[Lucifer] Ch: 55 [Fuck! 😭] (Patreon)

[A Few Days Later]

Malcolm spent the next few days doing something he'd once been very good at... Watching people.

Most people liked to imagine their lives were unpredictable because they occasionally changed restaurants, took a different street home, or stopped somewhere without planning it beforehand. Given enough time, though, habits always surfaced, and once they did, people became remarkably easy to follow.

Trixie was no different.

Malcolm wasn't thrilled that a seven-year-old had become his best option, although morality had very little to do with his hesitation. The problem was risk. Chloe was armed and actively looking for him. She also knew he was desperate, which made approaching her directly close to suicidal. She'd probably put two bullets in his chest before he could even finish his revenge speech. Dan presented a different problem. He knew Malcolm better than almost anyone, and he probably wouldn't waste much time talking if Malcolm suddenly appeared in front of him.

Then there was Lucifer Morningstar. Malcolm had no intention of going after him while he was still this weak, especially when he had other scores to settle first.

Trixie, however, was a child, incapable of putting up much resistance against a grown man. From Malcolm's perspective, that made the calculation much simpler.

He spent the first day preparing. Cheap hair dye changed his appearance enough that a casual glance wouldn't immediately connect him with the disgraced detective whose face had been plastered across Los Angeles news reports. Glasses, facial putty, makeup, and several sets of painfully ordinary clothes completed the disguise. He bought everything from different stores, paid cash, and bought an old gray minivan from a junkyard.

Then he started watching.

He stayed far enough from Trixie's school that nobody had any reason to remember the vehicle, usually parking among delivery vans, parents waiting for older children, and people lingering with phones pressed to their ears. From behind the tinted windows, he learned the afternoon routine one piece at a time.

Chloe took Trixie home from school during the first few days, and one afternoon, Penelope Decker arrived in big sunglasses to pick her up from school; then there were times when both Chloe and Lucifer picked her up. But one day, Lucifer came alone.

Malcolm lowered himself slightly behind the steering wheel when the black Corvette rolled into view. Lucifer stepped out wearing one of his expensive suits, looking completely out of place among parents in casual clothes and children dragging backpacks twice the size of their torsos.

Trixie noticed him almost immediately and came rushing through the gate. She wrapped herself around his waist with the kind of enthusiasm children reserved for people they genuinely adored. Lucifer smiled down at her and patted her head while she talked, grinning.

That was useful information.

Malcolm had already seen how close Lucifer and Chloe were. What he hadn't expected was the affection Lucifer showed toward Chloe's daughter.

It didn't look forced.

There was no irritation when Trixie clung to him, no impatience while she talked, and no attempt to pass her off to someone else. Lucifer listened, walked her to the Corvette, and even checked the girl's seat belt himself before closing the door.

Malcolm watched them drive away while a slow smile spread across his face.

Amenadiel wanted Lucifer dead. Chloe wanted Malcolm arrested. Dan had helped destroy whatever remained of Malcolm's old life, and somehow one little girl had become connected to every person standing in his way.

That opened several possibilities.

Still, Malcolm forced himself to wait.

His strength was returning each day, although his body remained far from what it had been before the coma. He could walk without much difficulty now, and the tremors had mostly disappeared, but running for any meaningful distance would be dangerous. Fighting anyone properly trained would be even worse. He needed something quick, controlled, and simple enough that physical strength barely mattered.

So he continued watching.

Trixie's routine changed depending on Chloe's work schedule. Sometimes Chloe handled pickup herself. Penelope appeared again. Lucifer came twice during Malcolm's surveillance, which only confirmed that his attachment to Trixie wasn't some unusual one-time favor.

Then another woman started appearing.

Malcolm didn't recognize her. She picked up Trixie twice from school, drove directly to Chloe's home, stayed for several hours, and left only after Chloe returned from work. He concluded that the girl was a nanny.

That was even better for him.

Malcolm followed from a distance the first time and confirmed that they didn't have a police escort. The woman simply brought Trixie home, stayed with her until Chloe returned, and left afterward.

The second time confirmed the same pattern.

That became Malcolm's opening.

The following afternoon, he parked half a block away and watched the nanny arrive with Trixie shortly after school. Trixie climbed out with her backpack bouncing against her shoulders and continued talking while the woman gathered something from the passenger seat. They walked toward the house together. The nanny unlocked the front door, and both went inside.

Malcolm stayed where he was.

Years of police work had taught him that impatience ruined perfectly good plans. He watched the street instead, checking windows, parked cars, pedestrians, and anything else that could become inconvenient.

A man passed on the opposite sidewalk with a dog tugging at its leash. Malcolm waited until they disappeared around the corner. A delivery van drove through without slowing. Two houses farther down, an older woman watered flowers near her front porch before carrying the hose around the side of her house and disappearing from view.

Malcolm checked his watch and mentally reviewed the plan again.

He'd walk to the door and ring the bell.

The nanny would probably answer. People living in neighborhoods like this weren't expecting armed men to appear in broad daylight, especially when those men wore ordinary clothes and stood politely on the porch.

The moment the door opened, Malcolm would show her the gun.

He didn't need to fire it. In most situations, the weapon itself did most of the work. People saw the barrel, imagined what might happen next, and became cooperative remarkably quickly.

He'd force his way inside, restrain the nanny, take Trixie, and leave before anybody nearby understood that something had happened.

Ten minutes would be more than enough.

If the nanny refused to open the door, Malcolm had prepared for that as well. He'd simply pick the lock and go in.

He picked up the pistol from the passenger seat, removed the magazine, and checked it. 

Malcolm slid it back into place and chambered a round before resting the weapon across his thigh.

His hands barely shook anymore.

"Kid shouldn't be a problem."

He looked toward Chloe's house again.

For one unwanted moment, another image replaced it. His own son, years younger, running through the house with some plastic toy held above his head while demanding that Malcolm stop whatever he was doing and watch the complicated game he'd invented.

He crushed it before it could become anything useful.

Trixie was nothing but leverage, and that was all she needed to be.

Once Malcolm had the kid, it would be easier to control everyone else. Chloe would stop acting like a detective and start thinking like a mother. Dan would become reckless because Trixie was his daughter, and reckless people made mistakes. The Devil cared about the kid. If Trixie disappeared, Lucifer would come looking for her, and it would be interesting to see a weak Devil. Maybe he could get rid of them all at once.

Either way, Trixie gave Malcolm something he'd been missing since waking from his coma... Control.

He adjusted the baseball cap over his dyed hair and checked the fake beard in the rearview mirror. Then he tucked the handgun beneath his jacket, opened the minivan door, and stepped onto the pavement.

His pulse remained surprisingly calm.

He closed the door behind him and began walking toward Chloe's house at an ordinary pace, careful not to look around too often. Nervous men attracted attention. Neighbors ignored people who behaved like they belonged there.

Half a block disappeared beneath his feet without anyone noticing him.

Malcolm almost smiled.

After everything that had happened over the last few months, the simplicity of the plan felt refreshing: Reach the house, control the nanny, take the girl, and leave before anybody understood what had happened.

Easy in and easy out.

The house was only a short distance away when Malcolm slipped one hand beneath his jacket and curled his fingers around the pistol grip.

He took another step toward the driveway.

A blur suddenly crossed the edge of Malcolm's vision, and by the time his instincts registered the fist coming toward his face, it was already too late.

He couldn't even react.

The punch slammed into his face hard enough to wrench his head sideways and lift his feet from the pavement. His hand never managed to pull the gun from beneath his jacket before he crashed onto the street, darkness swallowing him almost immediately.

He instantly blacked out.

...

...[Some unknown times later]...

Malcolm woke with pain exploding across his face before he even understood where he was. A broken groan escaped him as his head lifted, and the movement immediately made everything worse. His nose throbbed with every heartbeat, warm blood had dried across his mouth and chin, and when his tongue moved instinctively across his gums, he discovered two of his front teeth were missing.

“Son of a...” Malcolm muttered before another wave of pain made him stop.

He tried to move his arms and quickly realized that strong straps were tied around his wrists, chest, and ankles, holding him tightly to a heavy wooden chair. Panic surged through the confusion in his head as he pulled against the restraints harder, but nothing moved.

Malcolm slowly looked around.

The room was dim and unfamiliar, with concrete walls and a single hanging light above him. Then his eyes found the woman standing several feet away.

She wore a tight black leather dress and calmly leaned against a metal table as though she'd been waiting for him to wake up.

Malcolm's stomach dropped.

The table beside her was covered with knives, pliers, hooks, clamps, an anal umbrella, and several other objects he didn't recognize but guessed what they were for.

Maze noticed his expression and smiled.

Malcolm stared at her, then at the table, before swallowing through the blood in his mouth.

“Fuck!”