Chapter Text
The club was new, just opened. Rafael had heard about it from the other ADAs at the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.
They didn’t invite him.
No one did these days. It was well known throughout the office that he only cared about winning, a trait that made him insufferable when he did—and intolerable when he didn’t.
Rafael sat down at the bar and let his gaze sweep the room.
The club—Lux II—was alive. Gold and amber light glowed low and warm, catching on glass and skin alike. Music thrummed through the walls, heavy with temptation and promise. The air smelled of expensive liquor and perfume, of excess and escape.
It was crowded without being claustrophobic—here, everyone felt seen, wanted, invited to be exactly who they were…or who they wished they could be.
At the heart of it all sat the piano: glossy black, perfectly placed, waiting.
The bartender approached, and Rafael felt it before he fully registered her presence—the subtle shift in the air, the awareness of being measured. She looked dangerous in a way that felt intentional. Black leather clung to her like a second skin, her top sheer enough to suggest invitation without ever offering it.
Her eyes were dark and knowing, the kind that had watched people unravel across this bar and learned to recognize the moment just before it happened. Her stare was blunt, unapologetic, as if secrets didn’t interest her because she already knew them. Her mouth curved somewhere between a smirk and a challenge, sharp with amusement.
“What can I get you?” she asked, voice smooth, edged with something that made the question feel less like service and more like a test.
“Macallan twenty-one. Neat.”
One corner of her mouth lifted, approval—or perhaps recognition. She turned away to pour the drink, already certain he’d be back for more than the whiskey.
She set the glass in front of him, the base clicking softly against the bar like punctuation.
“House rule,” she said, almost casually. “When someone skips the menu and goes straight for a twenty-one, we don’t ask what they want.”
Her eyes lifted to his, dark and steady.
“We assume they’ve already given it.”
The words landed wrong—too precise, too intimate.
Rafael’s first instinct was irritation. A defensive flare, sharp and automatic. He hadn’t said anything. She didn’t know him. This was theater, atmosphere, a practiced line meant to unsettle patrons with more money than sense.
And yet—
Something cold threaded beneath the annoyance. Recognition, unwanted and immediate. The feeling of being seen not as he was now, but as he had been in a moment he’d never spoken aloud.
His fingers tightened around the glass. He forced himself to breathe, to keep his expression neutral. This was a coincidence. A trick. Nothing more.
Still, when he finally lifted the drink, his hand wasn’t as steady as he would have liked.
Across the bar, the bartender had already turned away—certain, as if the exchange were finished.
As Rafael lifted the glass and took a sip, the burn blooming warm and sharp down his throat, the music cut out.
Silence spread through the club—not abrupt, but deliberate. Anticipatory.
He turned.
A man was approaching the piano.
Lucifer Morningstar moved like a panther —graceful, confident, unapologetically aware of the space he commanded. His smile was wicked and inviting, the kind that promised trouble and delivered it gladly. But his eyes held something far older than charm: a quiet ache, carefully hidden, endlessly managed.
He sat at the piano with easy familiarity, set his drink atop its polished black surface, and placed his hands on the keys.
The first notes rolled out smooth and jazzy, playful enough to lure, dark enough to warn. His fingers danced, confident and intimate, as if the instrument belonged to him—or perhaps the other way around.
Then he sang:
Oh, sinnerman,
where you gonna run to?
Sinnerman,
where you gonna run to?
Where you gonna run to?
All on that day.
The notes curled through the room, smooth and seductive, but Rafael felt them land like a hand at his throat.
At first, he told himself it was nothing. Performance. Theater. Lux was built on spectacle, on indulgence dressed up as intimacy. The song was old, familiar, meant to provoke.
And yet—
Oh, sinnerman, where you gonna run to?
The question pressed in, insistent. Unavoidable.
Rafael didn’t move. The glass hovered halfway to his mouth, forgotten. The burn of the whiskey faded, replaced by something colder, sharper. The kind of awareness that came when denial cracked just enough to let fear seep through.
He had spent years mastering composure—controlling a room, a courtroom, a narrative. He knew how to withstand scrutiny, how to turn accusations aside with precision and confidence.
This felt nothing like that.
The song didn’t demand answers. It didn’t raise its voice. It simply waited, patient and knowing, as if escape had never truly been on the table.
An invitation, wrapped in velvet and sin.
An accusation, sung softly enough that only the guilty could hear it.
Rafael finally took another drink, more out of instinct than desire. It didn’t steady him. It only confirmed what his pulse already knew.
There was nowhere to run.
Lucifer finished the song to rapt attention and scattered applause, then rose from the piano as if the performance had merely been a prelude. He crossed the room with unhurried confidence, the crowd parting instinctively, and slid into the empty seat beside Rafael at the bar.
Mazikeen, the bartender, appeared almost immediately, summoned by a subtle lift of Lucifer’s fingers. Without a word, he indicated a drink for himself—and a fresh one for Rafael.
Lucifer turned then, giving Rafael an unashamed once-over. He took in the faint shadows beneath his eyes, the loosened tie, the suit worn just enough to suggest exhaustion rather than neglect. A man stretched thin. A man still standing.
He offered his hand.
“Lucifer Morningstar,” he said easily. “Tell me—how are you enjoying my club?”
Rafael glanced at him properly this time. The suit was Armani, dark charcoal and impeccably cut. The confidence wasn’t showy—shoulders relaxed, movements fluid. This wasn’t posturing.
This was a predator at ease.
He accepted the handshake, firm and deliberate. “Is that a stage name?” he asked.
Lucifer’s smile widened, delighted.
“God-given, I’m afraid,” he replied, the words wrapped in that unmistakable English accent.
And just like that, the space beside Rafael felt far more dangerous than the courtroom ever had.
Rafael felt it before he saw it—the subtle change in the air beside him.
Behind the bar, Mazikeen paused mid-motion. The glass in her hand stopped short of the shelf. Her eyes lifted, sharp and assessing, cutting past Lucifer and locking onto Rafael with renewed interest.
Not curiosity.
Calculation.
She tilted her head slightly, studying him the way one studies a blade—testing the balance, the edge. Then, without being asked, she reached for a different bottle. A better one. She poured Rafael’s refill with care she hadn’t bothered to offer before and slid it toward him.
“This one’s on the house,” she said flatly.
Lucifer glanced at the glass, then at her. One brow arched, delighted.
“Oh?” he said. “High praise coming from you, darling.”
Maze’s mouth curved—not a smile, not quite. “He didn’t flinch,” she replied, eyes never leaving Rafael. “Most of them do.”
That earned him Lucifer’s full attention again.
The amusement was still there, but now it was threaded with something sharper. Hunger, perhaps. Or respect.
“Well,” Lucifer murmured, lifting his own drink, “I do adore a man who surprises the help.”
Maze snorted softly and turned away, already done with the exchange—but not before adding, almost as an afterthought:
“Try not to break him,” she said.
Then, quieter—meant only for Lucifer—
“Or do. Either way, he’s worth watching.”
Rafael exhaled slowly, fingers tightening around the glass.
Whatever he had just stepped into, it was no longer a coincidence.
And Lux, it seemed, had noticed him.
Lucifer didn’t reach for his drink.
Instead, he leaned closer—just enough to claim Rafael’s attention without demanding it. The music had started up again, softer now, background rather than spectacle. Lux breathed around them, but the space between their shoulders felt oddly insulated.
“Forgive me,” Lucifer said lightly, “but drinks are dreadfully inefficient for men like you.”
Rafael’s jaw tightened. “Men like me?”
“Tired,” Lucifer supplied pleasantly. “Competent. Haunted in very specific ways.” His eyes flicked briefly to the glass, untouched now. “Alcohol only dulls the edges. And you,” he added, voice dropping, “strike me as someone who lives on them.”
Rafael bristled. “If this is your idea of hospitality—”
Lucifer held up a finger, smiling. “Conversation,” he corrected. “No cost. No obligation. Merely an exchange of truths. I find them far more intoxicating.”
Behind the bar, Mazikeen stilled again. She glanced over, caught Lucifer’s tone, and—after a beat—turned away deliberately. Gave them privacy. That, more than anything else, set Rafael’s nerves on edge.
Lucifer noticed. Of course he did.
“Relax,” he murmured. “If I wanted something from you tonight, you’d already know.”
“That’s not reassuring,” Rafael said.
Lucifer’s smile softened—not kinder, but quieter. More sincere. “It isn’t meant to be.”
A pause stretched between them, dense with unasked questions.
“So,” Lucifer continued, folding his hands loosely on the bar, “tell me—what do you desire?”
Rafael stared into the amber depths of his glass. The liquor caught the light like molten gold, steady and contained. He took a breath, then looked back at the man beside him—this impossible, infuriating, unsettling presence who seemed far too pleased to be asking the question.
“I want to be the best damned ADA in New York City,” he said at last.
The words came out clean. Certain. Unapologetic.
Lucifer hummed softly, delighted. Not surprised. Not impressed in the way most people would be—but satisfied, like a puzzle piece clicking neatly into place.
“Oh,” he said warmly, turning just enough to face Rafael fully. “Now that is a proper answer.”
His eyes gleamed, not with mockery, but with appreciation. Respect, even.
“So many people dress their wants up as virtues,” Lucifer went on, voice smooth as the music threading through the room. “Justice. Legacy. Redemption.” He waved a hand dismissively. “Tedious things, really. But you—” his gaze sharpened, intent and intimate, “—you know exactly what you want. Power. Excellence. To win.”
Rafael stiffened. “That’s not—”
Lucifer held up a finger, still smiling. “I didn’t say it was a flaw.”
A beat.
“In fact,” he added lightly, lifting his glass in a small, private toast, “it’s refreshing.”
The word lingered between them.
Lucifer took a sip, eyes never leaving Rafael’s. “Tell me,” he said gently, almost kindly, “how much would you be willing to give to make sure you never lose?”
The question slipped into the space like a blade wrapped in velvet.
And Rafael—brilliant, driven, already halfway over the edge—felt the room tilt ever so slightly toward inevitability. “Anything,” Rafael said quietly. Then, firmer, as if daring himself to say it aloud. “Everything.”
He exhaled, frustration finally bleeding through the polish. “I’m so damned tired of losing cases because of technicalities. Because of shoddy police work. Because the truth gets buried under procedure and paperwork.”
His grip tightened around the glass.
“I’d give my very soul,” he finished, voice low and raw, “if it meant every one of my cases was perfect.”
For a moment, Lucifer didn’t move.
The club noise seemed to recede—not vanish, just dull, like sound underwater. Lucifer studied Rafael with an intensity that stripped away the humor, the flirtation, the indulgent charm. What remained was something ancient and attentive.
Then—
Lucifer smiled.
It wasn’t wicked this time. It wasn’t playful. It was slow, reverent. Almost… tender.
“My,” he murmured softly. “People usually hedge when they say that part out loud.”
He leaned in just slightly, voice dropping to something meant only for Rafael. “But you didn’t even blink.”
Lucifer’s gaze flicked briefly to Rafael’s chest, as if he could see straight through the suit and bone and into the thing beneath. “Perfect cases,” he mused. “No mistakes. No losses. No guilty man slipping through your fingers because someone else failed to do their job.”
He straightened again, lifting his glass. “You know,” he added lightly, as though commenting on the weather, “most people would say that metaphorically.”
A pause.
“I do so admire a man who means it literally.”
Lucifer took a sip, eyes never leaving Rafael’s.
“And tell me, Counselor,” he said gently, dangerously, “would you still feel the same… if I told you perfection always comes with a cost?”
The question hung there—unanswered, unescapable.
And somewhere deep inside, Rafael felt the terrible certainty settle in:
He had already named his price.
Rafael finally looked at him.
“I was raised in the Catholic Church,” he said flatly. “Dragged to Mass every Sunday.” His mouth twisted, not quite a smile. “And every Sunday I prayed that my father would stay sober. Get a job. Stop drinking the rent away. Stop beating the shit out of me and my mother.”
His voice didn’t shake. That was almost worse.
““And my prayers were never answered,” he went on. “So no—I don’t believe in God. Or souls. Or any of that religious claptrap.”
For once, Lucifer didn’t interrupt.
He didn’t smile, or joke, or deflect with charm.
He listened, eyes unreadable.
“I don’t believe in the devil either,” Rafael said, as if daring the universe to contradict him.
“That,” Lucifer said gently, “is what makes you interesting.”
Something quiet settled over his expression—not pity, not judgment. Recognition. The kind that came from standing in the wreckage of belief long after everyone else had walked away.
“Well,” Lucifer said softly at last, “that makes two of us.”
Rafael frowned. “Excuse me?”
Lucifer turned slightly on the stool, angling his body toward Rafael as if the rest of the room no longer mattered. “I don’t ask about God,” he said gently. “He’s dreadful at returning calls. And I couldn’t care less what you believe.”
His eyes held Rafael’s now—steady, sincere in a way that was far more unsettling than charm.
“I ask what you desire,” he continued, “because belief has a nasty habit of failing people when they need it most. Desire, on the other hand…” His smile returned, quieter this time. “Desire is honest.”
A pause.
“You weren’t praying for miracles,” Lucifer said. “You were bargaining. You just didn’t realize it yet.”
Rafael stiffened. “I was a child.”
“Yes,” Lucifer agreed immediately. No hesitation. No cruelty. “And the universe still collected.”
That landed harder than any accusation.
Lucifer leaned back slightly, giving Rafael space without breaking eye contact. “You don’t need to believe in souls for them to exist,” he said calmly. “Just as you don’t need to believe in gravity for it to pull you under.”
He glanced at Rafael’s glass, then back to his face. “You’ve already told me what you’d give. I merely believe in taking people at their word.”
Silence stretched between them—thick, heavy, intimate.
Lucifer’s voice softened. “So tell me, Rafael… if no one ever answered your prayers before—what makes you think I would?”
Rafael laughed, sharp and humorless. “I don’t think you would,” he said. “I don’t even know where any of this came from. Probably the bottom of the bottle.”
Lucifer Morningstar smiled.
Not wide. Not wicked.
Certain.
“And what if I told you,” he said pleasantly, “that you could have everything you desire? The power. The money. The reputation.” He tilted his head, studying Rafael like a connoisseur appraising a rare vintage. “In short—would you trade away your soul to be the best?”
“Damn straight,” Rafael replied without hesitation.
No pause. No irony. No doubt.
Lucifer’s eyes lit—not with triumph, but with delight so pure it bordered on reverence.
“Done!” he declared brightly, clapping his hands once. “Tomorrow, your new life begins.”
Rafael laughed again, shaking his head as he lifted his glass. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Lucifer raised his own drink in response, the gesture almost fond.
“Oh, you will,” he said lightly. “You always do.”
They drank.
And somewhere between the last swallow and the empty glass, something old and irrevocable shifted—quiet as a signature drying on parchment.
Lucifer slid off the stool, already losing interest in the conversation the way one does once business is concluded. As he turned away, he added, almost absently:
“Sleep well tonight, Rafael. It’s the last time failure will ever keep you awake.”
Rafael watched him disappear into the crowd, still smiling to himself.
He didn’t notice the way the lights above the bar flickered once—brief, imperceptible.
But Lux did.
And so did the universe.
~~~~~~
Rafael told himself it had been a hallucination.
He had not slept properly in weeks. He lived on coffee, adrenaline, and the slow burn of resentment. Stress did strange things to the mind; every medical journal agreed on that. Auditory distortions. Visual tricks. Pattern-making where none existed.
Perfectly reasonable explanations.
He walked for a while before hailing a cab, the cold air sharp against his skin, grounding. The city was solid beneath his feet—brick and concrete and traffic noise. Real things. Tangible things.
Demons did not leave scuff marks on sidewalks.
By the time he reached his apartment, he had reconstructed the entire evening into something survivable. A stranger with an accent. A bar that was too loud. A conversation that had hit a nerve. The rest—atmosphere. Suggestibility. Fatigue.
He unlocked the door, stepped inside, and flipped on the light.
Nothing happened.
No shadows recoiled. No fire licked the walls. His apartment looked exactly as it always did: immaculate, spare, lonely. The kind of place no one stayed in long enough to leave a trace.
Rafael exhaled.
“See?” he muttered to no one.
He poured himself a scotch, didn’t bother measuring. The burn steadied him. Alcohol was chemistry, not theology.
Lucifer Morningstar.
The name surfaced unbidden.
Rafael scoffed and took another drink. His mind had latched onto a cultural reference, that was all. The devil was an idea—useful for metaphors, fear, control. Nothing more.
Still, he found himself replaying the moment—over and over—the way the noise had dulled, the lights had flickered, the unbearable certainty in the man’s eyes.
Certainty was persuasive. That didn’t make it true.
He slept poorly. Woke with a headache. Case law flooded back in, familiar and reliable. Statutes didn’t lie. Precedent didn’t smile knowingly at you from across a bar.
By morning, the experience had been filed away under Stress-Induced Delusion and cross-referenced with Narcissistic Projection—because of course his subconscious would invent a figure who saw him perfectly.
At the office, everything worked.
Too well.
Rafael argued a motion without notes. Caught a contradiction no one else had seen. Anticipated the defense’s strategy three steps ahead. The judge looked at him like he was witnessing something rare.
Rafael felt a chill crawl up his spine.
Coincidence, he told himself. Momentum. Experience.
Then he opened his briefcase.
Inside, resting neatly on top of his files, was a business card he did not remember taking.
Black. Unadorned.
One word, embossed in silver.
Lucifer.
And beneath it, in elegant script:
When you’re ready.
Rafael stared at it for a long time.
Then, very carefully, very deliberately, he closed the briefcase.
He did not throw the card away.
He told himself that meant nothing, too.