Chloe Decker stepped out of the unmarked car and paused for half a second as the scene opened before her.
Her eyes moved over everything quickly.
The bullet casings on the pavement.
The broken window.
The blood near the sidewalk where Delilah was shot.
The crowd gathered behind the tape, whispering and filming like death was just another piece of nightlife entertainment.
She walked toward the wrecked car.
The shooter lay on the asphalt beside the driver’s side, surrounded by broken glass and blood stains. His body had already been checked by the first responders, but Chloe crouched beside him anyway, studying the angle of the crash, the way he had been thrown from the vehicle, and the expensive watch on his wrist that immediately looked out of place with everything else about him.
Low-level shooters did not usually wear watches like that.
She leaned closer, careful not to disturb anything, when a quiet snicker reached her from behind.
Chloe paused.
Two rookie uniforms stood near the tape, trying to look busy while failing miserably. One of them whispered something to the other, and both of them glanced in her direction before looking away too quickly.
Chloe straightened and turned toward them.
“Can I help you?”
The rookies froze like kids caught passing notes in class.
One of them cleared his throat and shifted his weight. “Nah, Detective. Just talking about some of our favorite movies.”
The other rookie fought a grin and stared at the ground.
Chloe stared at them without blinking.
The first rookie’s smile started dying under the pressure.
Before Chloe could say anything else, another plain-clothed detective walked up from the other direction with the kind of tired confidence that came from already knowing how much trouble a scene could become before anyone else admitted it.
Daniel Espinoza gave the rookies one sharp look.
“Hey,” Dan said, nodding toward the street. “Go secure the perimeter.”
The rookies immediately moved.
Chloe watched them leave, then turned back to Dan with a flat expression.
“You here to babysit me? Lieutenant said this is my case, and I need it to be.”
Dan lifted his eyebrows slightly. “Well, hi. Nice to see you, too.”
Chloe gave him nothing.
Dan sighed, glancing toward the body before looking back at her. “Yes, it’s your case, Chloe. Want to hear what I got so far though?”
“No.”
Dan ignored that, because of course he did.
“It’s an easy one,” he said, pointing toward the dead shooter. “This is our bad guy. Eddie Deacon. Low-level drug dealer.”
He held up an evidence bag containing small packets of heroin. Each packet had the same stamp printed across it, the word BOOM beneath a tiny picture of a bomb.
“Found these in his pocket,” Dan continued. Then he lifted another evidence bag, this one holding a single packet with the same stamp on it, and a purse. “And this in Delilah’s purse.”
Chloe’s eyes narrowed.
Dan gave a small shrug, as if the whole thing had already solved itself. “So, obviously drug-related. Maybe she owed him a bunch of cash or something. She wasn’t exactly selling out stadiums these days.”
Chloe looked from the packet to the shooter, then back to Dan.
“How’d you know he’s low-level?”
Dan pointed toward the wrecked car with his chin. “Look at his car.”
Chloe did.
The car was garbage even before the bus had turned it into modern art. Cheap, dirty, badly maintained, and exactly the kind of vehicle someone would expect from a small-time dealer hired to do a stupid job.
Then Chloe looked back at Eddie Deacon’s wrist.
“Yeah,” she said slowly. “But look at his watch. That ain’t cheap.”
Dan glanced at it, then shrugged again. “Probably a fake.”
Chloe stepped closer to the body and stared at the watch more carefully. Even from a few feet away, it did not look fake. The weight, the shine, the details, all of it seemed wrong for the story Dan was trying to wrap around this scene.
Dan’s voice lowered slightly.
“Wouldn’t pick too hard at this one, Chloe. Not after Palmetto Street.”
Her shoulders stiffened.
For a second, the noise around the crime scene faded under that one name.
Palmetto.
Every whisper at the station and look from other detectives. Every conversation that stopped when she walked into the room. The penalty box. The quiet judgment. The polite version of being treated like a problem nobody wanted to inherit.
Chloe turned toward Dan, her eyes sharp now.
“I begged for this case because of Palmetto, Dan. I need a big win or I’ll never get out of the penalty box.”
Dan’s expression softened for half a second, but Chloe did not give him room to say anything comforting.
“So,” she continued, looking back toward the club entrance. “Any witnesses?”
...
Inside Lux.
The club had quieted after the shooting. The guests left and the workers were cleaning up the place.
Lucifer sat at the counter with a glass of scotch in one hand, dressed in a fresh suit and looking far too relaxed for a man who had supposedly just survived a drive-by shooting.
Chloe stood beside him with her notepad open and a pen ready between her fingers.
'God, she's beautiful,' Lucifer looked up at her with an easy smile. “Lucifer Morningstar.”
Chloe paused for a second.
“Lucifer Morningstar?” she repeated. “Is that supposed to be a stage name?”
“Given by God, unfortunately,” Lucifer said, then studied her with sudden interest. “You seem familiar. Have we met before?”
Chloe kept her face calm, though something flickered behind her eyes. “Five minutes ago,” she said. “And I’m the one asking questions here. Tell me about your connection to Delilah.”
Lucifer’s smile softened slightly.
“She performed here years ago. Back then, I’d sometimes sit with her at the piano while she sang. Then she became famous, and tonight someone decided to put bullets in her.” His gaze stayed on Chloe. “Fortunately, I was there to save her.”
Chloe wrote something down.
“Did you know the shooter?”
“No,” Lucifer said. “Although we did exchange a few words before he kicked off. I asked him why he did it.”
Chloe stopped writing and looked at him.
“I see. Like to play cop, do you?”
Lucifer leaned back slightly, his smile returning with dangerous ease. “I like to play in general. What about you, Detective?”
Chloe almost smiled despite herself.
This guy was ridiculous.
Rich, handsome, smug, and talking like he had wandered out of some expensive mental health retreat with a bar tab. Still, there was something sharp behind the performance. Something that made her pay attention even while half of her brain wanted to dismiss him as another nightclub lunatic with good tailoring.
“So you questioned a dead man?” She asked.
“Not dead yet,” Lucifer corrected. “He was still on the edge. His soul had not fully crossed over.”
Chloe nodded slowly, indulging him with the patience of a detective who had already heard too many strange witness statements in one night.
“Okay then. Why’d he do it?”
“Money, of course.” Lucifer took a sip of scotch. “You humans love your money.”
“Yes,” Chloe said dryly. “Yes, we do. And what planet are you from? London?”
Lucifer smiled at her, cute enough to be annoying. “He also said, ‘I only pulled the trigger.’ Rather interesting choice of words, wouldn’t you say?”
“Delilah was shot by a drug dealer,” Chloe said, shutting the conversation down before he could turn it into another performance. “And looks like Delilah herself kept the guy pretty busy. It’s sad. It’s ugly. But it’s not rocket science. Something obviously went south between them, the dealer tries to kill her, and a nice little act of God takes him out.”
Lucifer’s face sharpened instantly.
“It doesn’t work like that.”
The words came out faster than his smile could cover.
Chloe noticed.
Lucifer seemed to realize it too, because his expression smoothed almost immediately. He turned his glass once and gave her a pointed look.
“It’s quite a neatly wrapped present for the LAPD, don’t you think?”
Chloe folded her arms loosely, not impressed enough to let him see that she was listening.
“Okay. How does she end up surviving in a hailstorm of bullets with two non-lethal bullet wounds, and you get away without a scratch?” Her eyes dropped briefly to his perfect suit before returning to his face. “That’s suspicious, don’t you think?”
“The benefits of immortality.”
'Darn it! I can't lie. Lucifer can't lie. I need to learn to properly phase my words in the future.' He thought.
Chloe stared at him.
Then she looked down at her notepad and wrote with exaggerated seriousness.
“Immortality. Of course.” She paused, glancing back up. “Do you spell that with one m or two? I always forget.”
Lucifer gave her a thin smile, but his mood had already shifted.
“What exactly will your corrupt little department do about it?”
Chloe’s expression hardened.
“Excuse me?”
Lucifer turned toward her fully.
“Will you find who paid for this? Will that person face punishment? Or will everyone be satisfied with the dead man in the street and move on?”
Chloe watched him for a long second.
There it was again.
Something underneath the arrogance. Something angry, focused, and strangely personal. She could not tell if he was a prick, a lunatic, or something else entirely, but she knew one thing for certain.
He was not as casual about Delilah’s shooting as he wanted to appear.
“You’ve got some balls on you, pal,” Chloe said.
Lucifer brightened at once. “Thank you, but they’re really quite average.”
Chloe’s expression flattened. "My bad."
Lucifer tilted his head again, studying her with sudden curiosity. “Are you sure we haven’t met? I could swear I’ve seen you naked. Did we have sex?”
Chloe stared at him for one silent second.
Nope.
Just a prick.
“What?” she snapped. “Go to hell.”
“No, thank you.” Lucifer lifted his glass again, completely unbothered. “Much more fun here.”
Chloe closed her notepad and turned to leave.
Lucifer straightened slightly. “Wait. Detective. We’re not finished.”
Chloe did not stop.
“Yeah,” she said over her shoulder. “We are.”
She walked out before he could say anything more, leaving Lucifer at the bar with his scotch.
'Well, we finally met. And I can already feel this weird feeling in my heart...' Lucifer closed his eyes for a moment and focused. His heart was beating faster than before, and he wanted to stay close to Chloe for some reason. 'So, this is how it is, huh? God made her for me and put her in my path.'
He opened his eyes and finished the scotch.
'Haaa... time to have sex with Maze. I'm finally gonna lose my virginity to a demon. Not that Lucifer is a virgin, but I am. So, since my soul is in this body, technically, I'm a virgin. Wait! Why am I thinking about this again? It's freakin' weird. Arg. Whatever. As long as I don't cum within a minute. Shit! Not again.'
Lucifer made his way toward the elevator.
...