Chapter 12
12
ATLAS
I ’d walked half of Charleston before I let myself think her name.
Anna.
The city was loud with heat and memory. Palmettos whispered over the sidewalks, the sun pressed low against the skyline, and tourists shuffled past with phones out, heads up, voices bright. I moved through them like a ghost—quiet, massive, invisible in plain sight.
Waiting for something.
A sign. A sound. A whisper from somewhere I couldn’t name. Hell, maybe I was hoping my mother would speak. She used to believe in signs. Told me rain meant the angels were rinsing their wings. Told me a hawk in the sky was a good omen. That if you ever saw a woman brush her hair in the wind without flinching, you’d seen a witch.
She made the world into a story.
Now all I had were facts. Fragments. Unanswered questions.
And the sound of Anna’s voice, stuck in my chest.
I stopped at a corner near King Street and looked up at the sky. The clouds were rolling in—heavy, slow, ominous. The kind of weather that reminded you to brace. The kind that looked like a warning.
Still nothing.
So I did the one thing I didn’t want to do.
I called Marcus.
He picked up on the second ring.
“Well, damn. Is this The Commander himself breaking radio silence? You need bail money or bourbon?”
“I need a favor.”
A pause. I could hear him shifting—probably in his ridiculous leather chair, the one he’d stolen from Ryker and never given back.
“Okay,” he said slowly. “What kind of favor?”
“I need Anna’s address.”
Another pause, and then a low whistle.
“Well, well, well. Did the universe give you the push or did you finally grow a pair?”
“Just get it for me.”
Marcus chuckled. “You know I live for these emotional breakthroughs of yours.”
“Marcus.”
“All right, all right. Keep your pants on, Bigfoot. I’ll call you back in ten.”
He hung up, and I kept walking.
Not toward Anna. Not yet.
Toward the water.
The Battery was half-shadowed when I reached it, the wind stirring heavier now, the first hints of storm whispering over the bay. The city always quieted here, like it remembered its ghosts.
I stopped and let the breeze hit my face. Closed my eyes. Thought of my mother’s laugh. The way she used to braid her hair, telling me stories about lost kingdoms and coral palaces. She’d hold my face in both hands and say, You don’t need to speak to be seen, Atlas. You only need to know what’s worth saying.
I’d never forgotten that.
Never stopped wishing she’d say it again.
The phone buzzed in my pocket.
Marcus.
I answered.
“Got it,” he said. “She’s staying at a condo off East Bay. Top floor.”
“Thanks.”
“You good?”
“Yeah.”
He didn’t buy it. I could hear it in his silence. He’d seen me the day of the wedding. Seen me crumble without making a sound.
“You sure you don’t wanna?—”
“Thanks, Marcus.”
Another pause. Then a sigh.
“All right. Go get her, caveman.”
I hung up and turned.
But before I could take a step, the phone rang again.
Opal.
My stomach turned.
I almost let it go to voicemail.
She was too close to my mother. To things I hadn’t let myself touch in years. But Opal didn’t call without reason. And she sure as hell didn’t waste time.
I answered.
“Atlas Dane,” she said, voice clear and cutting. “I suppose I should say it’s about time.”
I stayed silent.
She didn’t care.
“She came to see me today. Anna.”
My heart stopped.
“She asked about you. Didn’t have your number. Didn’t have a damn thing except those wide green eyes and a desperation that made my bones ache.”
I clenched my jaw. “She shouldn’t be getting involved.”
“She already is.”
“She doesn’t know what she’s walking into.”
“You didn’t, either. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth walking,” Opal said.
I hated how well she knew me. How much she saw.
“I remember the wedding,” she said, softer now. “I remember how you looked when she didn’t show. You cracked, Atlas. Not loud. Not messy. Just a man split open at the seams.”
My throat burned.
“This girl—she’s not like the other one. She’s not playing a part. She’s not trying to win your name.”
“You don’t know that,” I said, somehow not making it sound like a growl.
“I know enough to send you her number. And I’m telling you to use it. Today.”
She didn’t wait for a reply. Just hung up.
The message came through a second later.
Anna Peters.
Her number.
Her address.
I stared at the screen.
Was this what I’d been waiting for? A sign? I had just asked Marcus, and now Opal was delivering, too.
If it was a sign, I didn’t need more time.
The first drop of rain hit my arm as I turned toward East Bay.
By the time I reached her building, I was soaked. Rain poured in sheets, plastering my shirt to my chest, dripping from my hair into my eyes. My boots were heavy with water, and the world smelled like thunder.
I stared up at her door.
One floor up. A single hallway. One barrier between silence and something I didn’t know how to name.
I stood there for a long time.
Then I rang the bell.
The door opened.
And there she was.
Hair loose. Lips parted. Those green eyes wide, flickering with something like relief and disbelief and hope.
I didn’t know what to say.
So I said the only thing that mattered.
“I’m sorry.”
She blinked. “What for?”
“For leaving. For not explaining. For … all of it.”
Her gaze softened as she stepped back, silently inviting me in. I crossed the threshold without hesitation, the door shutting behind me with a soft click.
“You don’t have to do this now,” she said, voice quiet but steady.
Her hand reached out, wrapping around mine—small, warm, certain.
“There’s time for apologies later.”
And then, without another word, she slipped her top off.
Just like that.
And my brain shut down.
Her body was soft curves and subtle strength—shoulders that held tension like grace, a waist that dipped just enough to make my throat tighten. Her breasts were full, high, tipped with dusky pink. Her skin was smooth and pale with a flush rising like flame.
I couldn’t move.
My heart was a war drum in my chest.
She stepped closer, fingers rising to the hem of my soaked shirt. She peeled it up slowly, her knuckles grazing my ribs, her breath warm against my collarbone.
“You’re trembling,” she whispered.
“I don’t do this.”
Her eyes met mine. “Neither do I.”
She helped me with the rest. Belt. Pants. Wet fabric peeled down my thighs. She didn’t flinch when she saw the thick ridge of my arousal.
If anything, she smiled.
A soft, wicked thing that stole the air from my lungs.
I didn’t need help after that.
I picked her up, her legs wrapping around my waist like they belonged there. She was light in my arms—feather-soft and heat-heavy—and I carried her toward the bedroom like I was taking her into battle.
Because that’s what this was.
Not a surrender.
A choice.
To feel.
To hope.
To want.
No matter how much it might break me.