Page 202 of Boy of Ruin
“But you don’t run things. We do.” Maddox’s words pick up at the end, like he’s…happy about finally putting Lucifer in his place. Fucking happy. “And you?” He smiles, takes another step, the muscles in his shoulders flexing as he brings his other hand up to help him aim, but he doesn’t need to aim.
The barrel of the gun is against Lucifer’s head.
I don’t think.
I try to dodge around Jeremiah, but he spins around, gripping my arms as his green eyes connect with mine.
I don’t care.
I bring the knife up, angle it over his bare arm, just beneath the black sleeve of his T-shirt. “Let me go.”
He smiles at me, his fingers curling tighter around my arms. He glances at the knife against his skin. “You’d choose him over me?” he asks coldly, his voice low.
“You killed my best friend,” Maddox is saying. “You killed your own father, Lucifer.” Gone is the manic high of his words. Now he’s pissed, choking on grief for a man who sold me to be used as a child. Sold Jeremiah to be trapped inside a crate, locked away in a basement like a dirty, unwanted secret.
I try to shrug out of Jeremiah’s grip, but it’s impossible.
“The day you were born, I was there.”
I stop trying to fight Jeremiah, instead, go limp in his arms as I turn to look at Maddox.
At Lucifer’s fists by his sides, his jaw clenched as he stares at Maddox.
“I was there with your father, right outside of the delivery room. Your mother didn’t want any drugs. She wanted to feel you ruin her.”
My stomach convulses and Jeremiah’s grip loosens as he turns too, letting go of one arm, standing beside me while he holds the other.
“But we couldn’t be in there for that, of course.” Maddox looks repulsed by the idea. I think of him on top of me on that couch, the cloth over my face. I think of his words in my ear. How Lucifer never could have had me. He wrinkles his nose, his brow furrowing, too. “Your father didn’t want to watch his wife’s pussy get torn apart by a fucking baby.”
Lucifer’s nostrils flare, and I can hear my pulse pounding in my head. I’m gripping the knife so tightly my fingers ache.
“He’d pushed for an elective C-section. But your mom…” Maddox rolls his eyes, but then he glares at me behind Lucifer’s back.
My spine stiffens at his cold blue eyes on mine, staring at me with disgust. My fucking father. “Your mom was a lot like her,” he drawls, and my mouth goes dry, Jeremiah’s fingers digging into my arm.
“Maddox,” he says, his voice little more than a growl, “why don’t you shut the fuck up?”
But he doesn’t.
He keeps talking, his eyes still on me, the gun still to my husband’s temple.
I feel sick.
My stomach hurts.
It feels like a cramp.
“Stubborn, disrespectful. A complete fucking bitch.” He spits that word out as he stares at me. “You’re no daughter of mine,” he finally addresses me. “Any daughter of mine would learn how to be fucking obedient—”
“Yeah?” I ask him quietly.
Lucifer turns his head to look at me over his shoulder, and I see, beneath the overhead light of the cabin, that his eyes are gleaming with unshed tears.
I ignore him, holding my father’s gaze.
“Is that why neither of your daughters can fucking stand you? Forget me. I can be the little slut you never wanted.” I swallow down the lump in my throat, thinking of the names they called me. The men my father sold me too.
Jeremiah steps closer to my side but doesn’t say a word.
