She scrunched up her nose. They always worked on school stuff, especially math. “You didn’t?”
He shook his head.
Kat put her stuff away, going to sit closer to him on the bed. “What’s wrong?” she asked, confused.
“We have to do something,” he told her, looking down at her with a serious expression. “You know our little secret?”
She nodded.
“We have to tell him now.”
“W-We do?” Now she really didn’t understand. Her brother had told her to keep the secret ever since he’d figured it out.
“Yes.” Dom held out his hand for her to take it. When she placed hers in his, he looked at her sternly. “You ready?”
This time when she nodded, she had to put on a brave face. Even at ten years old she knew once the secret came out, her life was going to change forever.
Following him up the stairs, she squeezed his hand for dear life when they stood in front of the devil as he sat at the table counting money.
“I thought you knew better than to show me her face,” Lucifer spewed to his son with a hateful tongue.
Dominic ignored him, whispering in her ear before he smiled at her. “Go show him what you can do, Kat.”
“What the fuck do you thin—”
“Just give her a minute,” his son told him.
Trying to be brave like her brother had taught her, she walked closer to the devil.
“Do. Not. Touch. Her.” The twenty-year-old warned in a tone that his father would sometimes respect.
Knowing that her brother was here to protect her, she sat down at the table next to Lucifer, then started picking up the scattered money he had yet to count, placing matching bills on top of one another. She was at it for a bit, carefully sorting out all the money till all the stacks were laid out in a row going from ones to hundreds.
“Five thousand three hundred and ninety-seven.”
Lucifer, who had just sat there the whole time, watching her work, now looked at his son. “Is she right?”
“Yes,” he assured him without a doubt in his mind. “But you can count it, if you want.”
“She’s special...” The devil leaned forward in his chair, staring at the little girl he’d never wanted to call his daughter right in her eyes. “Like him.”
“She is,” he confirmed. “Do not make the same mistake again by leading her right to our enemies.”
Lucifer’s dead black eyes snapped back to his son’s at the insult. “Is there anything else you want to fucking say?”
“She is too valuable to us.” Dominic placed his hands on the table before he stood. Staring the devil down, he showed him the monster he had created. “And you will not touch her again.”…
… Kat woke up about an hour later unsure if it was from the memory or from still hearing the clatter of metal that was now accompanied by grunting. Beginning to worry, she got up from the couch having to move a sleeping Shadow to do so before she started walking up the steps. She figured if he really didn’t want her up there, he would have told her so. Unsure of what she expected when she reached the top of the steps, she probably should have guessed.
Standing there for several minutes, she had another moment of seeing him for what he was. That was what happened when a person didn’t know you were watching, and with Drago it was almost mesmerizing to watch.
He was wearing only gym shorts, his body drenched in sweat from the vigorous workout—she couldn’t dream of ever doing—with his legs and his good arm. It was obvious he was trying to get back to the form he once had before, practically killing himself up here for hours to do so, but it was that look in his eyes of pure determination that truly enthralled her.
Like Dominic, Lucifer hadn’t marked him like the others. He made him stronger. It was so rare she thought she would only see it in Dominic, but now she could see the same mark in Drago. Both men had an unmatched strength, refusing to let the devil win, even when they might have failed.
Turning around, she headed back down the steps undetected and walked to the fridge to get something before heading back up. This time when she reached the top, she made sure her presence was known.
Drago curiously looked at her while wiping the sweat off his face with the T-shirt he had hanging over his shoulder.
She handed him a protein shake. It was her way of calling a truce.
“Thank you.”
Kat took a seat on the bench beside him, feeling a bit guilty. “I’m sorry if I pushed you too far. In hindsight, since we’re married now and all, I should have told you about the stuff I wanted, and I probably shouldn’t have gotten the most obnoxious, biggest size there was.”