CHAPTER 157: Let Us Help

Mike leans back, his arms crossed, but I notice the way his fingers tap against his bicep, a nervous tic. “I know what you’re thinking,” he says. “But it’s not that simple.”

“Oh, isn’t it?” I shoot back. “She’s dragged you through hell and back, alienated you from your family, turned your life into her personal battleground—and you’re going to tell me it’s complicated?”

He flinches, just slightly, but I can see it. He swallows, and the defiance in his gaze wavers, just for a second. “I thought I could handle her. I thought… I don’t know what I thought. Maybe that I could change her, or that she’d change on her own. But she’s—she’s smarter than I gave her credit for.”

“Smarter?” I raise an eyebrow, biting back a laugh that’s anything but amused. “Mike, she’s a demon unleashed.”

“She wasn’t always like this,” he says, almost pleading, like he’s trying to convince himself as much as me. “At first, she was… different. Charming. She made me feel like I was the center of her world.”

“Yeah,