Page 147 of Boy of Ruin
“Alive. He’s alive.” Lucifer’s words are a snarl. His mouth comes to my ear and I stiffen, waiting. “But you know what, baby girl?” He presses his mouth just below my ear, on my neck. “He won’t be for long.”
I swallow the lump in my throat as his arms come around me, pulling me back into him. “You didn’t know?” I ask him. “About…”
“I knew they brought you there. Picked up Ria too, as punishment for Mav. I thought it was part of Noctem. I didn’t know about the threats,” he bites out. “I thought…”
I chew the inside of my cheek, the fear from that night momentarily pushing past my anger with Lucifer. My grief. “You thought I left because you held a knife to my head?” I laugh, that anger coming back.
I step out of his arms and lets me go as I spin to face him.
His eyes go to the scar above my brow.
“I did,” I tell him honestly. “That. Your fucking…drugs.” I step back again, needing more space between us so I can think. He’s always made it so hard for me to do that. “The fact that you won’t deal with this shit. That—”
“And how do I do that, baby girl?” he snaps back, stepping toward me, one hand coming flat to his chest. “How the fuck do I deal, huh? Do I see a fucking therapist and get shot in the head on my way to their office?” A vein in his temple is pulsing against his pale skin, his blue eyes full of feeling. Anger. Frustration. “Someone else is after us now, after you.”
“Someone is always after me,” I mutter, but I don’t look away from him, his hand still on his chest.
“I can’t think about anything but you. No matter what I’m doing.” He steps even closer. “No matter who I’m fucking.”
I clench my jaw hard enough to hurt, but I don’t say anything.
“You being gone, you fucking hurt me, Lilith.”
My skin crawls with that admission.
He slaps his hand against his chest. “You were supposed to be the one to stay with me. Don’t look away, remember? You weren’t supposed to do that to me. You should’ve fucking told me—”
“I just told you now, and what?” I ask him, watch as he drops his hand, his full lips pressed into a line. “You’re gonna kill him, too? Why not disband the entire fucking thing? How are you okay with any of it happening? You think they stopped with me? You think I’m the only little girl that got hurt? Raped? You think I’m the only one an old man got their hands on because of your fucking family?”
He laughs, so bitter as he shakes his head, running his tongue over his bottom lip. “That’s fucking funny, Lilith, coming from you.” He steps close, and I step back, a dance we’ve been doing since the night we met. “From the girl who ran right into the arms of the man who assaulted her and made me fucking watch.”
He narrows his eyes into slits. Then he lifts up his middle finger, steps back from me. “Fuck you, Lilith. Fuck you.”
Without another word, he turns and walks inside, slamming the door so hard the whole fucking house shakes.
I hear something outside the porch, see the guard step back up to the door.
I flip him off, just like my husband did me. “Fuck yourself,” I snarl at the guard, then I head into the house, too, hear Lucifer and Maverick yelling.
I don’t fucking care.
I go to my room, slam the door closed and lock it, burying my head under a fucking pillow as the tears fall.
“We need to know who took those photos of—”
“Stop talking, Nicolas.” I don’t look up from the papers on my desk. My hand is shaking worse than ever, in my lap, clenched into a fist. The nightmares are worse. It’s been a week since they came to us. A few days since I put Governor Phil Cooper in the hospital.
He’s lucky he’s alive, but I needed him that way. Less chaos when he can go back to his post.
Besides, without a dick, he’s not gonna touch another kid again, and with all the child porn I have evidence of from his computer, thanks to Lazarus, he isn’t going to talk.
Still, it’s been a week since we’ve been separated, again. Since fucking Nicolas and Ria drove off down to the gas station while I hauled the kindling back to the cabin. We needed a lighter, or matches, or fucking something to make a goddamn fire.
I kept a bobby pin in my pocket all these years. Should’ve added fucking matches, too.
A week since Lucifer Malikov and fucking Maverick Astor jumped me like a couple of fucking pussies.
A week since I used the bobby pin to get out of that fucking crate.
