Page 83 of Compulsion
He’d given her a fifty-thousand-dollar ring?Her lips parted.
“You are the closest to me, Lily.You.Fuck, yes, Desmond is like my brother, and that was part of our talk, too.He needs to watch his fucking ass.To put a protective detail on himself.He knows the risks, and he also knows that if anything happens to you…” Atlas’s gaze drifted over her face.“I will rip apart the world.”
Her breath seemed to freeze in her throat.“Why?”
“Ah, Lily.”His head tilted to the side.“You’re so smart.So good at figuring out people.How about you tell mewhy?”
She wouldn’t have asked the question if she knew the answer.“You don’t love me.”
“Because I can’t love.”
No.No.“Ididn’t say you couldn’t love.”She’d never said that.“You’re the one who told me that you couldn’t feel emotions.Or that you could shut them on and off at will.”Such an interesting talent.
“I can’t shut off things with you.”Rasped.“I did try.Found out it didn’t work so well.”
“You just met me.”
“Cute.Come on, don’t you know?I’ve been stalking you.I thought that I knew all of your secrets.And, just so we’re doing that whole honesty thing that you wanted between us, I already knew about David Warren.Actually, let me clarify, I knew he’d probably been murdered.Did not realize you’d done the deed yourself.”
No one realized she’d done it.Though Gage certainly suspected the truth.
“Want to tell me why?”Atlas asked.“Why did you kill him?”
“My mother dated him.”
He waited.
But she didn’t say more.
“Ah, Lily.I’m sure there is more of a reason.I don’t think you just kill the men your mother dates.She seems to do a good enough job of that herself.”
Not in the case of David Warren.Magnolia had failed that job.With unfortunate results.“She…she found out that he wasn’t the man she thought he was.It, um, doesn’t do to disappoint Magnolia.”
“So I’ve heard.”His arms crossed over his chest.“How did he disappoint her?”
She looked down at her hands.“He snuck into my bedroom.”
“The fucking sonofabitch.”Low.Dark.Deadly.
Yes.David Warren had been a sonofabitch.“I was…eighteen.I’d just turned eighteen.My birthday had been a week ago.Magnolia—she’d baked a cake for me.”God, that seemed a lifetime ago.“I woke up, and he was right over me.Standing there, watching me.And before I could scream, his hand flew out and slapped over my face.He covered my mouth and my nose.I-I couldn’t breathe.”That fear still grabbed her late at night.Waking up in the dark.Having a monster leap out at her.
When Atlas had been describing the scene in his dorm room, her muscles had locked down because parts of that terrible scene were so close to her own life.
Tears streaming down my cheeks.His hand over my mouth.Wishing for help to come…
“He…hurt you?”Again, that deadly tone that promised hell would come.
“He thought Magnolia was out of town.Thought I was alone at the house.That I would…”Be helpless.“People underestimate me.”They always had.Their mistake.David’s mistake.“I fought him.I grabbed my bedside lamp.”She flexed her fingers, remembering how she’d desperately stretched her hand to reach it.“I smashed it into his head.I got away from him.I ran like hell.Raced to the neighbor’s house.”She’d fled down the sidewalk in her nightgown and with bare feet.Her fist had pounded and pounded into Ms.Betty’s front door.“I stayed there all night.”
“You called the cops.”
Bitter laughter slid from her.
His eyelashes flickered.“I will learn what your real laughter sounds like.”
She frowned.Those words—they’d sure seemed like a vow to her.“That will be interesting,” she told him.“I’d like to learn what it sounds like, too.”
He growled.
