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“Go to your bedroom.” He cupped my cheek. “If—
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Raphael’s drawl was loaded with malice. “You’re going to turn on your own flesh and blood? Your own twin brother? Your fucking oath, Lucifer? You’re going to throw it all away—for what? Brennan leftovers!”
Lucifer’s head swiveled. “Watch it,” he growled.
Raphael sat on the couch, stewing in the shambles of his own making. He had no one to blame for his downfall but himself. And if anyone were to ask me, this shit was a long time coming.
Karma, monster.
I wanted to ask Lucifer if this meant that he was the boss, and if so ... did that mean ...
But it didn’t seem like the appropriate time. We’d have our talk. Soon. He promised.
I brought my fingertips to his hand that still held my cheek. “What were you going to say?”
That brought his eyes back to me. He cleared his throat. “If anyone but me, Liam, or Keegan comes through that door—you unload the magazine in their chest—aye?”
“Aye.”
“Good. Now, go.”
I didn’t need to be told twice. I’d nearly exited the study when Raphael’s vile drawl crawled into my ears and ransacked my mind. “You’re a godforsaken fool, Lucifer. She’s nothing more than a whore—just like her mother.”
The slur ricocheted in my head. My ribs drew inward.
I faltered, my legs unable to carry me forward, thoughts leaping from one heinous memory to the next. A pink blanket soaked in my mother’s blood. The melodic voice that sang me to sleep was nearly unrecognizable as it begged for my life to be spared ...
A tattoo of an angel with his wings at full mast.
My grip tightened on the Glock.
Valentina Clarke wasn’t a whore. She was a survivor. A loving, nurturing, brave woman who’d fought every day to slay her demons because she wanted to be a good mom.
She wasn’t just a good mom. She was my mom.
I turned to Raphael, my arm already raised.
And I pulled the trigger.
Lucifer
Raphael jerked into the back of the couch. The color drained from his face as fear clouded his irises. He gripped his thigh with both hands. Crimson seeped between his fingers.
Everything moved in slow motion but registered as a blur.
Some believe that a twin can feel when the other is in pain or dying. Maybe that’s why it felt like my chest was being crushed by a head-on collision between two freight trains.
I turned, searching for Willa.
“You fucking cunt!” Raphael yelled as my gaze found her.
She blinked several times and lifted her arm, adjusting her aim. “My mother was not a saint, but when she found out she was pregnant, she got clean, Raphael. She turned her life around. She was a good mom. She was my mom ...”
“Willa—sweetheart—give me the gun.” I sounded like myself, but on the inside, I was a terrified seven-year-old boy staring at his mother lying in her own blood beside a Virgin Mary statue.
My father was so close to death that he resembled a corpse.
I couldn’t—I wouldn’t—lose my brother too.
