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The boy didn’t cry, didn’t smile, didn’t laugh, all the things he’d seen from raising his other siblings, except for …

“Cassius,” Dom called out to get the four-year-old to look up from the same blocks that he had used to watch Kat play with.

The little boy didn’t look up.

“Cassius.” Kneeling down, Dominic made his voice firmer. “Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

When his baby brother finally looked over at him, a chill went up his spine as he stared at him. It was like looking into a mirror.

None of his siblings looked like him, bearing their father’s resemblance, but Cassius didn’t look like he was fathered by Lucifer … but from Dominic himself.

Their skin was a beautiful tanned brown with a matching full head of thick brown hair and both of their eyes were hazel ….

Dominic didn’t know how early it was when he woke up on the pink, fuzzy carpet in the basement. He and his brothers would take turns sleeping down here with Kat, not wanting to leave her alone. They secretly wished they could be down here all the time with her, because at least, down here, they were away from their father.

To outsiders, Katarina appeared to have it the worst, but he actually worked hard to find her a safe haven in hell.

Not knowing what time it was, he went upstairs to see if he needed to start getting ready for school as his little sister slept peacefully.

Opening the basement door, he quickly found out that morning had yet to break, but it was the two figures in the kitchen that were heading for the back door who had his attention. One was his father, and the other a woman, who he was seeing out. Since he had seen his father with many women over the years, it was unsurprising, but looking at this particular woman had the hair on his arms standing up.

It was the way she looked at him, he supposed—her brown eyes softening as she stared at him—or maybe it was her look that had his attention. She was truly beautiful. Her thick, brown hair went to her hips, shining even under shitty lighting. He had never seen hair that long before. She didn’t look like she belonged next to his father. The two looked like complete opposites, and he wondered if that was why she looked so breathtaking—because she looked normal standing next to a monster.

“H-Hello,” the woman choked out after several moments with a quick glance at Lucifer, making sure that it was okay before she continued. “I’m Elena.”

Dom didn’t move. “Hi.”

She brought her hand over her heart as she took a step forward. “You’re Dominic, right?”

“Yes.”

Her brown eyes went glossy. “How old are you now …?”

“Thir …” He trailed off when she seemed to already know the answer.

“Teen.” Wiping a tear that had fallen on her cheek, she tried to put on a happy face over her longing one. “My gosh, you’re so grown up and handsome now.”

“It’s getting early,” Lucifer interjected. “It’s time for you to leave.”

Elena stared at Dominic for a moment longer, not hearing his father’s words until he touched her arm.

“Yes, it is.” She cleared her throat, giving him one last look. “It was nice seeing you, Dominic.”

He tried to form the words “you, too,” but when she gave him her back, the words wouldn’t come out. Instincts told him to run after her. He didn’t know why, only that his gut begged him to, yet his feet remained planted, because of the little girl who slept in the basement.

He thought maybe a part of him should warn her, even though he seemed to know this woman didn’t need a warning. The real reason why he desperately wanted to run after her, he hadn’t known at the time ….

Looking at Cassius, he saw him with new, rose-colored glasses as he watched Kat place one of her pink bows in his hair. It was a good thing for his sister that their baby brother didn’t care what anyone did to him, as she used him as her own personal baby doll.

He stared more intensely at the four-year-old child who was looking like him more and more every day.

I’ll be damned …

Pulling out the old, wooden chair, he joined his father at the table and cracked his knuckles before picking up the Glock to clean it. He cleaned his father’s guns meticulously every night, finding pride in the act of keeping something that only brought pain working in tip-top shape.

Putting the gun back together after cleaning it, he had just set it down and was about to pick up another when he noticed a dark red mark on his fingertip.

He looked at his finger more closely, rubbing the dot with the pad of his thumb. He had expected it to disappear, but the red mark spread. The shiny red speck smeared.