.
A cold sensation sweeps over the back of my neck. Before I can say anything to my husband’s words, a low, quiet voice speaks behind me.
“You cannot change anything.”
I stiffen, pressing my fingertips into Rain’s soft body to keep him as close to me as possible as I slowly turn my head toward Sevryn. His posture mimics Lucifer’s, except his gray eyes are open, cold as steel as he stares at me, leaning against the doorframe too. He must have snuck here on the quietest of steps because none of us heard him.
“All of this goes far deeper than you could ever imagine,” he whispers, his eyes wide. A lock of curly brown hair is flopped over his eyes, and he’s dressed in a blue T-shirt, black sweats. I don’t know where they came from, but I assume it was in the duffel bag I’ve seen in his room. “There is nothing you can do.” He drops his gaze to Rain and I cover the back of my son’s soft head with my palm, like I could shield him from Sevryn’s eyes. “You should leave and not to Liber. You should run. You cannot raise a child in this life. He will always be used as collateral against you. There is nothing you can do to stop it. He is a living, breathing heartache in your arms. He will die—”
“Stop talking.”Lucifer’s raspy snarl, and Sevryn’s eyes jump back to mine.
I don’t move.
I’m not breathing.
Sevryn is staring at me, his own chest heaving, a vein ticking in his neck. “Run, Sid Malikova.” He pronounces my name with care, quietly, as if he doesn’t want to wake Rain. “Go as far as you can and never look back.”
Lucifer says nothing, but I hear his steps. He crosses the room, passes the back of the couch, and his forearm is barred over Sevryn’s throat as he pins him to the wall, towering over him, despite the fact he’s only a couple of inches taller. It’s his energy.
It is demonic.
Sevryn flinches, squeezing his eyes shut tight, and I realize Lucifer has a gun in his hand, his finger on the trigger, the same arm pressing against Sevryn’s windpipe.
“I don’t know where you came from,” Lucifer whispers quietly as Sevryn’s face goes pale. “But I know where you’re going.” A smile curves my husband’s lips and I feel unease run through my stomach. “I won’t bury you. I willdrownyou. I will ensure you stay at the bottom of a fucking lake. No one will find you for years, until one day, a kid will be fishing, and he’ll hook your femur on his line. And after he pulls it up, after the police are called, the media,still,no one will know who you were.No one.”His voice is guttural, harsh. “Now, you’re going to go upstairs and you’re going to stay there until I say, because if you come out again when you aren’t explicitly told to, I’ll give you that burial by the lake sooner than you expect.”
He releases him, but he casually aims the gun at Sevryn’s heart as Sevryn’s eyes pop open.
He doesn’t move though. And it isn’t the gun he’s staring at. It’s not even my husband.
It’s me.
Nerves and anxiety tangle and tumble in my veins, causing my body to feel numb. But somehow, I get to my feet, unsteady, still cradling Rain in my arms.
“Sevryn.” I whisper his name. I think of where he came from. What kind of shared pain we could have.
Lucifer glances at me, the gun still trained on Sevryn.
I ignore my husband’s look and say, “Go upstairs.” Two words, Lucifer didn’t need to give a speech.
