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I don’t want to tell him, want to stubbornly insist that it’s none of his business. But the longer he looks at me, the more my resolve breaks. Before I know it, I’m blurting out every detail.
“Okay, so it was Jason. The guy who set my sister up to take the fall for him with his drug-dealing demon buddies. I didn’t want to tell you because the things he said… they made me feel small.Hemakes me feel small. Just the fact that I was ever with the slimeball makes me feel like trash. I hate him. I hate that I was ever with him, and I hate knowing that he’s downstairs right now feeling like he won.”
Tears burn the backs of my eyes as I finish, and I curl my hands into fists as I fight them back. There’s no fucking way I’m going to cry over this.
“Ah. I see.” Lucas’s expression is inscrutable, but he lifts my hand and presses a kiss to my knuckles, a gesture that soothes me more than I would’ve expected. Well, then,” he adds. “There’s one thing we can change.”
“What do you mean?” I mumble, my brows furrowing.
Rather than answering, he opens the door and ushers me through it, his face still impassive. Guiding me with one hand at the small of my back, he leads me to the elevator. No dirty looks come my way this time. All of my jealous coworkers must not want him to catch them glaring.
Not that they matter. I barely pay attention to them, my gaze on Lucas as we step into the elevator. I want to ask him what he’s going to do, but before I can, the elevator stops one floor down and lets a bunch of people on. They greet Lucas with respect and acknowledge me politely, then we’re sweeping down the side of the building again in silence.
With every floor that we descend, my mind starts to spin faster. Lucas is taking me to see Jason, I’m almost sure of it, and I don’t know how to feel about that.
I’m trying not to imagine how a confrontation between them might go, but I can’t help it. I keep picturing Lucas becoming Lucifer in the middle of the street in broad daylight and setting Jason on fire. Not that it wouldn’t be satisfying, but I’m pretty sure it would cause more problems than it’s worth.
The elevator dings as we reach the ground floor, and Lucas’s hand presses on my lower back, guiding me out of the elevator.
“Where?” he asks as we step outside and start striding down the sidewalk.
My mind wants to lie. Not to protect Jason, but Lucas. And yet the truth spills from me before I can stop it. “Over here, by the bus stop.”
I lead him to where Jason is standing, looking the other way like he’s still waiting for me to come back from the bank. He probably is. The bus has already come and gone and is sitting at the stoplight down the block. Knowing that he passed up whatever he was planning to do today just to continue harassing me makes my skin crawl.
“You,” Lucas says, his voice ringing with quiet power.
Jason turns around, sees me, and pastes a smug smile on his face.
“There’s my Sophie,” he says with a smirk. “Can’t stay away from me, can you? Just had to come back and get the last word in.” He finally seems to notice Lucas. “Who’s this asshole?”
Lucas moves like a shadow, getting between me and Jason. “I’m the one who’s going to make your life hell,” he says quietly.
Something in his face or his tone wipes the smug look right off Jason’s face, and my ex swallows hard.
“Look man, I don’t want any trouble. Man to man, all right? That girl’s not worth your time. She’s just a—”
“Stop talking,” Lucas snarls.
Jason’s mouth snaps shut, and he swallows hard. He hasn’t blinked ever since Lucas stepped between me and him, and it’s almost like he’s forgotten I’m here at all as he faces down the terrifying, furious man in front of him.
“Hey, what’s your problem?” he asks, his voice wavering a little as if he’s trying to sound tough and failing miserably.
“You are my problem,” Lucas shoots back evenly. “And unless you leave Sophia alone, I will ruin you. Every move you make will be the wrong one. Your life will come apart like wet paper in your hands, and the more you try to salvage it, the more damage you will do. You are a fragile man with a fragile life, and you will see just how horrific the world can be when it no longer feels the need to avoid your gaze.”
Jason stutters for a moment, then shoots a helpless glance at me. “Hey, Soph… you wanna control your creepy friend here?”
Lucas moves slightly, blocking Jason’s view of me even more completely. “You are exceptionally slow. The way you keep talking, it sounds as though you prefer the direct approach—to be taken apart piece by piece, barely adapting to the loss of one limb, one sense, before losing another. To live as a nub of a man, deaf, blind, and dumb, helpless to the whims of the world. Until I tire of your whimpers and choke the last breath from your throat.”
“N-no, man, that doesn’t sound good at all. Look, I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to piss you off, I swear. I don’t even know who you are. But if she’s yours, she’s yours. I won’t mess with her. If I see her around town, I won’t even look at her. You have my word.”
“You won’t see her around town,” Lucas says, his tone ever so slightly mocking. “Because you won’t be in town. Leave,today, and never come back.”
“O-okay, okay, you got it. I’ll leave town, and you’ll leave me alone, deal?”
Lucas chuckles. It’s cold, washing over my skin like ice water. “You misunderstand me. Your life will become a hellscape no matter what. Leaving now merely allows you to keep on living.”
Jason blanches. He hasn’t even asked how Lucas could follow through on all of his threats, but he doesn’t need to. The cold certainty in Lucas’s tone makes it impossible to doubt a single word he says. My sleazeball ex takes a few steps back from Lucas, shoots one last terrified look at me, and runs.
