Page 36 of Wicked Believer

Another part of my life shaped by my father’s design.

Or Lilith’s? I’m not sure which anymore.

I’m not sure about anything.

I glance toward Jax, gauging her reaction, and from the I-can’t-believe-you’re-siding-with-her look she gives me, suddenly I feel a chasm open up between her and me.

One where celebrities like Lucifer’s siblings and Evie are on one side, and mere mortals like Jax and Ramesh are on the other.

The fault line that was drawn when Lucifer chose me.

A sinking feeling pulls at me.

Maybe Lucifer didn’t need to make me immortal in order to change my life forever.

Maybe he’d already done it the moment he fell for me ...

“That’s enough,” I say, trying to shut this conversation down, but the thought still twists my stomach into knots. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Look, all I’m saying is you came here because you need our help, obviously. That’s what you wanted, right? Advice?” Evie’s fearless diva attitude cuts through the tension, almost as if she’s blissfully unaware of it. Or maybe it’s that she thrives on it. The drama. The gossip.

That’s the thing about Evie.

She may appear to be all innocent and dreamy, but when push comes to shove, she’s more devious than I’ll ever be.

A product of the violent, glamorous world she was raised in.

A world I’m now a part of. Like it or not.

I nod reluctantly, trying to brush off her comment but failing. “Yeah, I guess so.”

But it’s Jax’s advice that I truly want. The comforting embrace of my bestie.

Not this collision between my two worlds that Evie being here brings.

Unaware of my internal war, Evie gives me a stern look that I think is meant to be encouraging but ends up being somewhere closer toOh, girl, please.

“It’s simple, really,” she says, shrugging off my concerns as if multimillion-dollar investments and billionaire boyfriends are no major thing. “If you want to survive in our world, Charlotte, to prove your worth to Lucifer”—she spears me with an unscrupulous look that, paired with Jax shaking her head in the background, feels strangely foreboding—“all you have to do is show him how vicious you can be.”

Chapter Twelve

Lucifer

The sound of my footsteps echoes inside the abandoned diner car, the decaying countertop barely keeping me upright where I lean against it. I light a cigarette, inhaling deeply, before I slump down onto the checkered floor. Somewhere amidst all the chaos this evening, my shirt was torn, and the sheen of sweat that drips from my hair and torso likely make it look as if I’ve been swimming in one of Hell’s more fiery lakes.

Torture is a physical thing.

Astaroth lies underneath the table of a dilapidated booth nearby, his bloodied, mangled form and the chains that bind him strewn across the bottom of the booth’s empty wooden child’s seat. The chains are for show, really.

This is my realm. My domain.

And here, I am more than a king.

I am a god of my own making.

The end of my cigarette flares, and I flick some of the ashes onto the grease-coated floor, watching as they char a hole into a bit of spilled sugar that’s escaped from a cracked glass dispenser. All the New Jersey diner’s original contents are still here, replicated for my own amusement. A nice touch of detail, if you ask me.

“She’s going to regret it, you know,” Astaroth rasps, his voice a garbled, disparate thing.