Page 90 of Heat Lightning

Usually, I was the one dropping the dead mom conversation bomb. Being on the other end of it, I had more understanding for the word-scramble that always came after, and how there were actually very few things that felt appropriate to respond with.

“My mom died, too,” I continued once the surprise wore off. “When I was eighteen. But she’d been sick for a while. Fuck, I’m not trying to compare. I just mean, I know what losing your mom feels like.”

He reached out to brush the hair out of my eyes. “Thank you. You understand more than most could. For a lot of reasons.”

“But having her taken from you like that when you were so young…” I shook my head. That kind of pain I hadn’t experienced. “I’m so, so sorry. Did they at least find who did it?”

Based on how the conversation started, I was afraid I already knew the answer.

His voice sharpened to a blade. “It was never a question of who did it, but whether or not the monster would finally pay for how miserable he made her life. Our lives.”

My stomach sank. “Who?” I whispered.

“My father.”

Fucking hell. I never knew my alpha dad, but based on how little Mom spoke of him, I figured he wasn’t worth the wonder. Maybe she’d been protecting me from something even worse.

I slid off my chair and stepped between his spread legs. Desperate to offer comfort but not knowing what he needed, I hugged him tightly. “And did he?” I asked. “Pay for it?”

Atlas returned my embrace, petting the back of my head with his face pressed into my neck. “Eventually. I had to learn a few hard lessons before then, though.”

I couldn’t help but ask more. I wanted to know everything about him. Everything. “Like what?”

For a second, I thought he’d push me away, but something shifted in his gaze. One of the walls he’d erected between us crumbled. “Money will go a long way in protecting the wrong people, but it doesn’t mean anything if you’re dead. That’s why I do what I do, Max. No one protected my mom when she needed help. No one protected my brother or me. So, I learned how to be just as monstrous, and my father got what he deserved. I gave it to him.”

He blew out a heavy sigh. “And since I could only kill him once, I continue to do the same for all the others out there who can’t stand up for themselves, yet.”

He expected me to turn away from him. I saw it in his eyes. He thought the more he shared, the further I’d run.

It was the exact opposite.

I wished he’d tell me more. All of it—every last dark piece that hadn’t yet felt the warm glow of companionship. I viscerally ached to know the hurts he buried deep, so I could hold him and show him he wasn’t alone.

I also began to wonder if withholding his identity was less about my safety and more about protecting his own heart.

“I hate that you ever had to learn that,” I said, cupping his face. “But I’ve seen monsters before. You’re not one of them.”

He leveled me with a resigned look, like we were staring at the same image and seeing two entirely different pictures. I pushed away the uncomfortable feeling it gave me, like he knew something I didn’t. Something that would hurt me.

“I am, though,” he said. “It’s important for you to remember that.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. I could feel the distance yawning between us. Our hazy heat week was almost over, and he was drawing lines in the sand I never asked for.

And with sudden clarity, I realized I couldn’t lose him.

“Well, maybe I want a monster, then,” I said, digging my claws in and stepping right over that line.

Wide-eyed, he shook his head. “You have no idea what you’re saying.”

Anger simmered in my chest. “What, because you kill people?”

He hesitated before nodding.

“What if I don’t care?” I asked, dizzy with inflated hope.

“You don’t mean that.”

I pressed both hands against his chest. “Yes, I do. It doesn’t bother me that you kill bad people. I’m glad of it.”