Lucifer shrugs and smiles.
Grinning a wide, maniacal grin, James gets to his feet. “You see this, Jacob?”
Slowly walking over to Jacob, James holds Trent’s heart out for him to see. “You tried to take my heart… so I fucking took yours!”
“No… no, no, no,” Jacob wails and shakes his head back and forth, but his wail is nothing compared to the wail Trent let out.
Jacob’s wail is weak with defeat and… heartbreak.
“Yes,” James says, wicked glee once more leaking into his voice. “You held my heart in your hands, and now I hold yours, motherfucker!”
Head falling forward, Jacob moans, “Trent… oh Trent…”
His entire face twisting and contorting with rage, James lashes out, grabbing Jacob by the chin and jerking his head up.
“Don’t you look away from me!” he screams in Jacob’s face.
Jacob flinches.
Chest heaving up and down, the expression on James’s face is downright demonic. His face is as red as the heart that he holds in his hand and his eyes are black again.
Black and crazed.
“Don’t you look away as I do to your heart what you did to mine!”
Shoving Trent’s heart in Jacob’s face, James squeezes it between his fingers, wringing blood from it.
Blood that drips down Jacob’s chin and chest.
“Please… please…” Jacob begs.
“Please? Please?!” James repeats, mocking him. “Is that what my heart said before you tried to choke the fucking life out of her?! Did she beg like you’re begging?!”
I gasp.
Because that’s exactly what I did…
My throat lit up with pain now, I squeeze my eyes closed for a second to hold back tears.
“Is it?!” James screams, nearly screeching. “Fucking answer me!”
“Yes,” Jacob finally whimpers.
I open my eyes just in time to see James roar at Jacob, vein’s popping in his face and neck, spit flying everywhere. “I fucking thought so!”
Releasing Jacob’s chin, James reaches down and grabs the handle of the knife sticking out of Jacob’s groin. “The fruit of these very loins drove you to kill what you have no fucking right to kill!”
James twists the knife in Jacob’s groin before he rips the blade free.
Jacob screams a high-pitched scream of pain.
“You think it hurts now, motherfucker? You think this hurts?” James laughs as Jacob writhes against the wall.
Blood gushing from his groin.
“This is nothing. This is just a fucking taste of what’s to come!”
Lifting the knife, James twists it until the blade is horizontal and pushes it against Jacob’s throat. “You’ll wish this right here was all you had to suffer when we meet again.”
Jacob tries to moan, “I—"
But James doesn’t give him a chance to finish.
Pushing forward, James shoves the blade into Jacob’s throat and begins to saw back and forth. “I’ll see you in Hell, motherfucker!”
Jacob sputters and makes choking sounds.
And seemingly all at once, blood gushes from his neck like a fucking fountain. Drenching himself and James.
Pulling the knife back, James grins, his eyes alight now with an evil gleam as he watches Jacob bleed out. “I own your fucking soul now. Remember that.”
Lining Trent’s still-beating heart up with Jacob’s, James stabs the knife through it, into Jacob’s chest.
Body spasming, Jacob’s limbs shake and tremble against the knives holding him to the wall.
His head falls forward, but James grabs it again, lifting it up and causing more blood to pour forth. “Remember this face. Remember when you greet me on your fucking knees, beside your piece of shit son.”
James glares into Jacob’s eyes as he dies, relishing the death.
Not turning away until Jacob’s body twitches one last time and goes still.
And when he turns toward me, drenched in so much blood it drips off him, eyes still wild, chest heaving…
He looks every inch a monster.
A demon.
A sadistic, evil psychopath.
The things he’s done…
No sane, normal man would have done what he’s just done.
James is exactly what he said—a bad man who does bad things.
And despite all that.
Despite everything I’ve seen.
The crazed rage.
The sick glee.
I fucking love him.
I think I first realized it last night when I needed him on top of me to sleep. And today has only reinforced the feeling.
I love him because when I’m with him, he makes me feel safe. I love him because he completes me in a way that I didn’t know was incomplete.
I love him because he takes away all my pain.
But most of all, I love him because he loves me. Loves me so much it literally drives him insane.
I know he’ll never hurt me, he’d fucking kill and die for me. Just like he promised. He’s kept every promise…
James’s face falls and his shoulders slump as if all that crazy rage he had has left him deflated.
I quickly get to my feet before Lucifer can stop me.
Taking a look down at himself then back up to me, James groans, “Sophia…”
There’s so much pain on his face now, so much fucking pain I can’t take it.
I run to him. Run and throw my arms around him.
James grunts a little as I crash into his chest then starts to wrap his arms around me before thinking better of it.
He tries to pull away from me. “Baby, don’t touch me, you’ll get blood all over you.”
I almost tell him I don’t care, but decide I’d rather save my energy for something better. So I just squeeze him harder and burst into tears.
“Fuck,” James says and finally wraps his arms tight around me. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m fucking sorry you had to see that. Don’t cry.”
The fact that he’s apologizing for what he did and worrying about me just makes me cry harder.
He almost died because of me and my stupidity, and he punished and killed the men who tried to kill me.
The men who had a hand in the death of my father.
He has absolutely nothing to apologize for.
I’m the one who owes him. I’m the one who is going to spend the rest of her life making it up to him.
But dammit, I can’t even tell him that right now!
Tipping my head back, I peer up at him and try to show him that with my eyes.
But he must see something completely different because his face just crumbles even more. “Fuck, baby, I’m sorry. I’m so fucking—”
Not willing to hear him say sorry one more fucking time, I force three words out of my raw throat.
“I love you.”
James freezes, going stiff in my arms. “What was that?”
Is he serious?
Johnathan speaks up for me. “She said she loves you, you putz.”
“Yes, I do believe that’s what I heard over here,” Lucifer helpfully adds.
“That’s what I heard,” Gabriel says. “Though why she’d love a crazy fucker like you, I don’t know.
“I heard it too.” Andrew chuckles. “And I can attest that she’s hasn’t been given any strong narcotics.”