Page 102 of These Monstrous Ties
That they now serve me.
They’d known, and like before, when they knew Jeremiah’s darkest secret, they hadn’t told me.
Brooklin left too. Mayhem and her exchanged words, but she left. He let her walk out of here. I have no idea where she went. I have no idea if she told her brother where she went. She took a cab from the other side of the gate, and she left.
And I’m leaving, too.
My brother is gone. Whatever he intended me to do in handing the keys to Order of Rain to me, I have no intention of doing it. The Rain mansion can burn for all I care.
I’m packing my bag the next morning, after sleeping in my brother’s room the night before, the liquor and glass still on the floor, when Lucifer comes in.
He had slept next door, in an empty room.
He had tried to hold me, after my brother left. But I wanted to be alone. I needed to be alone. Because what comes next will probably hurt more than anything else has. But I can’t stay. I can’t be with Lucifer. Or the Unsaints, who are still at the hotel.
Lilith and Lucifer are only good at burning things down, not building them anew.
He stands in the doorway, watching me. He’s wearing his fitted black jogging pants, but he doesn’t have a shirt on. I hold his gaze, refusing to look at the scars on his abs, marring his perfect skin. Scars for me. I’d spent so much time hating him, so much time loathing my brother but trusting in him all the same, that I feel shame when I see those scars.
They remind me, too, of what had happened to me.
That I was wrong. Sick. Unlovable.
The year I had worked as an escort, I’d never felt that way. Sex was a transaction. My time was valuable. I was paid for my work. But what my brother did, even if he stopped himself, the lies afterward…that was a transaction of hate, revenge, disgust. It was a transaction that he could never repay me for. Never make up for. And I didn’t want to be with someone who knew that. Someone who knew the darkness in me. The filth.
I zip up my black bag and toss it over my shoulder. I tuck my hands in my hoodie’s pockets and straighten, facing Lucifer.
There’s a lump in my throat. I have no idea what to say, but I know I have to say something. If I don’t get this goodbye right, it will haunt me for the rest of my life. It probably will no matter what I do or don’t say, but I need to saysomething.
“All this time I wanted to find you…” Lucifer whispers. He leans against the door, as if he can’t stand on his own two feet. “To see if you had survived that night…”
I nod, biting my lip, looking down at the dirty floor between us. “I’m so sorry you had to see that.” I am sorry. Even if it was me that had to go through it, I have no memory of it. I wouldn’t forget what Jeremiah had done to me, but at least I didn’t have to relive it over and over. I felt certain Lucifer didn’t get that luxury.
He laughs, a hollow sound. “Don’t apologize to me. Don’t ever apologize to me for that.”
I still can’t meet his gaze, but I feel his eyes on me. I close my own for a moment. When I open them, I try to steel myself. To straighten my spine, to take back the control I haven’t had in so long over my own life.
“I’m leaving.”
His eyes flicker. “Where?”
I don’t know. The train ticket is to New York. I don’t know if I’ll stop there. Although I have no intention of staying in this hotel and running my brother’s company, I’m going to use his money. It’s the least of what he owes me. I can go anywhere I want with that kind of money. I candoanything I want. The world is mine. And I can find out what he meant, about Ria. I’m free.
But it doesn’t feel like it. I don’t feel freedom. I don’t feel the excitement I should, leaving this place behind. I feel nothing but emptiness. Brokenness. I wonder if that feeling will ever leave, or if, eventually, I’ll finish what I started that night Lucifer and Lilith met.
“I don’t know,” I answer him honestly. I adjust the strap of my bag on my shoulders. “I haven’t figured that out yet.”
“Let me come with you,” he says at once, stepping further in the room. His hands are in his pockets, but I see the muscles in his forearms tense, like he wants to reach for me, but he’s clenching his fists to keep himself from doing it. “We’ll go together. Between us, we have so much fucking money, we don’t need to work or to worry or—”
“No.” I cut him off, even though it hurts. I have to cut him off. “No,” I say again, my voice stronger. “I can’t go with you. You can’t come with me. I need…” I close my eyes, biting back on the tears that threaten to fall.
But I have to get away.
“I’m going alone. Get back to your life, Lucifer. Back to the Unsaints. Now that my brother isn’t competing with you,” I force a smile on my face, “you can expand your empire.”
He doesn’t smile. “That’s not what the Unsaints do. And really, Sid, we can’t let you leave.”
I tense, cross my arms over my chest. “I didn’t ask for your permission.”
