it jump. He glances down, and I see his face soften as he stares at the baby.
If he stays away from the coke, if he keeps a regular sleep schedule, and maybe if I stop breaking his heart…he’ll recover from the psychosis.
He spoke to a psychiatrist at the hospital.
Maverick was in the room, per Elijah’s orders. He told him nothing other than that he’d watched his father die.
His nightmares the past two nights have been non-existent. He’s clung to me but hasn’t spoken much. Mav and Ella have been over, and they told me it was normal, apparently. Because of his withdrawals. He’s just lethargic, lacking energy. Probably craving blow, but he hasn’t said anything about it to me.
We’re back to building our walls.
He’s back to acting angry when he’s really just…scared.
Scared I’ll run. Scared I’ll break his heart again. Maybe scared the 6 will come for us all over again.
Mayhem told me Maddox was buried next to his father.
Another one down, but with the investigation into who took Elijah’s wife, who stalked me in the woods behind Jeremiah’s house and got my pictures—the thought makes my skin crawl, knowing someone was watching me who I didn’t know—who killed a dancer at Jeremiah’s club, and the retaliation against Maddox’s suicide hasn’t come.
But then again, he did it to himself.
I have no doubt one of the three of us would have killed him in that cabin in the woods, but the fucker didn’t even give us the chance.
Lucifer angles the knife so the sharp side is against my skin.
I tense, but I don’t look away from him. “I know you don’t want to do this.”
“You think I want another man’s name on you, baby girl? You know better than that.”
I reach up, cup his face with my hand, taking in the beautiful curve of his cheekbone. “Your baby is listening right now,” I tell him quietly, my thumb stroking over his bottom lip.
His eyes widen, his already-pale face turning ashen as his throat bobs.
“You want them to hear their father threatening their mother with a knife?”
He blinks down at me, but he doesn’t move, one hand pressing into the mattress, the other still holding the blade to my belly. Then he says, “Did you tell Jeremiah just that when he made you bleed?” There’s venom in those words, but there’s pain too.
I feel it, not just from him. From me.
From thinking about what he went through while I was gone.
His eyes find the scar on my brow for a second. “I made you bleed too, yeah, baby girl? But that’s because you’re mine. You’re mine to do whatever the fuck I want with, because at the end of it all—all the fucking pain, all the agony, the goddamn tears and blood and bruises—I’ll always put you back together.” He leans down close, presses a kiss to my mouth. “I’ll always be here for you. I’ll never leave you. I’ll never fucking run from you, Lilith, like you did from me.” He drags the knife softly over my skin and I suck in a breath, my hand going to his shoulder, my other one, too, holding onto him. “I might make you cry. I might hurt you, just as bad as you hurt me. But that’s the difference between us. When it gets hard, I’m not going to run. And you fucking left me when I needed you. So, don’t think for one fucking second you’re going to manipulate me into not carving any trace of him off of you.”
I dig my nails into his skin, prepared to fight him off if he tries. I’m glaring up at him, holding my breath as he speaks.
“Because it’s not about him. It’s never been about him. It’s about you, Lilith. Fucking you.” An anguished groan escapes his lips and he throws the knife across the room. It hits the window, then clatters to the floor as I flinch, trying to catch my breath.
“It’s about how you always chose everyone but me.” He pushes back, away from me, sitting on his heels, raking his fingers through his hair before he drops them down to his thighs, his hand over his Unsaint’s tattoo and all the scars along it, his boxer briefs the only thing he’s wearing. “You always ran away from my pain, while all I wanted to do was fucking hold yours. Hold you. Keep you together.”
His words cut deep.
I sit up slowly, thinking of all the ways I fucked him over. The ways