Atlas
“You don’t get to say my father’s name.” Summer strides to the edge of the table, her face burning with rage. “You have no right!”
Where the hell is this going?
“You suck at math. We laid low for over ten months before . . . we were found.” I know Summer well enough to hear the crack in her voice she tries to hide.
“Talking about sucking—” Mason coughs out and inhales sharply, like the air inside his lungs isn’t enough. “H-how does it feel . . . sucking the dick of the son . . .” He fights to say the words, while I’m already striding at him. “. . . of the man who killed your family?”
I’m over the table before I can blink, grabbing Mason’s shirt, and inflicting consecutive blows to his face with my gun’s handle.
“Stop! Atlas, stop!” Summer tries to pry me away, but it takes Link and Carter stepping in to rip me off him.
Connor, however, punches Mason once more.
“Are you all fucking her—” my father spits out along with some blood, “to be such loyal dogs?”
He should be thankful Link and Carter haven’t let go of me.
“Running an empire should’ve taught you loyalty is won in many ways. Or are you fucking your own men to have theirs?”
Connor snorts at Summer’s words. He’s never going to learn when it’s not okay to laugh.
But I love the way she finds it in her to mock Mason’s provocations.
“I’m done with you,” Summer adds, turning to leave for the door.
I get myself out of my friends’ grip to stalk after her.
“But I’m not done with you . . . little girl.”
Her stride falters, and when she turns, there’s a diabolical smile curling on her lips.
“I killed plenty of your men, including Gabriel, and you’re still unable to fully move after I paralyzed you. Little girls don’t do that. You can’t ruffle my feathers when I’ve plucked yours.”
“Your father was a liar,” he shoots back, the last word breaking into a cough.
Then he steadies himself with a deep inhale.
“219 days for a name—” There’s a loud wheezing sound coming out of his chest. “Dante DeLuca. I got him. But he slipped. Then there were another 307 days until . . . I found him again. You seem like a great judge of character, Miss DeLuca. You think I did all of that . . . for money?”
“For a lot of money and to uphold your reputation as a man no one steals from—yes.” Summer is quick to respond.
“Wrong. Your father . . .” The way he bares his teeth. Pure hatred. “. . . was the one my wife . . . was planning to leave me for. Switch your family for mine.”
No. That can’t be true.
Do I believe my mother could’ve sought comfort in another man’s arms?
Yes.
Knowing my father, no one would stay in his orbit willingly. But Summer’s father? Mason must be trying to mess with her.
Summer shakes her head adamantly.
“No.” I catch a barely-there quiver of her lips. “That’s a lie. My father would never do that. He would never leave us. He loved us. H-he—” There’s a brief moment of hesitation, like she’s trying to establish if what she’s about to say is true. “He loved my mother?”
“Really?” Mason scoffs. “Obviously, he loved my wife more. And he didn’t stop at trying to steal my Tessa. After what . . . happened to her, Dante killed my brother . . . to get back at me.”
Summer takes unsteady steps back, gaze dropping to the ground and hands trembling.
“He would never,” she chokes out and pins her attention back on Mason. “That’s not the father I knew. He was an honorable man.” She squares her shoulders, like she’s fighting for the truth in her words. “He wouldn’t cheat. Or kill an innocent. You’re lying.”
“Nineteen stab wounds—” Another cough tears out of his lungs, and it feels like it’s only the spite of his venom that keeps him talking, “on his arms. One bullet to his left thigh. Nineteen—the number of years . . . I was married to my wife. I made Dante count each stab. But he slipped away . . . before I could cut his arms for ever having them around Tessa.”
“No!” Her voice shakes, and her face pales.
It matches the story she told me about the wounds.
Is it all true?
Fuck, no! It can’t be. My mother. Her father. Dante killed my uncle? The only normal fatherlike figure I’ve ever known.
“Your father stayed . . . because he had no one left to run away with. And he gave you a story. A fucking tale you ate up.”
“No!” A sob tears out of Summer, and I move to her without thinking, but she pulls away, not letting me touch her.
I take another step. She retreats again.
“Summer?”
What Mason says doesn’t change a thing between us. Nothing can tear us apart.
“It was my right to take everything from Dante . . .” There’s another audible wheeze on exhale. “Just like he took everything from me.”
My father pulls Summer’s attention away from me, but before mine settles on him too, it slings to Jacob, whose face is a mixture of confusion and disbelief.
I hope my cousin finds some relief in the fact that the man responsible for his father’s death has been tortured and killed, because I will never allow him to pin the blame on Summer like he had on me.
“If I weren’t abroad . . . I would’ve tortured Dante myself.
But he got away once. I wasn’t risking that again.
What was done to him was far from enough.
It would’ve never been enough. But tell me, Maeve, how does it feel .
. . knowing everyone you’ve loved is dead .
. . because of the actions of your father?
And more importantly, for such a smart girl, how did you not see through his lies?
Maybe then you would’ve saved your family.
Maybe . . . it’s your fault, after all.”
“Shut up!” I shout. “Don’t let him get to you, honey.”
That’s his way of using her weakness against her—the thing he has mastered to perfection.
Summer doesn’t even look at me. I wonder if she even heard me, the way her eyes have lost focus, like she’s not even here.
Mason’s laughter makes our attention shift back to him.
“It’s gonna be one hell of a story for your kids .
. . when one day they ask about the grandparents.
What are you gonna say, son? ‘Mommy’s father was shagging my mother .
. . and killed my uncle, and my father tortured and killed your mommy’s whole family.
’ Can’t make this shit up.” Mason’s dark chuckle makes Summer look away, like she’s fighting not to let him see how he’s winning.
“Guess I can ruffle your feathers after all, Maeve.”
No. I won’t let him.
I open my mouth to tell him exactly what I think of him, when Summer cuts me off.
“You’re right.” Her voice shakes violently.
“I-I . . . chose to close my eyes to the fact his story didn’t add up.
” She moves back. “If I hadn’t, my mother and brother wouldn’t be dead, and I wouldn’t be here today.
” Another step back. “Dante . . .” She utters the name with disgust. “He would’ve gotten what he deserved, and everything would’ve stopped with him.
” She backs into the front door. “But the bottom line is, you took my brother from me, and for that . . . I’ll drown your fucking world in blood. ”
The door swings open in a heartbeat, and she runs outside. It takes me a moment to react and run after her, hearing her scream out.
“Help! I think he’s having a heart attack. Do something! Please!”
Fuuuck me!
She’s fuckin’ sobbing through her words. If I didn’t know better, I’d be instantly persuaded she’s indeed trying to save my father.
As Mason’s goons rush for the front door, she pulls the gun that was tucked in her jeans and drops one with a shot to the back of the head.
Then she puts a bullet into the chest of another, while I take care of the third, who dares to aim his weapon at my future wife.
Two gunshots echo—one from behind me. My gaze snaps to Summer. I don’t care if I get shot as long as she isn’t.
Summer’s squeezing her palm over her left arm, blood trickling down through her fingers, and everything but her blurs as the lens of my perceptions turns red.
Instinct makes me scan for another threat. The piece of shit who Summer shot in the chest is now sporting a red dot on his forehead. When I check behind me, Dean’s lowering the gun.
I promised Summer no one would hurt her, and I failed her. More than once, for that matter.
“It just grazed me.” I don’t know what my face looks like when I turn back to her, but her voice shakes. It’s not fear, more like she’s trying to keep a bomb from going off. “See?” Summer lifts her hand to show me the bullet only clipped her.
But there’s blood.
The man who I can no longer torture hurt her.
Rage swells inside me—multiplying, unstoppable.
“Death only likes to bang me,” Summer says, trying for humor, “but it never keeps me.”
My gun is already aimed at the corpse.
I fire once.
Then again.
And again, emptying the magazine into dead flesh until the slide locks back.
Still not enough.
My foot finds his face, and I start driving it down, over and over, until an eye pops loose and rolls away, as if it can outrun my fury.
My assault stops when an engine roars to life, only to look up and find Summer behind the wheel.
Rage vanishes, and fear takes its place.
Dropping the gun, I sprint there, trying to block her way out. I can’t let her leave. I won’t.
“Summer!” I shout when she puts the car in reverse. Chasing after her, I slam both hands on the hood of the car. “Don’t!” Аnother shout, but it sounds a lot like a plea.
“I love you!” she mouths, before pressing the gas, making the surface of the hood slip from under my palms.
“Summer!” Her name comes out like a visceral scream, the pain of being left by her, even for a little while, audible in each syllable.
The car doesn’t stop when she makes a J-turn and speeds away, faster than she can change her mind about it. And I’m sure she doesn’t look in the rearview, because if she does, she’ll see my pain, and that might make her resolve to leave falter and die.
I’ll always find her, but a single second of her being away from me is a second too much.
I stand in the driveway, willing myself to stay rooted to the spot instead of chasing after her. She left for a reason, and I’ll finish today what’s been long overdue.
When I turn, Dean’s running toward his bike.
“Make sure she’s okay.”
He nods, puts his helmet on, flips the visor down, and revs the bike, disappearing from the driveway faster than Summer did.
“Can you track her down?” That’s my only concern, and I direct it at Link with the very first step over the threshold of my home, in case she slips away from Dean.
“Anywhere.”
“Do so!” I zero back on my father. Connor is pointing a gun at his head. “Leave us!”
“Ace?” Link says my name like a question of whether I need him there, if someone else should carry the burden of taking care of my father.
“I’ve got it from here,” I reassure him, but he still hesitates before turning for the door. “Jacob,” I call after my cousin, and he halts.
“I don’t blame her if that’s what you’re going to ask.”
Three years apart, and he still knows me well enough to guess what’s on my mind.
Then he moves for the door along with the rest of the guys. Only Connor stays.
“Connor, you too.”
“Run, dog!” Mason tries to provoke him, which is never hard to achieve.
Connor barks out like an actual dog, getting in my father’s face.
“You still can’t move enough to wipe your own ass, old man,” he says, before leaving his gun in front of me and heading for the door.
“I guess I wasn’t harsh enough with those boys since they don’t know their place.”
“You brought this upon yourself. But I’m curious, how do you like my future wife? Is she ruthless enough for your standards?”
Mason’s lips tug to one side while a finger starts tapping on the table, and he doesn’t answer until said finger halts.
“My grandchildren will be real men with a mother like this. But you, my son, will never be a man enough for a woman like her.”
When an animal knows it’s dying, it stings with all it has, and my father found his twisted way to do so with me.
“Guess I’m man enough, if she loves me.” Taking the gun in hand, I press the muzzle against his forehead.
“Can’t fathom how you pulled that off when you’re so .
. . worthless.” There’s a vicious smirk curling his lips.
“Or maybe . . . you didn’t. You keep calling her Summer.
Did you not know her real name when you met her, son?
Did she . . . play you?” Eyes slitted, he tips his chin up, fixing me with a look of contempt and disappointment—the same one he’s always given me.
“She did. And you think she loves you now? You’re such a pathetic fool. ”
“I don’t care about your opinion.”
I wish I didn’t.
After all those years, after all those times of being called worthless, it still fuckin’ stings.
My father made sure it would always affect me when two and a half years ago, he chained me down in the basement and forced me to listen to such words on repeat for twenty-four hours—his fucked-up punishment for a minor disobedience on my part.
“You do. That’s part of what makes me the villain in your story. But after hearing what I had to say . . . to your woman, do you see how little it takes to become a villain?”
I might still be experiencing the aftershocks of Mason’s confession, but that won’t stop me from seeing right through his bullshit.
His little speech tonight gave me more than a hint to confirm my suspicions of what he’d done to my mother and brother.
What does it say about both of us that I’m not surprised?
The only consolation I get is that deep down, it seems he suffered the aftermath of his monstrosity.
“No!” I roar, slamming my fist into the table. “You don’t get to play the victim. You happened to my mother. You happened to my brother. You happened to Summer’s family—people who had nothing to do with your beef with Dante. You’ve scarred everyone you’ve ever touched.”
And just like that, his confession means nothing. He’s the same monster I’ve always known. He claims he had to be, but pretending never lasts forever. Maybe it started as an act years ago, but somewhere along the way, he became the thing he was imitating.
When I look at Mason now, I don’t see a father. Just a man I feel nothing for other than all-consuming hatred.
I shove the barrel closer, forcing him to lean back. “Answer Summer’s question. Does death scare you now, when the gun is pointed at your head?”
Mason’s hand struggles to reach his face, feeling the blood Summer left there for him, or maybe that’s some of his own.
“It doesn’t,” he grumbles, staring at his stained fingers before pinning his eyes back on me. “I died the moment your mother did. You will when someone takes that woman away from you.”
My jaw tenses at the thoughts Mason tries to shake me with. But I won’t allow him.
“No one will ever take her away from me!” Those are the last words my father will ever hear.
A single shot. Straight to the head.
For my friends. For my mother. For my brother. For my Summer.
And for the man I refuse to become.