Page 74 of These Monstrous Ties
He lets his shirt go, and my eyes snap back to his.
“I tried to get to you. But he didn’t…at some point, he realized who you were. He didn’t get all the way, Sid. Fuck if that’s a consolation, but he didn’t. He must have recognized you because he stopped. He stopped and he hit me again and dragged you away. But I thought I could find you. I didn’t know he was…I never knew he was your brother. I’m so fucking sorry, Sid. I’m so fucking sorry.”
I don’t move. I’m barely breathing. My head is spinning. My mind tries to save me, triesnotto think of that night. So I don’t. I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to think about it. To think about Jeremiah. His hoodie. About him towering over me. Waiting for me to come to.
About him taking me to the hotel. Washing me. Scrubbing my skin raw.
I don’t want to think. I don’t want tobe.
I don’t dare look at him. No one speaks. My brother saysnothing.
I slam my head back, against Mayhem’s chest. He’s a rock wall behind me. “Fucking kill me,” I order Lucifer. I slam my head against Mayhem again.
Lucifer shakes his head. “No, Sid.” I watch him swallow again, watch him try to pull himself together. “No, Sid. No. Don’t let him win this.”
I rear my head back again, slamming it into Mayhem. “Someone fucking pull a trigger. You’re Lucifer, after all. Send me back to hell.”
“Don’t let him win this, Lilith.”
Something about that name makes me snap. With one last glance at Lucifer, I twist out of Mayhem’s arms. He lets me go. I sidestep Lucifer, and my brother’s eyes are on me. His face is white. Ghostly. At least the parts of it not covered in blood and already starting to bruise. He looks lost. I have no idea what he’s thinking, but he doesn’t move, and neither does Nicolas, Kristof, or Trey, as I make my way to my brother.
I raise my fist, cock it back, and I punch him as hard as I fucking can in the face.
His nose crunches under my fist; his head snaps back. When he twists back to look at me, I see tears welling in his eyes, blood dripping from his nose. From his face. His mouth, where Ezra got to him. I don’t know why Ezra snapped, but I don’t have time to think about it. I still hold my fist up. I cock it back again.
“Sid.” Nicolas’s voice.
I look to him. He’s still leaned down next to my brother.
“Did you know?” I ask him quietly, not lowering my arm.
He looks away, for half a second. And I know.
My mouth falls open. I lower my arm.
He knew.
He had known.
I look to Kristof, to Trey. They knew too. They had to have fucking known. They knew my own brother nearly raped me, drugged the Unsaints, and then lied to me about it after he kept me prisoner in his hotel.
“Sid.” I can’t look at Jeremiah as he speaks. Instead, I stare at Nicolas. He had known. He had fucking known the entire time I was in that cell.
Jeremiah keeps talking. “Sid. I didn’t know you were unconscious. You were…you were blacked out. But I didn’t do it. It didn’t go that far. I saw…who you were…my little sister.”
I punch him again, but this time, he ducks his head and grabs my wrist.
“Sid, I didn’t know…” Blood is everywhere. But I realize, in this moment, that the leverage the Unsaints had is gone. I’m in Jeremiah’s grip now. Any of his men could pull the trigger and kill all of the Unsaints.
I relax. Jeremiah’s grip on my wrist loosens, but he doesn’t let go yet. His pale green eyes bore into my own. He had almost fucked me.
Bile rises up in my throat.
I’m going to be sick.
But I can’t. Not yet. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask instead. Because I have to know that. “Why did you make me think…” I close my eyes against the memory. “Why didn’t you confess?” I meet his gaze again. “And why…why did you want me?”
I remember him staring at me at the party. Remember him following me to the merry-go-round. The same one he uses now to torment me. To make mestrong.
