Page 63 of These Monstrous Ties
But when he moves, it isn’t into the room.
It’s toward me. He opens his mouth, about to say something, when I feel a hand over my own mouth.
I try to move, to swing around to whoever it is, but Nicolas is the one to speak.
“He’s got a gun. Don’t move.”
He says it quietly enough, but I hear it loud and clear.
I freeze.
“I told you that you couldn’t run, Lilith.”
Chapter Twenty
Present
I never thoughtanyone could scare me as much as Jeremiah did. My brother is ruthless, cold, unaffected by basic human emotions. I thought, at times, he was a psychopath. I thought he was a combination of the worst of nature and nurture. Abandoned by a mother that never cared for him, given to families that only wanted to use him. But he had had the darkness in him from an early age. I was scared of him even before we were separated.
But I’d been wrong.
Because when Lucifer drags me outside, into the backyard, and Nicolas comes after me, I’m terrified.
Lucifer still has me against his front, an arm wrapped around my chest. But I can see the gun in his hand. It’s aimed at Nicolas, and Nicolas, for his part, is aiming right back, his eyes focused on Lucifer.
I don’t care much about what Lucifer might do to me, even though I know it will be horrific. I had almost just helped kill his precious Julie, after all. In the same bed his child slept in. But I don’t want Nicolas to die.
He’s one of the only bright spots for me at the Rain mansion.
“Let her go.” His voice is calm, his hands steady as he aims at Lucifer, but his jaw ticks. He doesn’t dare look at me.
Lucifer laughs, raspy and hoarse. I can smell him. Cigarettes and pine. I can feel the warmth of him at my back, feel the strength in his arm slung around my chest. My own gun hangs limply at my side. I could turn it around. Somehow find a way to aim at Lucifer behind me. But I don’t. I don’t want to provoke him. I want Nicolas to live.
“You come into my home, plan to kill a mother and child, and you dare givemea command?” Lucifer doesn’t sound angry as he speaks the words, which is even more unsettling. He sounds as if we’re discussing the weather. Chilly, with a light breeze. Dark, clear skies. Lots of stars visible overhead.
“Let her go, and we’ll leave. We can call it even.” I know Nicolas doesn’t mean that, and Lucifer knows it too.
He doesn’t laugh again. But he rests his chin against my hair, and I see Nicolas inhale, deeply. Trying to calm his anger.
“I’m not letting her go. But you’ll leave.Now.”Lucifer keeps the same conversational tone, his chin still resting on my hair.
Nicolas takes a step forward. Lucifer doesn’t move. Doesn’t even tense. Nicolas notices, and takes another step. I’m not sure how he thinks that approaching closer with his gun still drawn is going to get us the fuck out of this mess, but I can think of nothing to say. Being this close to Lucifer again, being flush against his body…I can’t think at all. He makes me stupid.
“If you don’t let her go,” Nicolas says through clenched teeth, “I’m going to kill you. Then I’m going to killthem,” he jerks his head back toward the house, “and I’m going to make it slow. Especially for the child. I don’t know if he can talk yet, but either way, he’ll be fucking begging me for death.”
I know he won’t. Nicolas won’t harm a tiny hair on that kid’s head. But Lucifer doesn’t know that. Even still, he doesn’t react.
“Do you think they mean something to me?” he asks instead. He tightens his arm against me, sliding his hand up my shoulder and coming to rest it against my neck. “They don’t. But this,” his fingers curl around my throat and Nicolas’s eyes narrow. I see the gun tremble in his grip, just a little. “This does. Did you have any part of this?”
I don’t know what he means at first. I have no clue what he’s getting at.
But then I remember. The bruises. He had seen them in the forest. But what the fuck does he care? He had left me in an asylum, unconscious, soon to be dead for all he knew. I know he hasn’t suddenly grown a heart. He never had one.
Nicolas doesn’t play into the bait. “Let her go.”
Lucifer sighs. I feel his chest expand against my shoulders. Then the gun is withdrawn from my view. And I feel the cold barrel of it against my own head.
I stiffen. Now might be the time to use my own gun. I shift a little in Lucifer’s arms, and he is surprised enough to let me do it. Then I press the gun to his thigh at my back.
