Chapter 21 #2
“That is what worries me. Part of it. There are lots of worries right now, honestly.”
“She will stay safe,” Atlas assured her friend. “I promise you that.”
“Sloane.” Lily kept her tone calm. Flat. With an effort. “I thought you congratulated me on my engagement before.”
“Yes, well, that was when I thought you were finally in love and that he understood you were amazing and would love you forever. You told me that wasn’t the case, so now I’m back to being worried.” Sloane’s rush of breath carried over the line. “I am worried because I care about you, Lily.”
She knew that Sloane cared.
“Atlas, you still listening?” Sloane huffed out the words. Probably because she was, in fact, running through the airport.
“I’m here.”
“If you hurt her, I will make your recent trip to that basement look like a luxury vacation.”
She hung up.
His brows rose. “Your friend just threatened to kidnap me…and kill me?”
“She was vague. I don’t know if she meant that, specifically.” Though I suspect that is exactly what Sloane meant. Specifically.
“I missed the first part of your conversation.”
He had. “Because you were busy reading my diary.” She had a death grip on the phone. Lily forced her fingers to relax. “Did you wait until I went to sleep before you grabbed it?”
A slow, negative shake of his head. “It was on the floor, Lily. I swear it. It was open when I picked it up.”
“I left it under the mattress.” Not on the floor. Tucked securely beneath the top mattress.
“I did not read it.”
She stared hard at him. A muscle flexed along his jaw. Trust had been one of her rules. She’d told him that she wouldn’t fuck him unless she trusted him.
She’d fucked him twice during the night.
And…
“I believe you.” She did. Though that did create another problem.
One problem at a time, Lily. One at a time.
“It’s not secure under a mattress.” He stood before her with the jeans hanging low on his hips. Looking sexy and disheveled, and she swore she smelled mint. The man brushed his teeth. First thing in the morning—yeah, that was a win.
Him being all shirtless and strong—another win.
Someone finding her diary? Not a win.
“I have a safe in my bedroom. I can put it in there for you,” Atlas offered.
She nodded. “Yes, you can do that…after you read it.”
“Lily?” His lashes flickered.
“Read it whenever you want. You may not have time to read it now.” Probably would not, now that she considered things. “I do think you need to know the part of the conversation that you missed.”
His broad shoulders were tense as he waited.
“A woman was killed last night,” Lily informed him. “Sloane saw a news story about her death. The victim was someone on my list.”
“Your list?”
“Tonya Johnson.” Their victim. “Her father was a serial killer.”
His stare sharpened on her.
But…
Footsteps. Racing up the stairs. More like thundering up them.
“Fuck,” Atlas swore. “Sweets, you need clothes on, now.” And he lunged for her bedroom door. He yanked it open, even as she sprang behind him, holding her sheet. She peered over his broad shoulder to see Desmond rushing toward them.
“Company,” Desmond snapped. “The Fed is at the door, and he’s demanding to see you.”
“Gage?” Surprise rolled through her. She’d just been about to call him.
Atlas shifted to the side more, using his body to block her completely from Desmond’s view.
“Haven’t opened the door to him yet. He used his ID to get past the guards patrolling at the gate. Guy has got his partner with him, the woman,” Desmond replied. “Looked at the front door camera on my way to you. Bastard is pissed, shouting to see you now, Atlas.”
“Then he’ll see me.” He looked back at Lily. “Get dressed. Then meet us downstairs.”
She grabbed the diary and shoved it into his hands. “In your safe. For your eyes only.”
He nodded. His head bent, and his lips brushed over hers. “You didn’t have nightmares with me.”
No, she hadn’t. “But you did,” she whispered back.
“That happens…when you are the nightmare.” He nodded toward her. “I’ll handle your Fed. After you are dressed, you can come down and tell him about the potential vics.” He strode through the doorway. “Desmond, stay up here and guard her. I want her protected at all times.”
She poked her head out of the doorway and watched Atlas duck into his room. He came back a moment later, minus the diary. Still shirtless. Still barefoot. Still gorgeous and sexy and with danger seeming to crackle in the air around him.
“Get dressed, Lily,” Atlas chided as he bounded down the stairs. “If that prick sees you in a sheet, I will break his jaw, glass or not.”
Fine. But first…her gaze slid to Desmond. A Desmond who was not looking directly at her. “Did you enjoy some light reading last night?” Lily inquired sweetly.
He still didn’t look her way. “Wouldn’t call it light.”
“Do you always break into other people’s rooms and steal personal items?”
“Returned it, didn’t I?”
She’d expected to work harder in order to get his confession. “Why?”
Finally, he looked at her. “Because he is my friend. I will not have someone dangerous slip past my watch again. I will not let him be hurt.”
She clutched the sheet tighter to her chest. “You think I would hurt him?”
“I think you have the capacity to hurt a great many people in this world.”
Her feet pressed harder to the floor. “I would say you have that same capacity.”
“By the time I was ten years old, I had already killed ten men. Child soldiers do not have choices.”
She knew his story. The absolute heartbreak and savagery of it. But she had not planned to bring it up to him. You didn’t parade around someone else’s pain…Yet he’d just laid it bare in front of her. “Why are you telling me about your past?”
“Because I know your past. But I have no diary to give you so that you can understand me. I can only tell you who I am. What I am.”
“You are his friend.” She understood that. A friend who would do anything for Atlas. She could see that so clearly.
Desmond’s lips tightened. “He never judged me. Never cared where I had been. Told me it mattered more where I was going. Then he took me with him. Gave me a job and took me with him every step of the way.” A pause. “Tell me, Lily Gallo, do you know where you’re going?”
“Honestly, no, right at the moment, I’m trying to figure out if I should go to New Orleans or Oklahoma City.”
He frowned at her, heavy brows beetling “Are you joking?”
“When you know me better, you’ll understand that I am not.”
“What the fuck are your intentions with Atlas?”
“My intentions?” Lily repeated, voice rising in a question. She lifted her hand and stared down at the ring he’d given her. “Are you asking me if I am going to marry him?” Atlas hadn’t proposed to her. The engagement was just a ruse.
“I’m asking if you are here to destroy him or here to save him.”
Her stare whipped back to his.
“What’s it gonna be, Dr. Lily Gallo? Because I think it could go either way.
” His hands fisted at his sides. “When I was at my worst, he was there. He’s walked me through the dark more times than I can count.
And every step, every moment, I’ve known that he is fighting, too.
It’s so easy to tip those scales, isn’t it? To push someone one way or the other.”
“No.” A shake of her head. “It’s not easy.”
“Are you going to save him or push him into hell?”
What is he going to do with me? “I would never hurt Atlas.”
“Why not?” He took an aggressive step toward her. “Because you’re a good person? Because you’re trying to help others? To make the world a better place? Bullshit.” His eyes glinted. “Tell that to someone who didn’t read your diary.”
“It’s not my diary. It’s my mother’s.”
His expression told her what he thought of that response. Then, “You haven’t answered my original question.”
“Yes. I have.” But she would repeat the answer. “I would never hurt Atlas.”
“Why not?”
Because…
Because you don’t hurt what you love. She licked her lips.
She heard voices rising downstairs. Shouting. “I have to get dressed,” Lily said. She began to shut the door.
His hand flew up to block the door from closing. “Why. Not?”
“Because his dimples scare me,” she whispered. “But his touch makes me feel safe. Because he kisses my scar, and he sees the chaos in me, and he still says I’m beautiful.”
Some of the tension faded from Desmond’s face.
“Because nothing with Atlas is ever going to be fine.” Something she realized with all of her being.
“It will be intense. It will be shattering. It will be consuming. I won’t ever be able to hold back with him.
He won’t let me.” She considered that. “I won’t let him hold back with me, either.
I want everything. Good. Bad. The confusing parts that blend them both. ”
“What if there is no good?”
She tilted her head and sent him a brief smile.
He frowned. Blinked. “What the fuck are you doing? Are you smiling right now? You don’t usually smile.”
No, she did not.
“Shit.” A bit disgruntled. “You have a really nice smile. It makes the gold shine in your eyes.”
She ignored the compliment. She wasn’t looking for compliments.
I have my mother’s smile, and she always used it to disarm and charm.
“We both know there is good in Atlas. It’s why you fight to defend him so hard.
It’s why I’m pulled to him. Not for the darkness he carries, but because we can both see the light. ”
Desmond swallowed. He stepped back. “You can’t go downstairs in just a sheet. Atlas would lose his mind.” He turned away.
Her hand flew out. Caught his before he could leave. “There isn’t just darkness in you, either.”
“You don’t know…you don’t understand…”
“I don’t know who you would have been if you hadn’t been kidnapped and forced to do terrible things when you were just a child?
Unfortunately, no, I don’t know that man.
None of us will ever know that man. But I see you in front of me.
Someone who is so determined to protect a friend.
Someone who makes sure to have Atlas’s back. ”
“He pays well.” Brisk. “Ask anyone.”
“I think you’d be his friend if he didn’t have a dime to his name.”
No response.
“And that,” she told him, “is how I know there is far more to you than just the vicious past that you endured. Maybe you need to start looking at yourself a different way. The image you see reflected back when you look in a mirror—sometimes that image is just what we fear, and it’s not who we are.”
Atlas had said he was her broken mirror.
She’d always thought she was the broken one.
“Fuck.” A breath from Desmond. “You are dangerous.”
She hadn’t been trying to be dangerous. She’d been trying to help.
He pulled away. “Get dressed. Then hurry downstairs so Atlas and your ex don’t come to blows.”
She stepped out of her bedroom. “Atlas told you that Gage was my ex?”
“Nah.” Desmond didn’t look back. “Learned it weeks ago when we started digging into your life. Got to know your enemy, understand?”
“I’m not Atlas’s enemy.”
“I’m getting that…” He darted down the stairs.
She slid back into her guest room. Shut the door.
As she crossed the room to get dressed, the sheet trailed behind her.
As quickly as she could, she dressed. Panties.
Bra. Long, flowing dress. Lily picked the dress because she could just yank it on and go.
Same thing with the flats. She finger-combed her hair, splashed water on her face, brushed her teeth, and hurried back for the door.
Even as she yanked it open, she heard the rumble of deep voices.
Her feet flew over the stairs. And as she got closer to the main floor of the home…
“You are a killer, Atlas Bennett. And I’m placing you under arrest.”
Oh, no.