Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
She’d confessed to murder. Confessed. She’d never even told her mother what she did, though Lily knew that her mother certainly suspected the truth.
I murdered a man. She’d smiled when he died. What kind of person did that?
The daughter of a serial killer. Someone who is just as screwed up on the inside as her mother and—
A knock on the guest room door. Because they were back at Atlas’s estate.
He’d driven with intent focus and very little talking after her confession.
Once they’d arrived, all safe and sound, he’d vanished into his study with Desmond.
Probably to start a thorough review of the video footage that she’d heard him talking about before that door closed—security footage of Benedict’s house.
She’d gone upstairs because a shut door clearly told her she wasn’t invited into the chat taking place in the study. And now, she’d closed her own door against him.
Maybe he’d take a hint and move on to his room.
I told you that I killed a man. You said nothing in response.
She’d kept that big confession secret for a very long time, and she’d expected…more, dammit.
Her gaze fell on the closed manila file on her nightstand. His NDA. Idly, she picked it up and began thumbing through the contents. She snorted at some of the stuff she read because no way could that stand up in court.
And…Her eyes narrowed on a particular line. I will go to the grave before I reveal any secret that Lily Gallo shares with me.
Definitely didn’t sound legal. She swallowed. Not legal, but she did like the intent.
The knock came again. Harder.
“I’m asleep,” she said, voice raised.
The door opened. “The hell you are.”
She shrugged. She probably should have locked the door. Next time.
He’d yanked open the top two buttons on his dark shirt. His hair was disheveled, as if he’d run his fingers through it. His eyes were intense, extra bright, and that laser stare was locked and loaded on her.
“Finish your meeting?” Lily inquired sweetly as she shut the file and put it back down on the nightstand. “The one you did not invite me to attend?”
“Desmond and I are breaking the law.”
She rolled her eyes. Then caught herself.
Lily, get controlled. Get focused. It was hard because…she still felt shattered on the inside. From the orgasm? From letting go? From walking into Benedict’s house, knowing he was dead when she’d tried to get him to leave the cabin? Seeing all the destruction—seeing…
She drew in a deep breath. “I broke the law with you when we did our B&E.” And when I killed a man. Pretty sure that counts as breaking the law, too.
“I had to give Desmond new orders.”
“Orders you didn’t want me to hear?”
He shrugged. “Thought you’d object.”
Her stomach clenched. “You told him.” That was the only thing that made sense. “You went to him, and you told him what I confessed to you.”
He was on her. In a flash. Right in front of her, with his hands on her, curling around her shoulders.
“I’ll take your secrets to my grave. I will never turn on you.
Never. But you did say things that caught my attention.
See, when you talk, I listen. Intently. If Benedict had done the same, if he’d listened to you, he’d be breathing. ”
She flinched.
He let her go. “You are the priority. My priority. That’s what I went over with Desmond first. If you and I should vanish, he finds you first. He gets you out of any dangerous situation…
first. The team knows they will use any force necessary to protect you.
You come before me. They needed to understand that, and, dammit, Lily, stop shaking your head at me.
It’s my order. I pay them. I can get them to do whatever I want. ”
She was shaking her head. Frantically. “I told you that you were the target! You! Not me. You are the primary target! Your team needs to be focused on securing you!”
“You said he wanted me to hurt. That he would take away the people close to me. You are the one closest to me.”
“That’s not true.” He was so wrong. “Desmond is. He’s like your brother. He has to be the one who matters most.” They’d been friends for years.
“I have an engagement ring on your finger.”
Yes, and she was very aware of the weight on her hand. “It’s pretend.”
“No, it’s a damn fifty-thousand-dollar ring.”
He’d given her a fifty-thousand-dollar ring? Her lips parted.
“You are the closest to me, Lily. You. Fuck, yes, Desmond is like my brother, and that was part of our talk, too. He needs to watch his fucking ass. To put a protective detail on himself. He knows the risks, and he also knows that if anything happens to you…” Atlas’s gaze drifted over her face. “I will rip apart the world.”
Her breath seemed to freeze in her throat. “Why?”
“Ah, Lily.” His head tilted to the side. “You’re so smart. So good at figuring out people. How about you tell me why?”
She wouldn’t have asked the question if she knew the answer. “You don’t love me.”
“Because I can’t love.”
No. No. “I didn’t say you couldn’t love.” She’d never said that. “You’re the one who told me that you couldn’t feel emotions. Or that you could shut them on and off at will.” Such an interesting talent.
“I can’t shut off things with you.” Rasped. “I did try. Found out it didn’t work so well.”
“You just met me.”
“Cute. Come on, don’t you know? I’ve been stalking you.
I thought that I knew all of your secrets.
And, just so we’re doing that whole honesty thing that you wanted between us, I already knew about David Warren.
Actually, let me clarify, I knew he’d probably been murdered.
Did not realize you’d done the deed yourself. ”
No one realized she’d done it. Though Gage certainly suspected the truth.
“Want to tell me why?” Atlas asked. “Why did you kill him?”
“My mother dated him.”
He waited.
But she didn’t say more.
“Ah, Lily. I’m sure there is more of a reason. I don’t think you just kill the men your mother dates. She seems to do a good enough job of that herself.”
Not in the case of David Warren. Magnolia had failed that job. With unfortunate results. “She…she found out that he wasn’t the man she thought he was. It, um, doesn’t do to disappoint Magnolia.”
“So I’ve heard.” His arms crossed over his chest. “How did he disappoint her?”
She looked down at her hands. “He snuck into my bedroom.”
“The fucking sonofabitch.” Low. Dark. Deadly.
Yes. David Warren had been a sonofabitch.
“I was…eighteen. I’d just turned eighteen.
My birthday had been a week ago. Magnolia—she’d baked a cake for me.
” God, that seemed a lifetime ago. “I woke up, and he was right over me. Standing there, watching me. And before I could scream, his hand flew out and slapped over my face. He covered my mouth and my nose. I-I couldn’t breathe.
” That fear still grabbed her late at night.
Waking up in the dark. Having a monster leap out at her.
When Atlas had been describing the scene in his dorm room, her muscles had locked down because parts of that terrible scene were so close to her own life.
Tears streaming down my cheeks. His hand over my mouth. Wishing for help to come…
“He…hurt you?” Again, that deadly tone that promised hell would come.
“He thought Magnolia was out of town. Thought I was alone at the house. That I would…” Be helpless.
“People underestimate me.” They always had.
Their mistake. David’s mistake. “I fought him. I grabbed my bedside lamp.” She flexed her fingers, remembering how she’d desperately stretched her hand to reach it.
“I smashed it into his head. I got away from him. I ran like hell. Raced to the neighbor’s house.
” She’d fled down the sidewalk in her nightgown and with bare feet.
Her fist had pounded and pounded into Ms. Betty’s front door. “I stayed there all night.”
“You called the cops.”
Bitter laughter slid from her.
His eyelashes flickered. “I will learn what your real laughter sounds like.”
She frowned. Those words—they’d sure seemed like a vow to her. “That will be interesting,” she told him. “I’d like to learn what it sounds like, too.”
He growled.
“I-I didn’t call the cops. Calling the cops was something that my mother would never, ever want me to do.”
“You knew what she was doing. You knew she was a killer.”
“I’d found her diary.” Soft. So soft. Why were her words so soft?
No one was there who would overhear them.
“I’d found it a week before, and I knew what she had been doing.
And, no, I didn’t take that diary to the police.
I hid it.” The way she still hid it. It was currently tucked under her mattress.
“She actually kept a lot of diaries. She was always jotting things down. One book was filled with places that Magnolia had visited and places she wanted to see. One was filled with her dreams. One was…” The one currently hidden under Lily’s mattress in the guest bedroom.
“One was dark.” So very dark. “I knew what she’d done, and I couldn’t go to the police because—what if they learned the truth?
What if they took her away? Locked her up?
She was my mother.” I loved my mother. Even though Magnolia had done terrible things.
Even though she killed my father. How could she love Magnolia in spite of that?
How could she love her and hate her at the same time?
I do. I just do…
“You told Magnolia what he’d done to you.”
Yes. She had. “The next morning. See, my elderly neighbor, Ms. Betty just thought I’d had a nightmare.
Ms. Betty told my mother I was scared. That I’d probably watched a horror movie that gave me bad dreams. But my mother knew something was wrong.
Even when we got home and I discovered the mess had been cleaned up in my bedroom, even when David smiled at her and told her how much he’d missed her and that he’d been so worried when he couldn’t find me in the house… she knew.”
“What did Magnolia do?”