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“Willa . . . please,” I pleaded.
She continued to stare straight ahead.
“Lucifer?” Keegan asked, his tone cool and steady.
I held up a hand, signaling him and Liam to stand down.
Willa crept forward on trembling legs. When she stopped, she stood at an equal distance between me and Raphael. Liam and Keegan were another six or so feet beyond on the other side of the couch.
“You’re a mad fucking cunt.” Raphael grabbed a pillow and pressed it to his thigh. “Lucifer—get control of her.”
I doubted the wound was life threatening, but if Willa fired another shot, I was certain she wouldn’t miss.
“Why do you insist on being so unkind?” Her voice was soft, broken.
Raphael’s pallid complexion glistened with a sheen of sweat. But his eyes spoke of something else: trepidation.
This eclipsed him calling Willa and her mother a whore.
Unease slipped under my skin.
“Why do you pretend that you’re innocent when you were there, Raphael?”
Raphael shifted his weight. “I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.”
My lungs tightened.
He was lying.
Tears sliced her cheeks. “You just stood beside him while he did it ...” Her voice quivered as she choked back her sobs. “Tiernan killed my mother ... stole me ... I was kidnapped ... beaten ... raped—repeatedly—since I was fourteen years old ...”
Something twisted and snapped inside me. I grabbed at my chest. Willa’s eyes, arrested in sorrow, flicked to mine, but it was brief, and I wasn’t prepared.
I silently begged her to do it again.
Raphael was right—I was a fucking fool. No, I was something worse. Something abominable. Something that made monsters look like angels. Demons resemble saints. I knew Willa was a survivor. She’d been married to Tiernan. I’d memorized her scars. I’d prayed for his resurrection so I could kill him myself. But I’d never envisioned that she’d spent ten fucking years with the Brennans, that she’d been raped as a fucking child, and that my fucking brother had a part in it.
I swallowed the bile in my throat as a level of rage I’d never felt possessed me. If Willa gave me the gun, there was a chance I’d put the bullet in Raphael myself.
Raphael’s lips curled back. “You have no proof,” he taunted.
“Oh ... but I do.” Willa straightened her spine. “Your tattoo. It was the only reason I let you kiss me. The only reason I took your shirt off. Did you really think that I wanted ... you?”
Raphael’s eyes widened. Willa’s insult hurt worse than her bullet.
“I am the heir to the Flynn Syndicate,” he sneered. “The mother. Fucking. Boss.” His chest heaved and his eyes thinned. “Is that why you wanted to marry me? So you could kill me?”
Willa’s throat worked hard to swallow. “Why else would I ... how did you say it again? Desire to marry a man I’ve never met? To become queen of a city that holds such painful memories for me?”
Raphael snorted. “So you’re a clever cunt, is that it?”
The gun wavered in her grip. Grief flowed off her in waves. “If you survive this world long enough, your sense of fair play will be tested eventually ... it happens to all of us. But how does one measure justice? How much retribution does a monster like you owe? How much vengeance do victims like my mother and me deserve?” She looked thoughtful for a moment, and then a sad, wistful smile appeared. “Those are the questions that used to keep me up at night ... but I’d given them all up ... I’d changed my mind. I decided that I wanted to live more than I wanted to kill you. Why couldn’t you just let me walk out that door? Why do you continue to take away everything that matters to me ...”
“Willa, please ...” I reached for her, fighting to keep the calmness in my voice. “Give me the gun, sweetheart. I want you to tell me everything—but first, you’ve got to give me the gun.”
“Are you sure, Lucifer? Are you sure you want me to tell you everything?” Her voice cracked. “I’m not sure you do.”
“Willa,” Raphael snarled.
