Page 48 of Raziel

“What the hell—”

“Shut up,” she snapped, slamming the door behind us.

Priest was standing in the living room. Still. Quiet. He looked… scared?

Which, for Priest, was unheard of.

“Did you write the speech Priest gave me when he came to New York and begged me to forgive him?” Miyori cut her eyes between the two of us. “After everything that happened?”

I opened my mouth to lie. Priest shook his head—barely.

“Yes,” I said, swallowing hard.

“You better not have lied,” she snapped. “Because I found it. On his texts. In his notes.”

I braced for impact. The way she was looking I thought she was about to hit me. She just jabbed her finger in my direction.

“You know I hate when he lies to me, and you helped him? After everything I did for you? I paid for your rehab. I dealt with his crazy ass and his crazy wife and his even crazier brother.You’ve been making messes since you were sixteen, Maya, and who had to clean that shit up? Me. Always me.”

She was pacing now, heat rolling off her like a furnace.

“You remember when you stole Mom’s credit card and booked a flight to Atlanta for that rapper you were obsessed with? Or when you forged my ID and got into that club and started dancing on stage for money? You wanna talk about when you stole—”

“I wrote your vows too,” I confessed.

Silence.

Miyori’s head jerked back like I slapped her.

“What?”

I shrugged, real calm. “I wrote ’em. Every word.”

She leaned down, picked a pillow off the sofa, and threw it straight at his face.

“You let her write your vows?! Your declaration of love to me? Who does that?”

“She’s good with words,” Priest said, deadpan.

“Are you serious?!” She turned back to me, fury swirling behind her eyes.

“Might as well get it all out in the open,” I said, waving a hand. “You’re not leaving him. He’s not letting you go. So maybe, just maybe, y’all should stop pretending and actually deal with all the toxic shit between you.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”

“It means,” I said, walking to the door, “you let him lie to you because you’re scared of losing him. Because you don’t really wanna know the truth. You want the fantasy. You want the softness and the gifts and the pretty house, but you don’t want the price that comes with it.”

“Get out,” she screamed. “Get the fuck out!”

“Gladly.” I swung open the door. “And just so I’m not implicated later, go ahead and ask him how his parents really died.”

Priest’s face changed in an instant.

He looked like something from hell. Eyes black, jaw clenched, a twitch in his cheek like something dark was crawling under his skin.

He reached for his gun.

I laughed. “Don’t start waving that thing. I’m gone.” I stepped out the door, slamming it behind me. Let them deal with it.