A girl’s laugh. “It’s not cheating if you don’t touch me.”
Oh, but I’m gonna touch you. I’m gonna fuck both of you up. My shoulders are sore from swinging that goddamn hammer, and my back is on fire, but I don’t care. If he dares...
But I give him a chance. Because he wouldn’t.
And then I hear a whimper. And I think I’m going to kill the very man I just killed for.
I slam the door open with my aching shoulder, and hear another familiar voice say, “What the fuck?”
I’m about to lose my mind when I walk into Lucifer’s bedroom and see him sitting on a chair with his shirt off, feet on the floor and cigarette in hand, and Ezra completely naked on the bed with a girl I’ve never seen before in his lap, straddling him.
Ezra’s dark hazel eyes are on me, his hands on this girl’s ass, and Lucifer is grinning at me from ear-to-ear, which is coincidentally how I’m going to slit his throat with the knife in my back pocket.
He exhales a cloud of smoke and I lock eyes with him as he asks, “Where have you been?” as if nothing at all is wrong with this situation.
It smells like cigarette smoke and sex but something about Lucifer’s smile and the girl’s sudden fit of laughter makes me think all three of these assholes are on another drug entirely.
I meet Ezra’s gaze, his fingers hooking under the girl’s lacy underwear. “What in the ever-loving fuck are you doing?”
Ezra raises a brow. “You told me to distract him.”
Wow.
I realize the girl is staring at me. “Hello,” she says teasingly, “wanna play?”
Do I wanna play? Bitch, do I fucking look like I want to play?
“Get out.” I point toward the door, trying to control that simmering rage.
I think about pulling a Lucifer, grabbing the lamp on the end table, the one that’s lighting this room, and ripping off the shade. Putting the base to his fucking throat.
Goddammit I need a joint.
Ezra and the girl ignore me and my outburst. He kisses the girl’s neck. She arches it back, and even I’m momentarily distracted by her exposed throat, her eyes still on mine. She’s got light blonde hair, gathered in a ponytail that grazes her low back. Her slim thighs are spread against Ezra’s waist and I feel my dick harden as I stare at her.
Fuck. Maybe I do wanna play.
I look to Lucifer. “No, you know what? You get the fuck out.”
He just keeps smiling, inhaling from his cigarette, his cheeks going hollow. Then he exhales from his nose and the girl groans. I hear the unmistakable sound of Ezra slapping her ass.
I reach down to adjust myself but don’t look away from Lucifer. “Your wife is downstairs,” I tell him, feigning a calm I don’t feel. “And so is London Hamilton.”
Probably true, but even if it isn’t, Sid is beautiful. It won’t be long before a drunk kid decides to try and fuck her.
Lucifer frowns. Gets his ass up from the fucking chair. “I thought she went home,” he mumbles. I see his fucking dick straining against his black jeans, and I wonder how far this would’ve went if I hadn’t stepped in. Would he have been content to watch? Would he have let this chick suck him off? What the fuck is he on?
“Get the fuck out,” I say again, anger making me feel hot all over. I’m going to destroy this girl. I hope she’s okay with that. If she’s not, I can teach her to like it.
Lucifer gives me a mock salute—I don’t think I’ve ever seen him do that before in my life—and stumbles toward the door, slamming it shut behind him.
I glance at the girl. Ezra hooks his thumbs in her underwear, pulling them down over her ass, past her thighs, exposing her to me.
I can practically smell her.
“You in?” Ezra asks me.
The girl is staring at me with a smile.
My heart is racing, dick throbbing painfully…but I don’t trust myself with any girl right now. Or maybe I just don’t think Ezra will let me do to her the things I want to do.
Fuck.
I don’t bother saying anything. I just walk out, slamming the door shut after me.
I take a scalding hot shower, letting it beat against the torn flesh of my back. The heat and pain are enough to bring tears to my eyes, but no way am I going to let myself cry. Crying is for people who deserve it; that release.
I don’t fucking deserve shit.
I stay in there until the water starts to cool off, and I’ve nearly dug a hole in the tile of the shower wall with my fingers, trying to stave off the pain. But I manage it. I change into a white t-shirt, ignoring the way it sticks to the open wounds on my back. I pull on a black hoodie, adjust the bandana. It’s probably got flecks of Pammie’s blood on it, but I don’t care. I’ve always got blood on me somewhere.
When I’m fully dressed, I glance in the mirror and run a hand through my blonde hair. It’s cut close to my scalp at the back, longer on top and it makes me look like the sinister fuck that I am so there’s that. Hopefully only a girl that just wants to die will talk to me when I walk back downstairs.
I glance at the side of my hand, examining it for blood.
Malachi.
I rarely see that tattoo. Rarely think that name. But there it is, in a barely legible script trailing from my wrist, over the edge of my hand, halfway down my pinkie.
I close my eyes, try to clear my mind.
Let it go.
Fuck a girl.
I hope my brothers are together tonight, and I don’t mean here. I mean in one spot, physically together. I need to be around people that can make me forget.
For once, God is on my side. It doesn’t take me long to find my brothers, out in the forest adjacent to Liber. I passed men setting up real fireworks at the far back of the parking lot on my way out here, and the forest is a good place to watch the show.
Everyone is here, save for Sid and Lucifer. I briefly think about dragging them out here, think about confronting him in front of her, but what would be the point?
Let it go.
“Who’s that?” I keep my eyes on Natalie’s, but she knows who I’m talking about. It’s the only other girl in our group out here in the forest. The only person I don’t know.
“Oh,” Natalie says, darting a glance at the redhead. “That’s Ella.”
I inhale from my joint (turns out I didn’t need to bring my own weed after all) while Atlas helps Ezra with the fire and Cain scrolls through his phone, no doubt looking for a late night booty call to come to him out here. If he only knew there was one probably still waiting in Lucifer’s room where Ezra left her.
I exhale through my nose. See Natalie swallow in the glow from the fire at our backs, the lights the pyrotechnics are using keeping this part of the forest well lit. Music is playing from a box speaker Atlas has set up. Some shit I don’t know.
Natalie’s pupils are pinpricks and I wonder if Atlas knows she pops pills.
Seems everyone is keeping secrets these days, so it wouldn’t exactly surprise me if he didn’t. Although he’d have to be a fucking idiot to not know.
“And who the fuck is Ella?” It comes out harsher than I mean it to, but I’m a little on edge. Being horny, hungry, and having just beat a woman to death with a hammer does that to people.