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I managed, through sheer force of will, to stand up and fasten my hand around the doorknob.
The TV was still going when I emerged, Gray’s blond head still focused on the box of moving images.
I reasoned that Bull would be climbing the steps to get to Gray’s apartment on the second floor of the tired apartment building. I could hear the thump of motorcycle boots. Or maybe I was just imagining it.
Either way, I took hurried and painful steps to the door.
“Lucy!” Gray called from behind me. “You better not be goin’ anywhere,” he warned.
The sofa made a sound signifying the loss of his body, and his feet crunched through the bottles and wrappers. My hand opened the door at the same time Gray’s found my injured wrist.
I let out another sound of pain just as Bull stepped into the frame.
His face was marble at the beginning. Then the Devil lurked behind his eyes as he focused on my bruised face. Then down to the tee which was hanging on by a literal thread, exposing my bra and blackened breasts.
Then the Devil didn’t lurk. The Devil reigned. And focused a chilly glare. On Gray. On the hand at my wrist that I was reasonably sure was already broken.
It took him less than a second for all of that.
Another second to yank his gun, silencer attached, out of his cut, point it at Gray’s blond head and pull the trigger.
The soft pop was an echo in my head. Warm liquid splattered on my face as the pressure on my wrist released. There was a loud thump as a body hit the floor.
My head was about to move downwards but Bull grasped my chin gently, like it was made of china. But still with enough force to stop the movement.
The Devil still lurked, but he meant me no harm.
“Don’t, sweetheart,” he said quietly. “Don’t look. You don’t need the image of that in your soul.”
The softness in his voice, added with the sheer amount of words that were usually reserved for Laurie—he felt the same love for her too, despite him not letting it go anywhere until she was eighteen—was what made me pause.
For a second.
Then I put my uninjured hand on his wrist. He got the gesture, sighed. Then looked at me with something akin to pride and let me go.
He stepped into the apartment, shutting the door behind him, letting the daylight stay out there.
We weren’t in daylight here. Only shadows.
Plus, I doubted that any passing residents would take kindly to seeing a dead body if they glanced into the apartment.
Laurie wouldn’t take kindly to me putting the man she loved in prison for murdering my boyfriend either.
I moved back to accommodate Bull’s large expanse. My head went downwards.
Gray’s hair was no longer a dirty gold. It was red, pinky white in places. There were chunks of gray littered in the locks.
My stomach rolled. Once. I swallowed the vomit at the almost headless corpse of the man I thought I loved.
And then I promised myself I’d never do it again.
Love.
Bull and I had shared a connection after that. After what he did for me, I owed him a lot. Not just the killing but everything else. The covering up. The car crash he’d rigged to explain away my injuries. The silence he gave to everyone who questioned it.
I gave the same silence to everyone but Rosie.
She listened to me recount it in the emotionless and flat voice I’d come to adopt since that day. Her own face was emotionless. Until the end. Until two tears trickled down her face.
Rosie didn’t cry.
Not ever.
It didn’t last long. That deep kind of sadness that only the person who loved you deeply could feel for you. Next came the fury. “If he wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him. Slowly,” she whispered. Her tone brokered no doubt within me. She would have. I could’ve called her and got the same result. But I didn’t want that on her soul. Nor did I want it on Bull’s. But I knew he was practiced at killing, and I hadn’t actually planned on him doing it. He’d been a little… trigger-happy. And he hadn’t even blinked.
“Done a lot of bad in my life, Lucy,” he said to me on the way to the hospital, his jaw hard yet voice soft. His hand reached out to squeeze mine. “Killing that fucker for what he did to you? That’s not bad. Not even close.”
I didn’t tell Laurie. I knew Bull wouldn’t either. He protected her from everything. Even the Devil within him.
“And even though he is dead, I’m seriously considering digging him up so I can carve up his corpse,” Rosie added in the same serious tone.
“No,” I whispered. “I need this to be buried. Like him. I need it to stay in the ground and we carry on. I carry on.”
