Chapter Text
Chloe gazed out at the LA skyline. The view was spectacular from up here, but she wasn’t really seeing it. Instead, all she could see were her memories. Lucifer, standing right in this very spot, telling her he was leaving, that he was going back to hell, permanently. His hand cupping her cheek, wiping away her tears. His wings, his beautiful, snow-white wings opening wide.
She hadn’t been able to bear seeing him leave then, and she couldn’t bring herself to picture it now, either. She wrenched herself out of her memories and walked back into the penthouse.
Sometimes she liked to spend time here when it got to be too much. She’d turn on the lights and play some music and go over a case, or look through his impressive book collection. Sometimes she’d even pour a second glass of scotch and set it next to hers so she could pretend Lucifer had just stepped away for a moment and would be right back.
It felt pathetic, even while she was doing it, but she couldn’t help it. Who was there to see her, anyway?
Lately, though, Maze had convinced her to deal with her feelings a different way — Maze’s way. Drinking and dancing the long nights away. She’d taken over Lucifer’s job of consultant and it wasn’t long after that that she’d gotten Chloe to join her after work, too. Chloe had said no at first, but then she realized that her usual way of working things out clearly wasn’t working after all, so what the hell? Might as well try it. And to her surprise, she liked it.
She stopped in the middle of the room and looked around. Her fingers found the bullet necklace she never took off now, almost on their own. She sighed. Other memories were pressing in on her again. It was bad tonight. Of course it would be — it was exactly one month ago now that she’d been left here alone.
She really didn’t care to remember the rest of that night.
She realized some part of her hadn’t really thought he was leaving for good. That it would be like other times he disappeared on her, and he’d come back soon enough. But he’d never been gone an entire month before.
Maybe she should stop coming back up here.
Maze would have gotten to Lux by now, and right then a few shots sounded like a great idea.
Chloe stepped into the elevator and let it carry her down to the main floor. The pounding music grew steadily louder, and she let it wash over her, drowning out her own thoughts. By the time the doors opened, she couldn’t hear herself think anymore. Just the way she liked it.
She moved through the dance floor, drifting aimlessly, and let her body start moving with the beat. Maze always found her, no problem, and sure enough, she appeared a few minutes later.
“Decker! Look at you go, starting without me.” She flashed her a grin and started dancing, too.
“Hey, Maze. Let’s get drinks first?” Chloe felt better now that she wasn’t by herself, the tension in her body loosening. She knew Maze of all people wouldn’t judge.
“You don’t have to ask me twice.”
Some time later she found herself dancing alone again. She’d had probably more to drink than she should have, but she felt light and loose and couldn’t bring herself to care. It was the feeling she chased every night she came here. Maze was back at the bar, getting another round.
She decided to go find her, but she’d only gone a few steps when someone stopped right in front of her, looking right at her. Chloe shot the guy a look and made to follow, but he blocked her way again. “Chloe Decker?” he asked.
She scowled. “Yes?” She didn’t recognize him, and couldn’t get a good look at his face in the dim lighting. From what she could see, he was pretty unremarkable, the type of guy she passed on the street a dozen times a day. Or maybe she just couldn’t focus right.
He set his hands on her shoulders. What the hell? Chloe tried to shrug him off, starting to ask just what he thought he was doing, but a second later the club disappeared around her. Suddenly she was flying through a maelstrom of colors and light and sound. Images flashed past, too fast for her to make out. A thousand different sounds crashed into her, becoming one loud cacophony. It was too much all at once. She couldn’t even form a single thought to figure out what was happening. She vaguely felt a light weight on her shoulders and the floor beneath her feet, before it all became too overwhelming.
Maze slipped through the crowd just in time to see Chloe hit the floor.
Chloe felt herself waking up and wished she wouldn’t. She felt absolutely awful, her stomach twisted in knots, head fuzzy, throat parched. It took her a minute to realize her alarm was going off, and another moment after that to figure out why. Shit. She had work today. Groaning, she sat up and swiped at her phone to shut off that damned noise. She really should have taken the day off today, should have known she would drink too much last night.
She frowned. Wait, she couldn’t even remember most of last night. Why had she drunk so much, anyway? Even though she’d recently found that she liked partying with Maze, she usually didn’t go overboard like that. But yesterday — ah, crap, she was pretty sure she’d passed out at Lux. She was starting to get flashes of Maze taking her home and putting her to bed. Maze would never let her live it down.
Chloe raked her fingers through her hair and mustered up the will to get out of bed.
It was going to be a long day.
One month later
“Check it out,” Ella said, leading the way into the bedroom. It was late afternoon, and they’d just gotten the call an hour ago. Someone was found dead on a luxury yacht while it was out on the open water. “Victim is Lee Garner, 53, career criminal. Armed robbery, burglary, but mostly small-time stuff. Although, he might not be so small-time anymore cause this Foshizzle is all his.”
Chloe stared at her. “This what?”
“The Foshizzle! Name of the boat, Foshizzle,” Ella said, pointing up at the name printed out above the bed.
“Oh. Cause of death?”
“Gunshot wound to the chest. Oh, and as if that wasn’t messed up enough, the killer also did this.” She lifted the victim’s arm to show them. It ended in a stump, the hand clearly cut off. “Clean cut at the wrist, post-mortem. We’re still looking for the hand.”
Chloe looked over the scene, searching out any details that might help form a clearer picture of what had happened here. So far it looked like he’d been caught by surprise. No signs of force, nothing was out of place - well, besides the dead body on the floor. “What do you think, Maze?”
She turned. Maze gave the body a once over. “I think I boned him.”
“Maze, just because you happened to have slept with that one murder victim a few weeks ago doesn’t mean that you slept with them all.”
“How am I supposed to keep up, Chloe?”
“With the murder victims or the people you’ve slept with?”
She shrugged. “Either.” Maze couldn’t have looked more bored if she’d been staring at a brick wall for three hours straight.
Ella laughed. “Wow. Maze is really settling into her role as your new Lucifer.”
What? “My new Lucifer? What does that mean?” Chloe asked.
Ella’s smile faded. “Well, it’s just because she’s helping with your cases, and she and Lucifer both love to make funny but inappropriate comments about—” She caught herself and glanced over at Maze. “Anyway.”
Maze snorted. “What, just because I’m honest about my sex life? You should learn from my example, Ellen.”
Chloe watched their exchange. She had no idea what they were talking about, but then again, conversations with Ella and Maze were often like that.
“Yeaaaah, that. It’s like Lucifer never left. But he did leave. I mean, at least you guys got to say goodbye. Me? Ghosted completely. And it’s been what, like, two months since he moved to Florida to help with his family’s business?”
Chloe guessed they must be talking about someone else in the LAPD that they both knew. Ella went on about how he hadn’t responded to any one of her many attempts to reach out to him before Maze finally told her to stop talking about it. She said it almost gently, too, very un-Maze-like, and they both looked over at her. Clearly she was missing something.
“Right. Anyway, I’ll know more when I get back to the lab,” Ella said.
“You do that, Ellen. Chloe and I have other work to do,” Maze said. She mimed taking a shot.
“What, now?” Chloe asked. She looked out the porthole. It was kind of early to go out, but Dan had Trixie and it wasn’t likely anything else would come up in the case today. She shrugged. “Sure, why not. Let’s go.”
Maze finally smiled. “There you go. But you have got to change first. I have a spare outfit that would fit.”
Chloe rolled her eyes. “Absolutely not.” Partying with Maze was one thing, but it would be a cold day in hell before she wore one of her I’m-a-sexy-demon outfits.
The next morning Chloe interviewed Lee’s sister Meg. She didn’t get much to go on. They hadn’t spoken in years, and Meg didn’t exactly have a lot of positive things to say about her brother. According to her, he spent his life getting mixed up in crime, always managing to find trouble. She didn’t know what he’d been doing recently. Apparently, it could have been anything. From what she’d been hearing, there was probably a long list of people who hated him. Chloe brought up the hand just in case, but Meg had no idea. She hadn’t expected her to.
Then Maze dragged in some guy off the street who was all too happy to talk if it meant getting Maze off his back. He told them the rumor was that Lee got killed by someone named Dirty Doug, who ran a high-stakes poker game of questionable legal status, because Lee owed him a ton of money.
Which was how Chloe found herself dressed in a trendy green suit, standing next to Maze in the world’s skimpiest dress, that night at the poker game in question. Maze had gotten them an invite, somehow, and Chloe thought it best not to get the details.
Doug greeted them personally and welcomed them in. Perfect. Now they just had to rack up enough losses to catch his attention again.
Chloe found herself having more fun than she thought she would, given that she rarely played poker. She even managed to win a few hands before Maze snapped at her to start losing already.
It didn’t take long before they ran out of money, and Doug approached them. He offered them a token to keep playing, and when Chloe insinuated that she might end up like Lee if she couldn’t pay, he assured them that he was very reasonable… as long as they were working to pay their debt. He talked a big game, but the details he gave were off. Either he hadn’t killed Lee or he was doing it intentionally.
Either way, Chloe needed to bring him in to question what he knew. She was about to do just that when someone caught sight of them and took off like his ass was on fire.
They chased him, Maze having the first bit of fun all night as she took care of the security guards trying to stop them. Chloe nearly had him when he got hit by a car out of nowhere. She couldn’t do anything but watch as he smashed into the hood and windshield before tumbling to the ground.
Lucifer gripped the railing on the balcony and surveyed the view of LA laid out before him. Lies. All of this was a lie, from the buildings he was so familiar with to the sun beaming down on him to the people gathered in the room behind him. Worst of all, he was lying to himself, letting himself believe he was close to the detective in some way, that he could help solve this one little murder. And he hated lying. He had to face the truth — he was stuck in this cesspit of human misery while everyone he cared about was up on Earth, vibrant and alive the way nothing here truly was.
He’d thought he’d find some piece of his old life when he decided to visit Mr. Said Out Bitch. Lee, that was his name. He’d taken Lucifer’s gold and run with it, indulging in whatever he wanted. That, Lucifer approved of. Not that he’d gotten very far. Someone had decided he was better off dead, and here he was.
He hardly knew the man, but he thought at least he’d be able to chat with someone who’d met him outside of hell. It turned out there wasn’t much point. As soon as Lee found out where he was, that was of course all he wanted to talk about. Lucifer had had to explain, yet again, that he was stuck here until he confronted his own guilt and owned up to it, something no one had ever done. As usual, Lee hadn’t believed him, before realizing the futility of trying to escape and instead trying to appeal to Lucifer’s good side. As if he had one here.
But then he’d found out where Lee had been murdered, and realized there was a good chance the detective would run the investigation. The pull was irresistible, and he hadn’t even tried. Here he was with the opportunity of any detective’s dream, to talk to the victim in person, get all the details from the prime witness. So why not solve one last murder?
It was fun at first. Lee told him about the debt he owed to Doug and brought him to this place, this point in his hell loop. It was one of the nicer loops for sure, and screamed Los Angeles from every corner. And then it quickly became apparent that Lee had no idea who killed him, or knew anything about Doug that could help them determine if he was the killer.
Pointless. It was all pointless. What was he even going to do if he figured it out? Fly back up there, say “Hello, Detective, here’s the guilty party, see you never”?
And still the city had the nerve to shine below, promising escape.
Lucifer’s jaw locked in anger and frustration. He hated this, all of it, and there was nothing he could do. There wasn’t even anything to direct his anger toward. He went to a table and grabbed himself a drink. Lee watched him the entire time, almost certainly trying to work out a new angle to play him, but Lucifer couldn’t bring himself to care right now.
“Lord Morningstar?” one of his demons called. He turned. “There’s someone you should meet.” They gestured to the person next to them, some random soul he’d never seen before.
This had better be good. He raised his brow. “And why is that?”
Ella went over what she’d found after examining the scene, which wasn’t much. He had no ID, though he had a gun that matched the caliber of the weapon that killed Lee. They needed more than that.
Chloe bent down, looking over the body. It wasn’t a pretty sight - covered in cuts with limbs bending in all the wrong ways. She sighed. Poor bastard. And now he wouldn’t be able to talk to them, either. Which left them with only Doug to go on, and Chloe had her doubts.
The body jerked and coughed up blood, sitting up. “Hey, are you the detective?” the corpse asked.
Chloe screamed and scrambled backward, heart pounding. What the fuck —
“Decker, are you okay?” Ella turned around, frowning. “What—”
She rushed over to the body. It was still moving. “We need a medic over here! Hold on, we’ll get help…”
Chloe watched as Ella crouched down next to the body — next to the man? was he alive? — and started to try to help. But a second later, he shook his head and fell back to the ground limply. He didn’t move again.
The paramedics finally reached them and obscured her view. Chloe tried to take a deep breath to calm herself down, but it didn’t help. Get it together, Decker. He obviously hadn’t been dead, just very badly hurt. Usually it took more than that to rattle her, but there was something about the whole situation that screamed wrong.
A few minutes later the huddle broke up. The paramedics were muttering to themselves, packing up their equipment. Ella came over to her. She sighed and said, “He didn’t make it. Not surprised with how badly he got hurt. Actually it’s way more surprising that he lived that long. We were all sure he was killed on impact… crazy, right?”
Yes. It was crazy. How had nobody missed the slightly major detail that he was alive? How many people had seen him? And still that nagging feeling that something was off…
“There’s a problem, sir.”
Of course there was. His bloody demons couldn’t leave him alone for five minutes. Lucifer turned around and snarled, “What now?”
Gromos was back. He’d very clearly told him to deliver the message and then return to his duties, no need to report back. It had taken all his restraint to give that order. All he wanted was to hear every single detail about the detective, how she looked, what she said, if she seemed to be doing okay. But he couldn’t afford to show weakness — it was already bad enough that he was having his demons possess bodies just to help her solve a case — and he knew that if he went down that road, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from going to see her.
He didn’t know what would be worse — if she was struggling, or if she was doing perfectly well without him.
Gromos dropped his gaze at Lucifer’s obvious annoyance. “It’s, uh… well, it’s about the detective. I couldn’t deliver the message.”
Lucifer sighed to himself, closing his eyes for a brief moment. He knew it was a possibility, of course, that she wouldn’t be there, but he’d hoped. Maybe he could find another way to help…
But he had to deal with Lee and this fool of a demon first. “So you felt the need to interrupt me just to tell me she wasn’t there?”
“No, sir, that’s not it. She was there, but when I said her name she screamed and ran away.”
That got his attention. He hadn’t really thought she’d react that way. Sure, most humans would do the same thing if a dead body suddenly got up and started talking to them, but the detective had seen more than her fair share of demon possessed corpses, not to mention everything celestial. She’d handled it all with a steel spine and that fierce, I’m-not-impressed attitude he loved so much. Lucifer had never heard her scream in fear before.
Still, he supposed, she must not have been expecting it and might have just been startled. Or maybe she was hurt and tired and this was one thing too much to handle. Or maybe…
He stopped himself before he could come up with a thousand what-if scenarios. It was killing him to not know how she was doing every day, every hour he spent without her.
Above all, that was the biggest lie he told: that he wasn’t slowly crumbling into pieces each day they were apart.
Since he was admitting many unpleasant truths today, he might as well face this one too. He missed her. Chloe. The thought that he’d never see her again was becoming unbearable. He didn’t know how much longer he could hold out, knowing it would be so simple to give in. A few flaps of his wings and he would be there.
He clung to his reasoning that a clean break was better for both of them. No matter how much it hurt, if he kept popping in and out of her life, neither one would be able to let go. And she deserved that. Because eventually they would be permanently separated and he wouldn’t be able to reach her no matter how hard he tried. His own feelings didn’t matter.
Besides, the fact that his demons couldn’t do even the most basic of tasks on their own showed that he couldn’t leave them to their own devices again.
Her safety. Yes. That was the most important thing. And for everyone else too, of course.
“My lord?” Gromos prompted.
Lucifer waved his hand. “Just go,” he said. Gromos vanished in a second.
“So… what else are you going to do?” Lee asked. “I’m sure you’ve got another way to—”
“I don’t, and nothing,” Lucifer said simply. “The detective is the best there is. She’ll figure it out.”
The next day Ella called them into her lab to review what they’d found out.
“Prints came back on our definitely dead now guy. Vernon Gill. He’s a known hitman with working contracts for small time criminal organizations. And more, striations from the gun found on him match the bullet that killed Lee Garner.”
“And I also found 20 grand in cash in the trunk of that guy’s car. That’s the going rate for a contract hit,” Maze said.
“So Gill pulled the trigger, but then who paid him to kill Lee?” Chloe said.
“Maybe Dirty Doug hired him?”
“Doubtful,” Maze scoffed. “He came in last night, and Gill said he threatened him for taking credit for Lee’s murder. Said it was ‘bad for business’. Then he joined a poker game. Someone else hired Gill.”
They were quiet for a moment. If Dirty Doug hadn’t hired him, then they were back to square one with trying to figure out who had it in for Lee.
“Well, whoever hired him definitely didn’t pay him enough,” Ella said, looking over the photos from last night’s crime scene again. “Poor guy. I mean, yeah, he killed people for a living, but damn, that has to be one of the worst ways to go.”
“He got hit by a car, big deal,” Maze said. “I met a guy who died over three days while people slowly peeled skin from his body.” She leaned over to Chloe and said under her breath, “We had a lot of fun torturing that guy.”
Chloe looked at her, brows raised. Whatever the hell that meant. She wondered briefly if she should be concerned, but even though Maze was… well, Maze, she was pretty sure she wouldn’t actually do something like that.
“Didn’t you hear? That car smashed him to pieces but the guy clung to life anyway. Tough dude. We thought for sure he was dead, but he was alive long enough to scare the life out of Chloe. Glad you didn’t follow him to the grave, Decker.” Ella lightly bumped her first into Chloe’s shoulder.
“Yeah, me too,” Chloe muttered. She was doing her best not to think about it, because when she did, it made her skin crawl. She’d seen awful things done to a human body before, but this… something felt off about it in a way nothing else had.
Maze was giving her a strange look. “I need to talk to you.” She gestured meaningfully to Ella.
“Yeah, sure. Let me know if you find anything else, okay?” she said.
Ella nodded. “Will do, Decker.”
They went to an empty interrogation room. “What exactly happened last night? Why didn’t you tell me?” Maze demanded.
“Tell you what? It was weird, like, super weird, but it didn’t change anything with the case.”
Maze gave her an incredulous look. “Just tell me.”
“Fine,” Chloe said, blowing out her breath. “I went to look at the body — and Maze, it really did seem like he’d been dead for a while by that point — and it freaking moved. Started coughing and sat up a little and looked right at me, and it said… he said…” She bit her lip, trying to remember the exact words. “He said, ‘Hey, are you the detective?’”
She realized as she repeated the words that that was what was bothering her so much. It was the way he said them, like he was eager to talk to her. Like he knew her, specifically, or at least knew of her. It didn’t fit with the guy running away as fast as he could the first time he saw her.
“Well? What else did he say?” Maze asked. She’d suddenly shut down, face unreadable.
It was Chloe’s turn to look at her in disbelief. “What do you mean, what else? The paramedics went to try to help, but it was far too late. I’m guessing he didn’t say anything else at all. I’m surprised he even could say that much given the state of him.”
Maze just stared at her. “Either the paramedics were right there ready and waiting or you’re skipping part of your little story. Why don’t you want to tell me? I doubt that asshole raised a demon just to say hi to you. I thought… I thought we were friends.”
“What are you talking about?” Chloe was starting to get annoyed.
“So, what, in between him finding you and the paramedics getting there, you just sat there and did nothing?”
“Okay, fine, I left out the part where I screamed, happy?”
“Oh, come on!” Maze got up and walked to the other side of the room. “Lucifer wouldn’t have sent a smart demon, but there had to have been time for him to pass on whatever message he had.” She stopped suddenly. “Fine, don’t tell me. It’s not like I care.” She swept past her to the door.
“Maze, wait,” Chloe said, grabbing her arm. “Why do you think he said anything else? You’re not making any sense. Do you know something I don’t? Why that guy… why he seemed like he was looking for me?”
Maze stopped and pulled her arm out of Chloe’s grasp. She studied her for a moment. “You’ve been acting strange ever since that night you passed out drunk. Would you just stop? I get it if you want to pretend like you never met Lucifer, but this is just childish. Don’t play dumb with me.”
“I’m not playing dumb,” Chloe said, voice rising almost to a shout. “Stop acting like a…” She trailed off, shaking her head.
“Like what? Like a demon?” She snorted. “Well, I am one. A demon, that’s all, not a soul to be found here, and there never will be.” She walked out, letting the door slam behind her.
Chloe stared after her, more confused than ever. There was that name again, Lucifer, and now Maze was acting like a corpse coming back to life wasn’t unusual at all. Sure, she constantly gave off an I’m-a-badass vibe, and it wasn’t an act, but this was a strange take even for her.
Her cell phone rang. Chloe fished it out of her pocket and answered on autopilot. “Detective Decker.”
“Detective, hi. It’s Meg. Look, this might be nothing, but…”
Right. The case. Solving a murder. Chloe was relieved to focus on that again. “It’s okay, you never know what might be important. What did you want to talk about?”
“I found receipts for a storage unit that belonged to my brother, and when I went there, I found a safe. It unlocks by holding your hand to it. I was wondering…”
“I’ll be right there,” Chloe told her.
The storage unit didn’t turn up much except one trigger-happy Meg, who almost shot Chloe before she realized who it was. Chloe had carefully put that gun away in her bag before turning to the safe. Sure enough, it was a biometric lock, and looked awfully expensive to be tucked away in a random storage facility with nothing else of value. She would have to bring Ella in here look for any evidence, but she was willing to bet that that was what the killer was after. She took Meg home and put a call in to have someone watch the storage unit.
“Any idea who else would have known about the safe?” Chloe asked as they walked up to the house.
“No,” Meg said. “Maybe his old crew? I don’t know. I feel like I don’t know who he was anymore.”
They entered the house and Meg led the way to the kitchen. “He and I used to…” She stopped.
A hand was resting on the kitchen island.
Chloe set her bag down, thinking fast, when she heard the snap of a shotgun barrel. She whirled, hand going to her gun, but she was too slow. A man was standing at the entrance to the kitchen, gun pointed at her. “You, put your gun on the counter,” he snapped.
“All right,” Chloe said slowly, setting it down.
“You’re Rod,” Meg said quietly. “You used to room with Lee. Did you kill him?”
Not good. Chloe tried to work out a way to get her to back off.
“That loser brother of yours gave us no choice. He still owes us our cut from our last job. Now where’s the money from the safe?”
“You don’t have it?” Chloe asked.
“The safe was empty when I got there.”
Meg laughed. Chloe whirled on her. “Of course it was. You knew my brother, he probably spent it as soon as he got it.”
Rod jerked the gun to the side and pulled the trigger, putting a hole in a decorative plate. “Quit stalling and give us the money!”
“I’ve got the money,” Chloe said quickly, seeing her chance. She edged over to her bag. “It’s right here. It’s in the bag.” She reached into it, hand closing on the gun she’d tucked away, and shot Rod through the fabric.
Several others were there immediately, guns drawn. Chloe grabbed her own gun and ducked down behind the island. “Get down!” she shouted at Meg.
Meg dove for cover and she waited out the hail of bullets. The situation was bad. All of the exits were too far for her to reach, and she didn’t know if anyone was outside or in other parts of the house. “They’re gonna stop shooting and they’re gonna have to reload,” she gasped. “That’s when you’re gonna run. I’ll draw their fire. You ready?”
“No no no, I can’t!”
“Meg, listen to me,” Chloe commanded, trying to put as much authority into her voice as she could. Adrenaline was taking over and she felt more pissed off than anything. “You can do this. We’re not gonna die here. Get ready.”
Lucifer shifted the hell loop again. He ended up in a car. Lee pulled up to a house, light spilling out from every window. A party was clearly going on inside.
“Hey, this is my car,” Lee said. “And that’s… aw, come on, man. What is this? Why are we here?”
“This is the root of your hell loop,” he said. “You want to face your guilt? This is at the heart of it all.” His irritation was building by the minute. After Gromos left Lee had noticed his mood and guessed the cause of it, almost getting him to talk about the detective before he realized what was going on. He’d told Lee yet again that he couldn’t help him, but Lee insisted that he could if he wanted to. Fed up to the brim with all of this shit, Lucifer decided to show him exactly how it worked.
They got out of the car. Lee faced the house, expression softening. “It’s my parents’ house. My little sister Meg just had a baby. This was the last time we were all together as a family, but I… I didn’t go in.”
He went on about how he was a screw up and no one wanted him there, really, but Lucifer didn’t care. “Excuses, excuses. They invited you there. They wanted you there. If you want to break your hell loop, this is it. Just walk through that door.”
“Hey, man, it’s not that easy—”
“Isn’t it? You were too afraid, weren’t you? Afraid that if you went in, sooner or later you would mess up again and they would all see you for who you really were.” Lucifer stopped. He could feel another truth pushing at him that he didn’t want to see. It only made him angrier.
Lee said, “You sure you’re not talking about yourself now? Is this even my hell loop? Cause it seems to me you’re the one being tortured here.”
Lucifer stepped closer. His anger was close to boiling over. “Me? How many times do I have to tell you—”
“Lord Morningstar!”
“WHAT?” Lucifer roared. Yet another demon was here with an unfamiliar man.
“He’s got news about that detective,” the demon said.
Lucifer listened as they explained that she was trapped by several criminals shooting at her, and then dismissed them.
“What, you’re not gonna go save her?” Lee asked.
He thought it over for a moment. One thing that hadn’t been a lie today: the detective was the best at what she did. If anyone could get out of it, she could. Just because she could use help didn’t mean she absolutely needed it.
And besides, if her reaction to Gromos earlier was anything to go by, perhaps it meant she’d come to her senses and didn’t want anything to do with demons, or him, anymore.
Good. It would only put her in more danger.
“No,” he said. “My presence is only a danger to her.”
“She’s in danger right now and you can help her but you won’t? Now who’s making excuses, huh?” Lee said.
“I am not making excuses!”
“Mmmhm. You’re afraid, aren’t you? Afraid that if you go, you’ll screw it up and she’ll see that you’re not worth it?” He smirked, knowing he’d hit home.
Lucifer would have seriously considered strangling the bastard if he wasn’t already dead.
And yet… it was one truth too many. It had come to light and was staring him full in the face. And damn it if he was going to let Lee win this.
“You think you’re so clever, hm? Let me show you where you’re wrong. You see, I can leave any time I want. But you will always be stuck here, because you will never walk through that door. You would rather spend eternity out here on this sidewalk than face your family.”
He left Lee’s hell loop. Nobody made a fool out of Lucifer Morningstar, least of all himself.
The sound was deafening. Plaster and broken glass showered all around them. Any second now.
Guns clicked and the explosions tapered off. Chloe was about to return fire when she heard a whistle, of all things.
Footsteps sounded in the hall behind them. And someone said in a cheerful tone, “Hello, bad guys.”
What the hell? “Who’s this crazy fool?” someone else said.
“I hope I’m not late to the party,” said the first voice again. He sounded British.
Chloe peeked over the countertop. The newcomer was dressed in a crisp black suit with a red pocket square, hair perfectly done. A smirk was playing on his lips.
One of the others lifted their gun again and pointed it directly at her. She ducked.
The bullet shattered another plate against the wall. Chloe heard the sound of a fist smacking flesh. She saw the person who fired being shoved through the wall to the side. Who the hell was that guy?
She stood up, gun drawn, and hit another shooter in one smooth movement. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Meg running out of the kitchen. Good.
British Guy was bearing down on the third shooter. He grabbed the gun and plucked it away effortlessly before knocking him to the floor.
In seconds all of the shooters were dead or incapacitated.
Chloe locked her gun on British Guy. “Drop it. Now.” He was holding the gun loosely at his side, but she wasn’t about to take any chances right now. She had no idea what was going on, but she was about to find out.
British Guy had been looking at her, still with that grin on his face, but now it faded. He tossed the gun to the floor without looking at it. Sounding uncertain for the first time, he said, “Detective?”
It wasn’t love right away, but everything changed the moment we met. As soon as you smirked at me and walked away, there was no going back. I didn’t know it then, but I was already a lost cause.
Delilah had been killed outside of Lux, standing right next to me, and naturally you came to question me about it. I could tell right away you didn’t put up with any crap. You didn’t believe me when I told you I talked to her killer just before he died, or that there was more to her death than a drug deal gone bad, or that I hadn’t gotten hurt because I was immortal. Though to be fair, I suppose no one believes that last one.
You thought I was crazy, but you knew something didn’t add up and you looked into it anyway. Even though you didn’t exactly like me at first, you still let me help because the truth mattered more. Everyone told you to stop, but you were determined to find the truth and you didn’t care what trouble it stirred up. And in the end, we found it. It was the first of many cases we solved together.
You might not have wanted to admit it, but I knew. We made a great team, and we’ve been partners ever since, in so many ways. Together, we can do anything.
I am so incredibly grateful we met, because my life wouldn’t be the same without you by my side. It wasn’t love right away, but for me, it might as well have been. I have never loved anyone the way I love you.