Page 253 of Like Grim Death: Part One
Tears streak down my hot cheeks.
He isn’t wrong, and I loathe that about myself.
He removes his foot but I don’t draw in a breath of relief. The next second, he is kneeling beside me, his hand on the back of my neck, lips by my ear. “If you do not obey, you will be responsible for every ounce of blood drained from Rain Malikov’s body. His little corpse will grace Lucifer’s doorstep, and it will be your name carved into his skin. Then you can watch as I peel the flesh from Maverick’s bones, while he is still alive.”
Without another word, Adam Medici stands to his feet and walks away, leaving me lying on the floor.
I launch myself at him.
I can’t stop it. It won’t leave my head, Father Tomas looming over Maverick. The way my boyfriend’s body jolted. How my heart nearly shredded to pieces at the sight of him broken, on the floor. The anger that blazed through me.
I can’t get it out.
My fingers come to his neck, circling tight as he stumbles back into the pale green walls of the study in the penthouse.
His hands come to my wrist, trying to deflect me, but I lift my knee, driving it into his groin.
Before he lost his fucking mind, Atlas was teaching me how to fight. He offered the night of Rain’s birthday party, and by that time, my sessions had already begun. I needed to know I could fight back, if I had to. If my life depended on it.
If it depended on Rain, I would keep the secret until it all stopped. November, Lucifer had guessed, but he offered me nothing else. And I would swallow everything that happened to me inside Emily Cemetery all the way to my fucking grave if it meant protecting the little boy who means the world to my boyfriend.
But I knew I should get in shape. Learn to defend myself. And Atlas was the key. He had prescription painkillers—so I thought—and that helped solve two of my problems. I still do not know what I’ve truly been taking, why things have been so shaky inside my head, but right now, in this small, circular study of Pluvia, none of that matters.
What matters is Father Tomas’s skin beneath my fingernails wound around his neck. I dig in deep as he doubles over, his face coming toward mine. The scent of him, like incense, fills my nose, and I swing my leg back to knee him again, but he rears his head and his temple collides with mine, bursting stars in my eyes.
My hold loosens around his throat and I hear Atlas’s phantom voice whispering inside my ear.“Get away when you can’t gain ground.”
I back up, moving quickly on light steps. My thighs and back are healed now, and I can put distance between us easily. My hip bumps a square table behind me but without looking, I skirt around it easily, hands up in a defensive gesture as Tomas’s palms come to his knees and he bows his dark head of hair, breathing in shakily
Pink blooms on his temple, where he struck me with it, and he’s in black clerical robes, a Leviathan cross hanging in bronze around his neck.
I put my spine to the door of the study, sweeping my eyes over the space. It’s mostly empty save for the small table and three chairs crowded around it. Dark wooden floors, wainscotting along the green walls. The only light is a faint glow overhead.
It smells of cleaners in here and I briefly wonder if the last occupants murdered someone in this room. I think maybe I might do the same to Tomas, now.
“How fuckingdare you?”I shriek it, feeling each syllable claw its way up my windpipe, vomiting out of my mouth. I am shaky with rage, imagining Maverick on his knees, feeling guilt over what happened to Lucifer’s mother, to Brooklin, to everyone he couldn’t save. He has the weight of the world on his shoulders because beneath his sinister facade, he cares the most.
How dare Tomas take advantage of that?
I know Maverick sees him, and after my first session at Emily Chapel, I could understand why. Adam orchestrated the meetings but the priest filled them. Tomas kept the wounds lower on my back, using a cane instead of a whip most of the time, and there was a certain perverse satisfaction in taking the pain.
But sometimes, I felt like vomiting. Sometimes Tomas became overzealous. Once, I thought he ruined my kidneys, the way I peed blood. And still, I kept the secret. For Maverick, for Rain, for Lucifer too, even though he had sent me to that hell.
“How dare you do that to him?” I’m breathing hard, my hair damp around my face. In red leggings and a baggy white shirt, my feet in burgundy boots, I feel so hot, I want to rip my clothes. But mainly, I want to shred Tomas to pieces. “You took a… you took a fuckinghammerto hisspine!”I see red, just imagining how Mavy’s back looked. My ears ring with rage as Tomas slowly lifts up his head, his dark eyes on me, thick brows pulled close together. There’s stubble on his face, and even when he’s beat me so badly I could barely stand, he’s always had a strange kindness about his countenance.
Not now though.
Right now, his shoulders moving as he breathes hard, he looks as if he wants to murder me. I don’t know why Adam Medici gave my punishments to Tomas, but even the priest never made me feel the fear Adam did, his boot pressing against my skull.
But in this moment, I see the true sadist coming forth. Not just a part of him who likes to punish others, it’s the entire thing. His skeleton is formed from bones of cruelty, and right now, I want to snap every single one of them.
“He told me to,” he snarls, his lips twisting with rage as he stands, hands by his sides, black robes coming to his wrists. He points a finger at me from across the room and my fury spikes.“He told me to.”
I shake my head, hands now fisted at my sides. “I don’t care what he said to you. I do not fucking care.You used a hammer!”I yell it again, slamming my fist against the door at my back. The noise is loud and I don’t care, at least, not until Tomas’s lips twist into a smile.
“Careful,” he whispers. “You aren’t finished yet. If you let them know what’s going on between us,” Iloathehow he speaks those words, “Rainwilldie. Medici does not play around.”
A lump forms in my throat. I know he’s referring to Adam, but I think of Atlas, growing up with a man like that. It amazed me how different his son was. But it seems he wasn’t so different after all.
