Summer
“She means nothing to me.” Cruel words pull my attention to the source.
“You don’t need to vet her. I was never going to make her part of the family.
” Atlas looks me straight in the eyes when he says that, and though I see his lips moving and hear his voice, my mind violently rejects this impossible version of him that would do this to me.
“Atlas?” My voice cracks. The fear of death couldn’t achieve that, but his hurtful words tear all my walls down.
Is this his way of making his father abandon the idea of vetting me? Or did I miss something? Is he my blind spot?
“She’s certifiably insane. I’m only keeping her because I can’t get enough of fucking her, and the fact that her ideas bring more money in than I could’ve imagined. She’s valuable business-wise. But I’d never take a lunatic like her for a wife.”
Tears well up, but I fight setting them free. I will not let Mason see me cry.
I try to look past Atlas’s eyes, searching for the part of him that means those words, but I don’t find it. It’s only pain and regret there. Or maybe, that’s what I want to see.
Atlas once mentioned that money is the only language of reasoning his father understands. Maybe he’s trying to save me by boosting my value business-wise, to deter Mason from putting a bullet inside my brain? Or maybe, he means each and every word?
“She’s so batshit crazy she set a theater on fire and filled my bed with snakes when she got mad at me.
So tell me, Father, would I be that foolish to take this .
. .” On the surface, there’s so much contempt seeping through his words, but the slightest twitch of his brows is the one thing my brain decides to focus on.
Maybe I’m seeing in action how the mechanism of being in denial works, clinging to whatever to fight a reality in which he doesn’t love me. “as anything serious.”
“Ace!” Dean warns, but I don’t turn to look at him.
“What, Dean? Worried I’m hurting her feelings? You can have her if you want. She’s . . . Ooof! A one-of-a-kind fuck. But she’s too insane even for you.”
No! No! No!
Atlas would burn every man on earth before he allowed anyone but him to touch me. He can’t be saying those things!
“You—” I choke down the most bitter taste I’ve ever had in my life. “You don’t mean any of this.” Shaking my head, I strive to chase his words away, but they’re planting roots of doubt, threatening the foundations of my beliefs.
My boyfriend’s attention flickers for a millisecond toward his father, and the periphery of my vision catches Mason lowering his gun back on the table.
“What, honey? You didn’t really think I loved you, did you?” Atlas’s words snap my focus back to him. “You’re a fuckin’ mess.”
My own words from so many months ago, thrown back at me, make my hands tremble so violently that I can no longer hold the weapon pointed at Jacob’s face, nor my stoic mask, as the pain that tears me from the inside can’t stay hidden anymore.
“No one could ever love a fucked-up disaster like you.”
His words crack like spent casings hitting concrete, but they land like blanks, because he’s looking at me like I’m his everything. But am I?
“You are simply—” His lips tighten, pressing in a line. “a gorgeous little toy I like to play with.”
“S-Summer—” Mason’s voice pulls me away from sliding into a breakdown. I take in the view of him coughing, choking, his face slick with sweat. “W-what . . . d-did . . . you—”
He strives and fails to pick up the gun again. That’s all Connor needs to pull the weapon away from Mason’s reach, while taking the one from his lap.
Muscles straining, struggling, failing to move—that’s the pathetic sight before me. That monster can’t even open his mouth to speak. I’ve imagined this moment so many times, but this is better than anything my mind could ever offer.
“Honey . . .” Atlas’s voice pulls me away from a sight I was enjoying so much—the only thing that had hit pause on my choking on tears. I sniffle, before pointing a scathing glare at him.
“Don’t ‘honey’ me!” I push past my boyfriend, heading for the kitchen, but he follows right after me.
“Summer—”
“Shut the fuck up, Jacob,” I snarl, like he’s at fault for Atlas’s words. “Just . . . give me a moment.” I look at everyone already on their feet. “All of you.”
“You know I didn’t mean any of this. I had to finagle our way out of an impossible situation,” Atlas continues.
“But you sounded extremely convincing, honey.”
“I couldn’t figure anything else to protect you. He was going to shoot you if you didn’t kill Jacob, and knowing you, you wouldn’t have. What else was I supposed to do?”
I squat, pulling my duffel from a hollow compartment under the sink, before placing it on the kitchen counter along with the gun.
“A bullet to the brain seems like a less painful option.”
“Come on, love!”
“Aren’t you going to ask me what’s happening to your father?”
“No! I’m going to ask you to forgive my words, because not a single one was true. Well, except for the fact you’re a one-of-a-kind fuck.”
How the hell can Atlas make me angrier while apologizing?
A nearby cucumber from the counter serves as my vegetable baton as I slap my boyfriend’s thigh with it, before throwing it to the ground, and unzipping the duffel to start rummaging through it to find the 4-Aminopyridine injections.
“Where do you keep the guns?” Dean asks.
“There are two in the safe in the bedroom upstairs. The code is Noah’s birthday.
A Glock is taped under the left side of the bed.
Also, there’s one in the vanity table, and one in my lingerie drawer .
. . which neither of you will be going through.
Both bathrooms have guns under the sinks.
First-floor bedroom—inside each nightstand. ”
“Were you preparing for a war?” Atlas asks.
“If I were, then I’d be severely under-armed.”
The guys are already going on an Easter egg hunt for the nearest gun when the syringe I’m clutching makes me shout out, “Stop! Everyone, get back for a moment.”
“Honey?” Atlas says with the same level of confusion everyone holds. But they do get back to the table, no further questions asked.
My boyfriend reaches for me, but the feral look I offer with a syringe is his hint that I’m not up for a hug.
“Don’t!”
I’m going to make him grovel for this until his hair turns white and he’s stepping over his ballsack.
Sidestepping him, I rush back to the guys.
“Sit!” I order Link, a step away from him.
“W-what?” He looks flummoxed.
“You just had to take that second piece of cake, didn’t you? Is your tongue numb?”
“I eat s-sweets when I’m s-stressed. What’s inside?” Link points at the syringe in my hand, slurring.
I think that answers my question.
“Magic. You’re going to be okay. I promise. What is it—a bite or two that you took?”
I stick the needle in his leg, and he winces. A disgruntled huff parts my knotted lips as I squat down beside Link.
“Raven’s going to kill me if she finds out I got you poisoned.
Tell you what, you don’t tell her about this, and I keep my mouth shut about what you did with her skincare.
” Life drains from Link’s face in an instant .
. . not because of the toxin. “She had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t want to involve her.
Raven loves you. You have to know that.”
“Do all of us need a shot?” Carter asks, before I’m back on my feet.
How could he assume I poisoned them all on purpose?
“No. I laced only part of the cake,” I say, and only then realize Link might not be the only one affected.
I stride for Dean and grab his wounded hand.
“Couldn’t you have stabbed yourself with a smaller knife?” I point at the one he impaled his hand on.
“I’m not a pussy.”
“Yeah. Pussies only stab themselves with small knives.” Dean smiles while I tie the napkin properly around his hand. “There are probably traces of Saxitoxin on the knife. Go help yourself from the bag. Take one of those with 4-A labels on them.”
Dean nods, but then grabs my wrist and stops me.
“Labeled? You have more than one poison on hand, don’t you?”
Before I can answer, Atlas snatches my wrist out of Dean’s grasp.
“Honey—” He starts again, but I shush him with my palm over his lips.
“Shopping for poisons on the black market is quite addictive, you know.” I should’ve probably gone with a simple yes.
I head for the kitchen, while everyone resumes their gun hunt, but Connor’s voice stops me.
“If I eat the rest of the cake and inject myself with whatever you have in that bag, would I be okay? I mean, I loved that dog. And I eat when I’m stressed, too. Or angry. Plus, it’s a shame for it to go to waste.”
Marching back to the table, I grab the plate and let the cake slide to the ground, because I don’t trust that Connor won’t eat it, and there’s already nobody there but Link, who’s still recovering, to stop him.
“Oh, Principessa, you really think I wouldn’t eat the cake from the ground?”
“Don’t!” I wave a warning finger like I’m scolding a child.
Connor raises his hands in surrender. How is it that he always riles me up the way Milo did?
Resuming my stride for the kitchen, Atlas follows me step for step.
“What other option was there for me to save you?”
“Leave it to me to save myself. I told you I can handle it, didn’t I? I was just biding my time.” Well, mostly. I was just hoping Mason wouldn’t shoot me before the toxin kicked in.
Taking my 9mm Wilson Combat—the same one Atlas gave me months ago—out of the bag, I start putting a suppressor on it.
“How was I supposed to know? You should’ve signaled me somehow.”
“Tap Morse code on your leg or straight up use the bat signal? Just asking for next time.”
I shove the gun into the back of my jeans, struggling to wedge it in with the silencer attached, before I tug my top down to hide it. Mr. Wilson Combat presses so awkwardly between my butt cheeks, like it’s getting way too familiar with my ass.
“We can take out his men outside easily,” Dean says, when everyone is back in the room.