Chapter Twelve - Lucifer #2
I said nothing. I just watched the way Destiny’s expression shifted with embarrassment bleeding into defiance as her chin lifted and her eyes sharpened, and the way Topher’s shoulders squared like he was bracing for impact.
She looked at Topher, not at me.
“Well,” she said, her voice a little too loud on purpose, “now what? He knows.” Her fingers hooked into the edge of his sleeve like she meant to keep them there. “Can we stop pretending now?”
Topher’s throat bobbed once. For half a second, he looked like he might do what he always did, swallow it, file it away, choose silence because that was safer. Then he exhaled, slow and controlled, like he was making a decision he’d been avoiding.
He stepped closer to her, not quite shielding, but close enough that his body became a line the world would have to cross to reach her. His gaze flicked to Az and me, quick and calculating, like he was measuring consequences in real time.
And then he nodded once. “Yes,” he said quietly. Not embarrassed, just final.
Destiny’s breath hitched, relief and fear tangling together. “Really?”
Topher didn’t give her time to overthink it.
He just took her hand, firm and deliberate, fingers threading with hers like he was sealing the choice before he could second-guess it.
Then, as if he couldn’t help himself, he leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to her forehead, a private kind of reverence that didn’t ask permission from anyone around.
Destiny went very still, and her eyes widened, like she’d been waiting for that exact proof.
Topher straightened and turned back to me, shoulders squared, voice even.
“This doesn’t change anything,” he said.
“And we’re not discussing it. Not because I’m hiding anything,” his eyes cut to Destiny, something softer threading through the steel, “but because the wrong ears don’t need more leverage. ”
Az’s mouth twitched like he wanted to say something and decided his continued existence was preferable.
I stared at Topher for a long moment, my anger shifting, but not to him.
“Fine,” I said. “Later.”
Topher nodded, accepting the mercy like a contract.
Destiny glanced between us, then back at Topher, daring him to retreat. He didn’t. He tightened his grip on her hand once, then looked past us down the corridor like he’d already turned the moment back into motion.
“But,” he said lower, “we might have found something.”
I glanced over Topher’s shoulder and spotted an unmarked door a few feet down the corridor with a small gold engraved sign that read STAFF. Guests weren’t anywhere near this corridor, and neither were most of the staff.
“Inside,” I barked.
No one argued. Az moved first. Topher tugged Destiny with him. I shoved the door open and hustled everyone in.
This employee lounge was… unforgivable.
It smelled like burnt coffee and microwave popcorn. A black leather couch sagged against one wall, its cushions sunken and peeling like it had been dragged in from a dumpster. The vending machine hummed loudly in the corner, stocked with sad snacks and poorer choices.
Guilt pricked, sharp and unwelcome. I took pride in this place, in the Revel. And in my employees, too. And this… this was what they got? A room that looked like an afterthought?
I shut the door harder than necessary, locked it, and planted my palm against the frame. Flames crawled up my wrist and sank into the metal with a low, satisfied click. The wards sealed tight.
I glanced around once more, irritation bleeding into resolve. “After this is over,” I said flatly, “we’re doing renovations.”
Topher nodded immediately, like the idea had already been filed and approved in his head.
Destiny perked up. “Well, if you’re doing renovations, can we get—”
Topher leaned down and murmured something in her ear. Whatever it was, it made her blink, then nod decisively and clamp her mouth shut. I didn’t ask.
“What did you find?”
Topher didn’t answer immediately. He looked at Destiny again, and whatever passed between them wasn’t a question so much as permission.
“Go ahead,” he said quietly.
Destiny’s eyes flicked down before she forced them back up. “The Serpent’s Tongue,” she said.
Something in my chest tightened, “What about it?”
She swallowed. “The light felt… weird there,” she said, voice dropping. “Like it wasn’t falling right.”
“Who was there?” I cut in.
Destiny blinked, then pushed through. “A few customers. Julia and Whitney were waitressing. And Marvin was at the bar. I think there was another bartender filling in for—”
She stopped. Not because she forgot. Because she hadn’t.
Her gaze lifted to mine, hesitant, like she was checking whether I could bear it.
The space where Evie’s name should have gone felt suddenly crowded, heavy with everything we weren’t saying.
And we both stood there knowing exactly what she hadn’t finished saying, and missing her in the same quiet, terrible way.
Quickly, she added, “It was Delia. She was the other bartender.”
I exhaled slowly and pushed the word out anyway. “And?”
Destiny shifted, clearly uncomfortable now. “I don’t know,” she said, her stubbornness edging back in like armor. “I just thought… it was weird.”
I didn’t blink.
She rolled her eyes like it pained her to admit anything vulnerable. “Everything looked just the same as it always does. I didn’t even realize it until we had left,” she added. “We walked past a couple of tables, and that’s when I realized the shadows were going the wrong direction.”
“Do you know when they’ll be back?”
Destiny stared at me a beat, then sighed.
“I don’t exactly have everyone’s shift memorized, and I’ve kinda been out of the country,” she said, the words edged like she couldn’t help herself, “but unless things have changed since I’ve been gone, Marvin won’t be back until Friday.
Um, I think Delia is the same, though she does sometimes work on Thursdays.
And I don’t know about Whitney or Julia, they’re new. ”
Something in me snagged. “Say that again,” I said.
Destiny blinked, thrown by the shift in my voice. “Um,” she said, frowning, “Whitney and Julia are new?”
I nodded slowly, but my mind had already moved. Marvin. Delia. Two names that had been there long enough to feel… permanent. Maybe too permanent.
“How long has Marvin been here?” I asked.
Her expression softened into a small, easy smile, like this was finally a normal question. “Uh,” she said. “He’s been here…” She paused, eyebrows knitting. The smile faltered. “Geez. I have no idea how long he’s worked here. Long before me.”
I raised an eyebrow, “And Delia?”
“She was hire around the same time I started a couple years ago.”
The words sat in the air, heavy in a way they shouldn’t have been. Like Kora Vance, maybe Marvin had become a fixture without anyone noticing when it happened. And now there were two new girls in their orbit. It could be any of them.
My pulse steadied, turning cold and precise. “That settles it,” I said.
Az flicked a glance at me. Topher went still, already tracking the logistics behind my eyes.
“We need to find all four of them,” I said. “We watch who the light bends for, who the shadows obey.” I exhaled slowly, “Our top priority is Marvin because I have a feeling it’s who’s been standing in my building so long no one remembers when they arrived.”