Page 35 of Like Grim Death: Part One
My entire body feels cold, and I look over my shoulder, debate running to our bedroom and grabbing the gun. But I don’t know who it is, and if I shot one ofthem,I’d wind up dead too.
“Go to sleep, Ella.”
I blink in the darkness. I recognize that voice. It definitely isn’t Maverick, but it isn’t a murderer, either.
Or at least, not someone who would murderme.
“Cain?” I whisper his name in the dark, like it might make this conversation easier to have. Still, panic seizes my limbs. Where is Mavy? He was just taking Rain back. He said he’d be five minutes.
My thought snags.
He was just taking Rain back toherhouse.
Panic gives way to anger. I drop my hands by my sides and clench my fists, my imagination running wild. Except it isn’t all my imagination, because I have a perfectly twisted memory of his cock down Sid’s fucking throat.
He wouldn’t.
He fucking wouldn’t.
Cain coughs, the sound muffled, like he had his fist over his mouth. “I’m sleeping over for the night. Go back to bed. I just had to piss. Sorry I woke you up.” He doesn’t sound sorry at all.
Are you fucking kidding me?
Blinking my bleary eyes, trying to make myselfalert,I take the stairs down two at a time, wincing at the pain in my backside as my hand slides along the smooth iron of the banister. I jump the last three steps, landing on bare feet as I whip around the corner, glancing once to the frosted glass of the front door. Part of me wants to run outside. Down the street. Straight to Lucifer and Sid’s fucking house but if I walked in and saw—
I collide with a hard body in the darkness of the hall. No light filters in through here, but as I pick my head up, my pulse flying and Cain’s chest beneath my palm—one hand still curled around my phone—I see the gleam of his dark eyes. His hands are wrapped around my wrists, the feel of his fingers calloused and rough.
Inhaling, I catch the scent of soap. Like he just showered before he came here.
“Where is he?” I whisper, and I grind my teeth together as I drop my hands, but he doesn’t release my wrists. I’m not scared of him, not inside my own house, but I’m more concerned I’m not going to like his answer.
He leans down close to me, his breath warm against my lips. “Did you have anyone over, Ella?”
I shake my head, confused and angry and panicked, my mouth going dry. I try to jerk back, but with Cain’s grip on my arms, I can’t really get away. “No?What?Where is—”
“You sure about that?”
Confusion slips through my anger as I blink in the dark. My spine crawls, thinking of someone in this house I didn’t know about. I glance to the right, seeing darkness in the living room.
“I don’t even have fucking friends,” I hiss the words, and I’m grateful for Cain’s hold on my wrists as my knees shake. “Where is Mavy?” I start to think something terrible happened to him.
Maybe Cain was sent here to kill me.
His eyes flick to my mouth, then back up. “You tell me.”
I furrow my brows, my stomach fluttering. “What are you talking about? Where is Maverick? No one is here—”
“Okay,” Cain cuts me off. “Then go to bed.” His voice is deep and raw, almost as if from underuse. He doesn’t talk much, not when I’ve been around him, but when he does, everyone seems to listen.
Still. My boyfriend is outthere.And Cain is questioningme.
“What’s going on? Why do you think someone is here? Is he withher?”The words rush out before I can stop myself from looking like akid.But I’m not.
I’m just not an idiot, and I don’t want to be played like one.
Cain straightens, then laughs, a sound that seems to come from his gut even if it is mocking. He grips my wrists tighter but if he thinks he’s intimidating me, he obviously has no idea all the things Maverick does to me in the dark.
“Go to bed.” He repeats his words, an undertone of anger injected into his voice. “You’ll see him in the morning.”
