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I lift the gun conversationally at him as I speak calmly. Carefully.
“And I thought I told you not to send someone in on my jobs, Ed.” My neck cracks as I tilt my head one way and then the other. “Remember what happened to your last guy? What was his name? Fish?”
“Joseph McNish,” Ed murmurs quietly.
“Right.”
I nod quietly like I’m considering everything, but honestly, my mind is already made up.
I rear back hard and slam the gun into his face. Blood sprays across my white shirt as he falls to the ground, kicking backward against the smeared tile floor with every step I take closer to him. I shove the barrel against his temple, making deep wrinkles there for the first time in his entire miserable life. I drop to the ground with him and cradle his head in my hands to stop him from moving. Soon, I have to cover his mouth with my palm as my stepfather begs for his life while I hold him against my chest. Blood drips out around the metal from how forcefully I’m grinding the thing into his skull. I sit there sadistically with him in the darkness like a mother comforting a child.
And still I dig the hard end of the gun into his head, so fucking close to his brain that it kills me not to pull the trigger once and for all.
The tiniest move could change my future forever. It could change hers too. It could change everything.
With just the smallest flex of my index finger.
I can’t. I can’t because like he said,someone triggered his alarm. And that someone is watching us.
I can feel it. I feel it like spiders walking across my back, each leg taking its time to dig into my skin and nest there.
I fucking hate it. How ironic.
I crack my neck once more to wash away the intrusive thoughts before refocusing on the real issue at hand.
“Stop talking to your little fucking friends about Atlas. Stop threatening her life. And stop fucking with mine. Do you understand me, Ed?”
“Honey? Come back to bed. You need your sleep. You have the gala tomorrow night,” a voice calls down, and I recognize my mother’s soft tone instantly. Her composed melody of calm is ingrained in my brain like a fucking cancer.
“Nod your fucking head at me, asshole,” I growl against his sweaty hair.
He nods hard and fast, his head rapidly agreeing and continuing to shake up and down long after I shove him off of me. His palms slap to the floor just before his head hits there.
Then I wipe his gun clean of my fingerprints. I toss the weapon to the ground with a heavy thud. Jagged breaths sound through the room, but I look up the staircase at the slightest movement there. My mother stares down at me in the foyer of the pretty little home he’s made for her. Her hair is still an unnatural dark brown like I remember. Her eyes are the same deep blue as mine, but the shadows overtake that little detail. Thank fucking God too. Because that’s where the similarities end between me and the woman who birthed me twenty-five years ago.
“Rowan.” She gasps, and I know the sight of me is startling because it’s so fucking rare. Her fingers touch her lips, and I can see the wet sheen of tears in her eyes even in the darkness. “Rowan, I–”
I don’t wait to hear what she has to say. As my back turns, she screams, her voice lifting up from her natural posed composure to a tone of desperation, “Son, just talk to me!”
I don’t give her one more second of my attention, I don’t say a single goddamn word to her at all.
And then I walk out their front door.
Twenty-Five
Atlas
Tears sting my eyes as I run through the city. The sidewalks are empty, and I hate walking alone at night, but I couldn’t stay there a second longer. I followed him. I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have trusted Rowan Stone for a single second.
A part of me wishes I could go back to before his phone vibrated on the nightstand. Before he got up and left in a hurry and I stupidly decided to follow after him. If I hadn’t done that, then I’d be oblivious. Content and oblivious to the wretched truth Rowan was hiding from me this entire time.
A sob wrenches from my stomach just as light raindrops kiss my skin. It mingles with the sweat, and I’ve never wanted a shower so fucking bad in my entire life after what I just saw through the window of that house. Of Rowan cradling Ed to his chest like a child. Of the woman on the stairs, calling down in such a sweet, soft voice.
She called him her son.
And he’s known. He’s known for... for so fucking long, I can’t even fathom it.
I can’t believe I trusted him.
