Page 119 of Trust Me

Had I died? Was this my hell loop? Purgatory?

If so, how did I end up here?

The last thing I remembered before arriving here was Lucifer leaving for the sit-down with the Russians. Then ... an eerie void and a hospital room—or something like that. I didn’t know for sure; I’d never laid eyes on it.

Lucifer’s scruff eventually grew into a beard that caressed my cheek every time he pleaded for me to wake up.

I tried. I tried so fucking hard.

The first time I heard my husband bargaining with God, vowing to be a good man if God spared me, I felt a single tear slide down my temple. The second time, I channeled all my strength and managed to wiggle my fingers.

Lucifer was already a good man.

I wanted to comfort him. To assure him that it wasn’t his fault that I was here—wherever here was.

“Willa.” A trembling hand wrapped around mine. “Stay with me, sweetheart. The doctor is coming.”

I didn’t meet the doctor that day—or what felt like the next one. Or the one after that.

I was nothing more than a restless spirit wandering within a stubborn body.

But my sleep grew lighter. The shades pulled over my eyes began to flutter. The light peeked through.

“Willa.” Lucifer weaved a hand into my hair. His soft lips feathered over mine. “It’s been twelve fucking days, nymph. I miss my wife.”

My heart raced. The mechanical beeping that I’d become numb to accelerated.

Lucifer smiled against my mouth. “Aye. You do hear me.”

I did. I desperately wanted him to hear me too.

There were so many things I wanted to tell him. Beginning with how much I loved him.

And that I needed him too.

He laced our fingers together, squeezing.

My eyes eased open, hesitating at the first hint of brightness, before pushing through the discomfort.

Lucifer released a fractured breath. It coasted over my lips and warmed me from the inside out.

I was alive.

He pressed his cheek into my palm, kissing the faded white line on the inside of my wrist. “I love you.”

I blinked, long and slow.

My devil.

This wasn’t hell.

“I love you too.”

I was released from the hospital two weeks and four days after the fire.

“Where’s the safe house?” I asked from the backseat of Lucifer’s Range Rover.

Keegan met my eyes in the rearview mirror. He flashed me a crooked grin. “I’d tell you, but then I’d have to—”

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