Page 158 of Like Grim Death: Part One
I don’t dare look at him, because I can’t stand him.
Mav twists around in his seat. “Yeah? Then what does he want, little fuck?”
“He wants to make Lucifer his prodigy.”
I smile a little, glancing at Maverick. “Aren’t you excited about Liber anyway? I mean, this was your idea wasn’t it? What you were whispering to my wife in the dark the other night when you brought Rain home?” I put my eyes on the road and nudge the speedometer up to 130. “We’ll go tomorrow, in the morning. If we leave tonight, it’s too sketch.”
“That’s their building, bro. They were probably watching and saw you return with the money—” Mav interrupts, saying nothing about how I knew he made plans for Liber with Sid when he dropped Rain off.
“They don’t have cameras there,” Sevryn says from the back.
The car goes quiet, only music playing lowly from the speakers, Asking Alexandria.
“How do you know that?” Ezra growls.
“They kept me in a room there before I…” Sevryn pauses, faltering over his words. “Before the first time I met you.”
I glance in the rearview and see his eyes on me. It’s a little alarming, kinda creepy, but I just flick my gaze back to the windshield.
“I searched the room. The hallways. I don’t like to be watched.”
I don’t want to know why he doesn’t, so I don’t ask.
“What about outside the building? Even on the fire escape?” Ezra presses.
“None there.” I know this for sure. “BecauseIchecked, when I walked the bag back.” Could camerassomewherehave caught me? Sure. But none Mikhail is operating. Besides, he doesn’t want his own dirty deeds memorialized on footage anyway. “Like I said.” I accelerate around a curve. “We leave in the morning.”
Silence ticks by, my eyes jumping to my rearview every few seconds as I fly as fast as I reasonably can toward Lilith and my son. In my head, I hear Finn’s voice.
Uncle.
Fuckinguncle.
I see Julie’s body in that baptistry, the video footage of Lilith playing behind my eyes. I know why they did it. To show just how far they can reach. Just how much they know. All of their resources, access, power. Some of the most dangerous threats are delivered without a drop of blood.
Anxiety eats at me, a physical ache in my gut as I grind my fingers against the steering wheel. But just when I start to feel the smallest measure of fucking relief, just when I’malmostwhere I should be—home—I realize something.
Running my tongue over my bottom lip, I say, “We have a tail.”
Maverick sits up straighter, lifting his gun as he turns to look through the seats, straight to the back windshield.
“How long?” Ezra asks, his gun in hand too.
Sevryn stares at his thighs, his head bowed. I’m not sure if he isn’t scared or if he’s just acclimated to stressful fucking situations.
“Since we left Alexandria city limits.” About ten miles, and on the back roads I take, that’s nine miles too long to be an accident. I keep one hand on the wheel, the other on my gearshift. I slouch a little in my seat. It’s not from cowardice, but the fact if the driver dies, more people in the wrecked car are likely to follow suit. “Who is it?“ I flick my eyes around the forest surrounding this street. We’re about two miles from home, and that’s too fucking close to my family.
“I don’t know,” Ezra says, voice low as he stares at the old, tan Town Car.
Maverick leans between the seats, trying to get a better view. His shoulder brushes mine and a jolt of something knocks through my chest. Guilt, maybe?Now isn’t the time to start confessing.
“I do,” he hisses, dropping back into his seat. I feel his gaze on mine. “Some fucker I don’t know. And Nikita.”
I don’t react, but I can’t help but ask, “You remember him?” I know damn well he doesn’t, so how the fuck does he know who he is? O’s brother paying Mav a discreet visit too?
“Nah,” he says, snorting. “At least, I didn’t.”
I don’t have time to interrogate him so all I say is, “He knows where we live. He’ll know the girls and Rain are there. If we drive past Corpus, they might not follow, then we’ve left our family as sitting fucking ducks.”
