Page 251 of Like Grim Death: Part One

Oh shit.I don’t speak, the cool rage in Elijah’s voice not lost on me. We assumed it was Jeremiah Rain, for a chance for him to escape, or someone connected with the Order.

But why would Mikhail bother with something like that if he has access to Elijah and Edith both? And does that mean RC lied from the start, about why they were here?

“Her and Cyra,” Cain’s mother, “have attempted to counteract the bullshit running deep in members of government in the States, and big businessmen who can buyanythingoranyonewith their bottomless accounts and immunity.”

Cyra Bonavich. I remember Cain mentioning Boaz had come to Nox to speak to Callum. Were those threats he was whispering too?

But… “What do you mean? Counteract? Counteractwhat,exactly?” I stare down the hallway, wanting to walk through the living room, past the dining room and foyer, to my wife. But I stay where I am, Maverick to my back. I’m supposed to be separating Tomas and Ella right now, but that shit can wait. “And how long have you known this? Did they come clean to you? What about Julie?” I drop my voice to a whisper. “Finn? Samson?” Atlas said he killed him, but why? For fuckingwhat?Did Adam have a hand in that too? Because when I was at Liber, Elijah had his own suspicions on Samson’s murderer, and now I’m wondering ifthat’struly why RC is looking into Edith.

“Boaz can’t erase us,” Elijah says quietly. “But he can make life very difficult for all of us, includingyou.It’s why my hands have always been tied on bringing down the things I abhor in this world, at least what the 6 touch of it. Edith and Cyra didn’t care. Remember what I told you? About Edith’s involvement with Samson? She admitted to me she ensured Atlas killed him. It was a task given to him by Adam, but Edith needed it done too.”

My mouth goes dry.

I blink rapidly in the hallway, stepping back, my spine to the door as I sag a little against it.

“Atlas introduced Natalie to a cult-like director, pardon the term, and she brought Samson up with her to Acid City. He was a nosy kid and he found a place he shouldn’t have.”

Liar’s Island.

I don’t speak, my head fucking spinning.

“He assumed it was the opposite of what it was.” Elijah is speaking in vague terms because he doesn’t know that I’m aware of all of this shit. I stay silent and let him keep going. “Edith had to sacrifice the one, for the many. To keep children safe, like your wife wishes to do.”

My heart pumps violently inside my chest.

“She made it look like an act of RC.” I can hear his smile through the phone.

The whips. The silver scrawled on Samson’s corpse.Silentium.Silence. I almost want to laugh at Edith’s gall, but all of this means a bunch of shit falling on me, so I don’t fucking laugh.

“But Boaz was well-aware he hadn’t sanctioned the murder, and yet it served a purpose. Samson knew too much.” Knew about Shadow Villa, he doesn’t say. “So Boaz let it go. However, he intended to convince Cyra and Edith to give up their sanctuary.” The island. Elijah pauses, taking a shaky breath in. “He promised not to lay a hand on them, so long as neither of them went public with what they were doing. But that didn’t mean RC would leave it alone. He’s been putting pressure on me and Callum both to force our wives to relinquish their property. The kidnapping was only a small taste of whatcouldhappen. Edith, however, doesn’t give in so easily. She’s like your wife, in that way.”

I don’t smile or feel any warmth with the words and I don’t reveal my hand yet, how much I know about Liar’s Island and the curls of memories shifting in my mind over Shadow Villa. “And Julie? You gonna tell me that was your wife too,Dominus?”Because that will be a big fucking problem for me, no matter what kind of vigilante shit Edith is up to.

I think I hear a high-pitched noise across the penthouse and I start to walk, straightening from Mav’s door. My pulse flies in my chest, reasoning with myself it was probably Rain waking up for a feeding. But it’s like there’s cotton in my ears, the way panic spears through me as my footsteps fall on the soft, plush runner cutting down the hallway. I pass the living room and glance into the foyer at the closed double doors lined in gold. Nothing is there but shadows as Elijah continues speaking and I strain my ears, trying tohear.

“Julie wasn’t my wife’s doing,” Elijah is saying, which I suspected as much. But he sighs, and I tense even as I continue walking through the darkened living room, making a right turn down another corridor, passing where I know Ezra and Brooklin are sleeping, then Cain’s room.

Finally, at the end, I dart my hand out for the golden handle of my temporary room, and I pull down, then push open the door, holding my breath as I step into darkness, the scent of lavender bright in the room.

It uncoils something inside my chest, but I blink my eyes all the same, adjusting to the blackness of the room as I dart my gaze to my son’s golden crib, beside the king bed, where I see my wife’s sleeping form, curled on her side how she always sleeps.

Relief threads through me but I step inside the room on silent steps, the phone still pressed to my ear as I tiptoe to the crib.

Sid would wake up if someone came in here, wouldn’t she?

But she’s not now, is she?

The city lights drift through a sliver in the thick curtains of the room as I come to stand over my son’s little bed.

And Elijah is still talking as my ears start to ring. “But it wasn’t RC, either. They stay in the shadows as long as possible before they strike.”

I feel sick. Spots pop in front of my eyes and I sway a little on my feet even as I reach for the gun stowed in the back of my pants, my fingers curling around the handle.

Panic engulfs me. A feeling I’ve never known. Not like this. I’m breathing hard, my knees tremble, and it’s as if I’m paralyzed even though I’m standing upright.

“Kameron Toussaint murdered Julie and sent Finn to live with Esther. It washerwho ordered the older woman to stay there with the child.”

Kameron Toussaint? The first name is vaguely familiar, but I have no idea who the fuck this person is.