Chapter 43
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 willnotlet 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 theyland 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.”
