Chapter 5 #2
The ride from sixty-one to sixty-six took eight seconds. Lilith stood facing them with her back to the doors, watching, that smile fixed in place.
When the doors opened, she didn’t move.
“I’m curious how long you can keep this up.” Her eyes found Ava’s. “The performance, I mean.”
Victor stepped forward. Lilith stepped back out of the elevator, still smiling.
“Do try to be convincing today,” she said. “I’ll be watching.”
She walked away.
Ava exhaled. “That could have gone worse.”
“Give it time.”
The Blackstone representatives arrived at nine: three lawyers who clearly knew about the supernatural. None of them flinched when Malphas extended his too-long fingers in greeting.
“Ms. Feng.” Grimm’s voice scraped like gravel. “You’ve reviewed the contracts?”
“Three times.” She pulled up section forty-three. “There’s a problem with the language around eternal obligations.”
Patterson, the lead Blackstone attorney, shifted in his seat. “We had our best people draft that clause.”
“I’m sure.” Ava highlighted the text. “’Eternal’ has specific meaning in infernal contract law. As written, this obligates Blackstone’s successors in perpetuity, not just through normal business succession, but through any entity that absorbs your assets. Forever.”
Patterson went pale. “That would mean—”
“If Blackstone fails and gets acquired, the new owners inherit these obligations. You’d be poisoning every potential buyer.” She switched to page ninety. “The liability clause has the same issue. You’re accepting responsibility for Acts of God.”
“That’s standard boilerplate.”
“In human contracts.” She met his eyes. “In a world where gods occasionally act, do you want to be liable for their decisions?”
Silence.
“What do you suggest?” Patterson asked.
She walked them through the fixes. By the time she finished, he was taking notes.
The door opened. Lilith glided in, taking her seat like she’d been there all along.
“Apologies for my tardiness.” Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “I trust Ms. Feng has been keeping everyone entertained.”
“Ms. Feng has been keeping the firm from significant liability exposure.” Grimm’s tone was flat. “The Blackstone team is impressed.”
“How delightful. Victor’s latest project, exceeding expectations.” The word project landed like a slap. “I do hope it lasts.”
Victor’s hand found Ava’s under the table. Warning.
“Shall we continue?” Malphas’s too-long fingers drummed the volcanic glass. “I believe we have a contract to finalize.”
Two hours later, the Blackstone team left with revised documents and grateful handshakes.
“Exceptional work, Ms. Feng.” Grimm stood. “Victor chose well.”
Victor said nothing. Just inclined his head.
The other partners filed out. Lilith remained seated, studying her phone with theatrical disinterest.
“I have concerns,” she said without looking up.
Grimm paused at the door. “Regarding?”
“Their arrangement.” Now she looked up. Her eyes found Ava’s. “I’ve been watching them all morning. The careful distance. The way she stiffens when he touches her.”
“We’re at work…”
“A newly claimed human should crave her demon’s touch.
” Lilith stood, smoothing her dress. “It’s biological.
The mark creates a bond that manifests as physical need.
Compulsion.” She tilted her head, studying Ava.
“Yet Ms. Feng maintains perfect professional distance. Either she has extraordinary self-control for a mortal, or there’s no real bond to control. ”
Ava’s mouth went dry. She hadn’t known that. About the compulsion.
“Victor hasn’t claimed anyone in over a century.” Lilith circled the table slowly. “And now, suddenly, a first-year associate who happens to need protection from her own indiscretion?”
How did she know about… ?
“Convenient timing.” Lilith stopped behind Ava’s chair. Close enough to touch. “Almost manufactured.”
Victor stepped forward. “You’re questioning my claim.”
“I’m questioning its authenticity.”
“Then you question me.”
“Perhaps I do.” She didn’t flinch. Didn’t look away. “You’ve been behaving strangely since she arrived. Distracted. Protective. Almost emotional.” The word dripped contempt. “Either she’s done something remarkable to you, or you’re both hiding something. I intend to find out which.”
“We’re done here, Lilith.”
“Are we?” She collected her bag. Unhurried. “I’ll be watching. Both of you. And when you slip, and you will slip, I’ll be there.”
She walked to the door. Paused.
“Do try to look more in love. For both your sakes.”
She left.
Grimm studied them for a long moment. “Is there anything you need to tell me?”
“No,” Victor said.
“The claim stands,” Ava added. “Whatever Lilith thinks she sees.”
Grimm nodded once and followed the others out.
The door clicked shut.
“That was close,” Ava said.
“Too close.” Victor’s expression was unreadable. “She’s not going to stop.”
“Then we stop giving her ammunition.” Ava met his eyes. “The distance isn’t working. She sees through it.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“Saturday night. We know we can be convincing when we stop overthinking. So we stop overthinking.”
“That’s dangerous.”
“More dangerous than Lilith proving we’re lying?”
Before he could answer, Derek burst through the door.
“Conference call with Tokyo in five…” He stopped, looked between them, grinned. “Also I asked Emma out and she said yes and I might actually die.”
“Breathe, Derek.” Victor replied.
They gathered the contracts in silence. But Ava caught Victor watching her as she collected the last of the files.
Forty-nine days.
And Lilith wasn’t going to make any of them easy.
The text came at six. Unknown number. Conference Room Nine. Now.
Ava knew who it was before she reached the door.
Lilith stood at the window, her back to the room, silhouette carved against the dying sun. She didn’t turn when Ava entered.
“Close the door.”
Ava reached for the handle. The door swung shut before she touched it. The lock clicked.
“Sit.”
A chair slid across the floor and caught the backs of her knees. Ava sat. Not because she wanted to.
“You did well today. The Blackstone contracts.” Lilith’s voice was pleasant. Conversational. “Impressive work. For a human.”
“Is that why I’m here? To be congratulated?”
“You’re here because Victor’s protection has limits.” Lilith turned. The sunset caught her eyes, and they weren’t human. Old. Hungry. “He can mark you. Claim you. Play house in his penthouse. But when the partners invoke the old laws, a human life weighs very little against a demon’s standing.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s mathematics.” Lilith crossed the room. Each step she took, the air grew colder. By the time she stopped in front of Ava, frost had begun to form on the conference table. “I’ve been playing this game since before your ancestors crawled out of caves. You think a law degree makes you my equal?”
She gripped Ava’s chin. Her fingers burned like dry ice.
“You’re not special. You’re an inconvenience.”
The pendant flared against Ava’s chest. Lilith jerked back with a hiss, shaking her hand as if she’d touched a hot stove.
“Kunlun jade.” Her eyes fixed on the spot where the pendant hid beneath Ava’s blouse. “Your grandmother’s.”
Ava said nothing. Her chin throbbed.
“She truly loved you.” Lilith’s voice shifted. Quieter. “That’s rare.”
She returned to the window. The frost on the table began to melt.
“The soothsayers whispered your name before you were born, you know. Said you’d bind yourself to Victor.
Make him vulnerable. Give him something to lose.
” She traced a finger down the glass. “So I made preparations. Long before you knew this world existed, I was already part of yours.”
Ava’s blood chilled. “What does that mean?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.” Lilith smiled, poison-sweet. “When the time is right.”
The cold knot in Ava’s stomach tightened. Peterson Holdings. The loan her parents barely remembered signing. The year her grandmother died.
They’ve been watching our family for a long time.
“I was the first woman, you know?” Lilith continued, as if she hadn’t just detonated a bomb. “I refused to kneel, and I’ve spent every moment since fighting for scraps while lesser creatures were handed empires.”
“And that’s supposed to make me feel sorry for you?”
“I don’t want your pity.” Lilith turned. “I want you to understand what you’re facing. I’ve been clawing my way up since the beginning of time. I will not be outmaneuvered by a mortal who’s been in this world for five minutes.”
“What do you even want from him?”
“Alliance. Position. A partner of equal standing who could give me legitimacy.” Her smile was thin. “Not love; I’m not fool enough to want that. But Victor is old, respected, connected to every Duke in Hell. With him, I’d be more than Lilith the Difficult. I’d be Lilith the Power.”
“Then why warn me at all?”
“Because when I destroy you, I want you to know it was never personal.” She smiled. “Just business.”
She walked toward the door. Stopped with her hand on the frame.
“Victor loved someone once. Before you.” Her nails dug into the wood. “She died. And afterward, he buried every part of himself that had cared for her. Sealed it away so deep I don’t think even he remembers where.”
She glanced back. For a moment, her face held no malice. She just looked tired.
“We don’t get to keep the things we love, Ms. Feng. We ruin them. It’s what we are.”
She left.
Ava sat in the empty room until the sun finished dying and the dark settled in around her.
She’d come looking for a villain.
When she finally left Conference Room Nine, the sixty-sixth floor was empty. The partners had gone home, or wherever demons went when they weren’t terrorizing associates. Only the cleaning crew remained, vacuuming in distant hallways.
She found Victor in his office, standing at the window with his back to the door. The city lights painted him in blue and gold.
“Lilith texted me,” she said.
He didn’t turn. “I know. I felt it when she used power on you.”
“The chair thing?”
“Among other things.” His reflection in the glass was unreadable. “Are you hurt?”
“Just my pride.” She stepped into the office. “She told me about the compulsion. That I should be… craving your touch, if the claim were real.”
Now he turned. His eyes found hers, searching.
“What else did she tell you?”
“That the soothsayers predicted me. That you loved someone once.” She stopped a few feet away. “That she died.”
His jaw tightened.
“Lilith talks too much.”
“Is it true?”
A long silence. The city hummed sixty-six floors below.
“It was a very long time ago.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No,” he agreed. “It isn’t.”
He collected his briefcase. Straightened papers that didn’t need straightening.
“We should go home.”
Home. His penthouse. The guest room with the lock she never used.
“Victor—”
“Tomorrow.” His voice was gentle but final. “Ask me tomorrow, and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. But tonight, I need to not think about the past.”
She nodded. It wasn’t enough, wasn’t close to enough. But it was something.
Forty-nine days.
And now she had questions she wasn’t sure she wanted answered.