Page 98 of Wicked Believer

“I’m on a cleanse,” she grumbles defensively. “Or so my followers think.”

She takes a generous sip then frowns, scrunching her nose before she scoffs, depositing the clear cup upon the coffee table. “Haven’t you disturbed my peace enough this century?”

“Apparently not.” I toss the dossier I brought with me onto the Chippendale table, nearly knocking her juice over with it.

She scowls at me, staring at the dossier like she may refuse. Finally curiosity gets the better of her. She thumbs through it quickly. “What does this have to do with me?”

“I came to make a—”

“No,” she says before I can even get the word out.

She stands and heads toward the kitchen, forcing me to follow her.

“Mimi,” I growl.

“I said no, Lucifer,” she tosses over her shoulder.

Standing in the light of her fridge, looking through a multicolored array of cold-pressed juices her trainer or chef must have prepared for this week’s latest trend, she plucks a pink one from the top shelf and takes a sip, sighing contentedly. “Better. Though still not enough.” She closes the fridge, her eyes narrowing at the sight of me on the other side. “Why are you still here?”

“Mimi—” I start, but she’s halfway across the carriage house.

“No. No, no, no, no. I’ve told you this, Lucifer. How many times do I have to say it?”

“Until I get my way, it seems.”

She rounds on me, clearly prepared to tear me in two, and that’s when I reach inside my suit-coat pocket and extend the one thing I know without a doubt will persuade her to listen.

The little gold Scottie dog sits on my palm, the luxury game piece gleaming.

A sharp intake of breath follows before my sister snatches it out of my hand greedily. “Where is it?”

I nod toward the sitting room.

She’s there and gone in a flash like an impatient child at Christmas.

When I find her perched on a stool by the sitting room table a few moments later, she’s already set up half the Monopoly board. “You know I always want to be the car,” she says to me, casting the Scottie dog back into the set’s wooden drawer.

I sit down at the table across from her, claiming the battleship for myself.

Mimi levels a warning look at me. “If you take Boardwalk and Park Place from me, I will end you. You know they’re my favorites.”

But I have every intention of letting her win like she wants.

“The red properties are more strategic,” I comment.

My sister ignores me.

She takes the first turn, rolling the dice before she rubs her hands together enthusiastically, and after several fevered rounds of purchasing, she lets out a victorious shriek as she plucks one of the red properties right out from under me.

My sister may have gotten her sinful title for choosing her own selfish desires over strategy, but when it suits her, she can be nearly as cutthroat as me.

“We need to discuss it, you know,” I finally mutter once we’re halfway through the game.

How she tried to undermine me. Hired Michael to kill Paris Starr.

Thus far, she’s bought up Boardwalk and Park Place, all the greens, and half of the bloody reds, but I have every railroad, all the oranges, and now she’s eyeing the tax money we place in the middle for if anyone lands on Free Parking.

“Do we?” She rolls again, getting doubles for the third time in a row, causing her to let out a furious scream as I’m forced to move her golden car into jail for her.