Chapter 14 #2
“He didn’t want anyone like me. Always so fond of you cattle.” Her voice turned bitter, old wounds bleeding fresh. “Four centuries of working beside him. Four centuries of perfect professional distance, waiting for him to notice I was right there. That I understood him in ways no human ever could.”
She turned to face Ava, and something raw showed in her expression. Grief, ancient and terrible.
“And then you. You, with your student loans and your jade pendant and your mortal soul. Within three weeks, he’s soft. Vulnerable. Looking at you like you’ve given him something he forgot he wanted.”
“You’re jealous.”
“I’m in love with him.” Lilith’s voice cracked—just for a moment—before hardening again.
“I’ve been in love with him for an eternity.
I waited. Positioned myself. Made myself invaluable to him, indispensable to the firm.
Turned down offers from other practices, other realms, because I knew, I knew, that eventually he’d see me.
Really see me. That one day he’d understand we belong together. ”
“You told me you weren’t.” Ava met Lilith’s eyes, her voice level. “On the sixty-sixth floor. You said you wanted alliance, position, legitimacy. ‘Not love,’ you said. ‘I’m not fool enough to want that.’”
Lilith went still. For a moment, her beautiful mask flickered, something raw and wounded showing through before she could slam it back into place.
“I lied.” The admission cost her something visible. “To you. To myself. For centuries, I told myself it was ambition. That I wanted his power, his connections, his standing. That love was a weakness I was too smart to fall into.”
Her laugh was bitter, broken.
“But you can’t spend four hundred years orbiting someone without falling.
You can’t watch them from across every boardroom, every ballroom, every battlefield, and not eventually realize that what you feel isn’t strategy.
It’s need.” She turned away, unable to meet Ava’s eyes.
“So yes, I lied. I’ve been lying to everyone, including myself, because admitting the truth would mean admitting I’ve wasted centuries on someone who was never going to love me back. ”
Ava said nothing. There was nothing to say.
“And then you walked in.” Lilith’s shoulders drew up, her whole body going rigid.
“A human. A first-year associate with no power, no standing, nothing that could possibly matter to someone like him. And within three weeks, he’s claimed you.
Soul-bonded you. Given you what I’ve been waiting centuries for. ”
“Do you want to know what the soothsayers told me?” Her expression hardened again, grief buried under ice. “Fifteen years ago, they said a human child in Queens would bind to Victor. That it was inevitable. Fated. That if you ever crossed paths, the bond would form whether I liked it or not.”
Ava’s stomach churned. “So you trapped my parents to stop me from meeting him.”
“No. You don’t understand prophecy.” Lilith’s smile was poisonous.
“I couldn’t stop it. Fate doesn’t work that way.
The universe bends to make prophecies come true.
If I’d kept you away from him, you’d have met by chance: a coffee shop, a subway platform, a random collision on a crowded street. Fate would have found a way.”
Her eyes glittered in the light from two rivers.
“But what I could control was when and how you met. And what would be waiting when you did.”
“The scholarship to Columbia? I made sure you’d study law, not something useless.
Career counseling toward supernatural practices?
I ensured you’d end up in our world. Your professor who recommended you to the firm?
I’d been cultivating that relationship for three years.
Victor reviewing your application personally?
Me, suggesting he might find someone ‘interesting’ in the pile. ”
“You manipulated my entire career.”
“I brought you to him poisoned.” Lilith’s voice turned cold and precise. “With a trap already choking your family. With fifteen years of inescapable debt. With contracts I’d made bulletproof while you were still in high school.”
She paused, letting the words sink in.
“I couldn’t prevent the bond, but I could make sure that when it formed, it would tear you both apart.
Either he saves you and loses everything he’s built here, or he maintains his position and watches you break.
Either way, you’ll be destroyed. Either way, he’ll learn that human love isn’t worth the cost.”
Her smile widened, ancient and terrible.
“Either way, I get him back.”
“You miscalculated.”
“Did I?” Lilith pulled out her phone and showed Ava a countdown timer, the numbers ticking down in crimson. “Fifteen days until your parents’ souls are forfeit. How’s your research going, by the way?”
She gestured toward the door with one elegant hand.
“Run along.”
-—
Ava left Lilith’s office clutching the folder like a lifeline.
She made it to the bathroom on sixty-one before the shaking started.
Full-body tremors sent her stumbling into a stall, sinking to the floor, the folder scattering pages across cold tile.
Her breath came in ragged gasps. Her vision blurred.
The bond roared with Victor’s desperate concern, his need to reach her, his rage at being too far away to help.
I’m okay, she tried to send him. I’m okay, I’m—
She wasn’t okay.
Her parents were going to lose everything.
Their restaurant, their building, their life’s work.
The place where she’d done homework in the back booth while they worked eighteen-hour days.
The kitchen where her grandmother had taught her to fold dumplings.
And if she was reading those soul-debt clauses correctly, they were going to lose more than that.
Pieces of themselves. Their essence. Things they didn’t even know they had.
And she’d done this to them. By existing. By being born. By being fated to love a demon.
She didn’t know how long she sat there. The trembling eased. Her vision cleared. She gathered the scattered pages and put them back in order, each document a small piece of the trap that had been building around her family for fifteen years.
Her phone buzzed. Victor: My office. Now. Please.
The please undid her more than anything else.
-—
Victor pulled her into his arms the second the door closed.
“I felt everything,” he murmured against her hair. His hands shook where they gripped her. “Every word she said, I couldn’t hear it, but I felt what it did to you. The fear. The rage. The moment you understood what she’d done.”
“She’s been planning this since before I started law school.” Ava pulled back to look at him, to see the ancient fury burning in his eyes. “Fifteen years. Since I was a child. She manipulated my entire life to get to this moment.”
“I can’t directly interfere. The partnership agreements forbid us from sabotaging each other’s cases or clients.” His jaw was tight enough to crack. “If I openly challenge Lilith’s handling of Peterson Holdings, the partners would be forced to sanction me.”
“I know.” She pressed her forehead to his chest, feeling his heartbeat, slower than a human’s, but racing now with rage. “She’s using legitimate channels. That’s the whole point.”
“But.” He tilted her chin up, forcing her to meet his eyes.
“The agreements only restrict direct action. I can mentor my associate. Point you toward relevant research. Ensure you have access to the archives.” Something dangerous flickered in his expression.
“That’s not interference. That’s professional development. ”
“She’s attacking my family, Victor.” Ava struggled to keep her voice steady. “They don’t even know what they signed. They don’t know demons exist. They came here with nothing and built that restaurant with their own hands.”
“We’ll fix this.”
“How?”
His fury reached her—ancient, quiet, patient.
“You’re brilliant, Ava. And you’re not alone.
Derek knows the archives better than anyone.
Cassandra has been here since the founding; she knows where the bodies are buried, sometimes literally.
And I…” He paused, choosing his words carefully.
“I can’t break demon law. But I’ve had six thousand years to learn how to bend it. ”
Her phone rang. Dad.
“Go to them,” Victor said, pressing his lips to her forehead. “Explain what you can. They’re probably terrified. I’ll have Derek start pulling every Peterson Holdings file we have. Fifteen years of documents. There has to be a crack somewhere.”
-—
Three hours later, Ava returned to find Derek surrounded by file boxes.
The conference room looked like a paper tornado had touched down: documents spread across every surface, Derek’s laptop displaying multiple windows of corporate filings, empty coffee cups forming a perimeter around his workspace.
His tie was gone, his sleeves rolled up, and his expression made her stomach drop before he said a word.
“Tell me you found something.”
Derek’s face was pale beneath the fluorescent lights. “You’re not going to like it.”
He spread papers across the table with hands that shook slightly, organizing them into a pattern. “Peterson Holdings isn’t just a shell company. It’s part of a network. A big one.”
She traced the ownership structure with her finger. Forty subsidiaries feeding into a Cayman Islands holding company, owned by a Luxembourg trust, owned by a Delaware shell corporation. And there, buried deep in the filing structure:
“Malphas Holdings, LLC.”
They stared at each other across the scattered papers.
“As in, our Malphas,” Derek whispered. “The senior partner.”
Ava’s hands were shaking. She pressed them flat against the table, forcing herself to think like a lawyer instead of a terrified daughter.
“Wait. Look at the client list. Peterson Holdings has dozens of other accounts: small businesses all over the tri-state area. Restaurants in Newark. Dry cleaners in the Bronx. A bodega in Astoria.” She scanned the documents.
“This looks like standard firm operations. Predatory lending wrapped in legitimate paperwork. Awful, but generic. No personal targeting.”
Derek pulled up more files, cross-referencing. “You’re right. It’s systematic, but not specific to your family.”
“So Lilith used the firm’s existing infrastructure for her own vendetta.” The pieces clicked together with sickening clarity. “She has access to Peterson Holdings as part of her partnership duties. Malphas manages it as one of dozens of shell companies. And she used it for her own personal war.”
“Which means Malphas probably doesn’t know she’s specifically targeting you and Victor.” Derek’s expression shifted from fear to calculation. “This isn’t a conspiracy involving all the partners. It’s Lilith going rogue with firm resources.”
The door opened.
Victor appeared in the doorway, his expression unreadable.
“You found it.”
“Malphas Holdings.” Ava met his eyes. “Did you know?”
“I suspected. But the firm’s structure is deliberately compartmentalized.
Each partner has their own domain.” He gripped the back of a chair, knuckles white.
“Malphas probably doesn’t know what Lilith’s been doing specifically.
But once we expose that she’s been using firm resources for a personal vendetta against another partner… ”
“He’ll have to act,” Derek finished. “She made him look incompetent. Demons hate that.”
“And the other partners?”
“They’ll claim ignorance. But once we expose Lilith, they’ll be forced to choose sides.” Victor’s voice flattened, all business. “A partner using firm resources for a personal grudge makes everyone look weak. They’ll turn on her to protect themselves.”
Ava looked at the files spread across the table. Fifteen years of traps. Centuries of heartbreak. Her parents’ lives reduced to paper and clauses and ink.
She straightened in her chair.
“I’ll keep digging,” Derek said quietly into the heavy silence. “Ancient property law. Demonic contract loopholes. Precedents for voiding soul-debt under duress.” He met her eyes, and she saw determination beneath his fear. “There has to be something. Give me time.”
Fifteen days.
The countdown timer on Lilith’s phone flickered in Ava’s memory: crimson numbers ticking toward destruction.
“Then we’d better work fast.”