“You’remylife, Lily.The whole damn thing.”
“I…” His fury was so much stronger than she’d expected.She couldfeelit.“I didn’t want anyone else to be targeted.If I know he’s coming after me, I can be ready.”Everyone else would be safe.Couldn’t he see that?She’d made the list with the names of the children who belonged to serial killers.Her list.My fault.Because her list had been taken, the ones being targeted—they were on her.Their lives.Their deaths.
She didn’t want them dying.If she drew the killer’s attention back to her, then the others would be safe.
Atlas’s fury seemed to swell even more.“The sonofabitch isn’t getting you.It willnothappen.”
“We’re a team, Atlas.I thought you understood—we were going to the crime scene, we were getting his attention, we were letting him know?—”
“You don’t know who he is, Lily!You acted like you did, and now he’s coming after you.”His mouth took hers.So angry and wild and rough.Hard and frantic.Kissing her with a bruising fury because he was…
Scared?
Was Atlas scared?
But he was never scared.Never.
Instead of fighting his kiss, his fury, she kissed him back with desperate passion.Just as rough, just as strong, just as hungry.
And he…
The divider lowered between them and Carl.A hiss of sound.“Am I taking you back home, boss?Or do you have other plans?”
She tensed beneath Atlas.
His head lifted, his mouth moving just an inch away from hers.“Home,” Atlas returned, voice gruff.His head lifted a bit more.There was torment on his face.An expression she’d never seen before.“Love…was supposed to be gentle.”A whisper, meant for her ears.The divider hadn’t risen back into place yet.“It was going to make me a better person.”
Why did he need to be better?“I like the person you are.”
His eyes squeezed closed.“Lily, you don’t know who I really am.”
Actually…“Yes, I think I do.I know exactly who you are.”But, more than that, there was something she had realized with certainty as she stood in front of that cabin and listened to the inspector…Something that she had intended to tell Atlas as soon as they got back into the limo.Something she would not, could not, hold back any longer.“I know who the killer is, too.”
His eyes flew open.
And the car exploded.
ChapterTwenty-Six
The limo flipped,rolled.She felt the lancing heat of flames burning through the air, heard the shattering of glass.The crunch of metal.Again and again, the limo rolled.The wine and the glasses in the back on the limo’s bar slammed into the floorboard, then the roof, sending chunks of glass flying into the air.A piece sliced across her hand, another across her neck, and the slashes happened in an instant.Everything happened in a timelessinstant.The rolling.The fire.The crash and shatter of glass and metal.Then…
Atlas was roaring her name.
He’d tried to curl his body around hers during the violent upheaval, but they’d been tossed around like dolls, and the fire was raging, coming from the front of the vehicle.
Still.They went still, freezing with a hard shudder while the car was upside down.
Lily found herself on top of Atlas, and blood dripped near her eye, she could feel it.His hands were on her waist, so tight.“Atlas?”Lily pushed up.They were—upside down.No, no, the car was upside down.The floorboard above them.The roof beneath them.
A growl broke from Atlas.
Smoke poured in from the front of the vehicle.Smoke and flames.The window between the front and the back of the limo had never risen back up fully, and the smoke and flames spilled in from the front.The front.Carl?Automatically, she glanced toward the front.
“Get…out,” Atlas gasped.
Her stare whipped back to him.
His eyes were open.He had blood on his right cheek.A long slice.His fingers were tight bands around her waist.“Get…out, Lily.”
