Page 58 of Compulsion
“Since when the fuck did you two get engaged?”Gage thundered.
“Since about seven hours ago, when Lily was in my bedroom and I realized how close I came to losing her.”He stared into Lily’s eyes.Should he have gone with this story?Ah, screw it.Another tie to bind her to me.After her reveal in front of his favorite painting, he was all in with her.“You just can’t let some people escape.”
Lily had frozen.
“Really?”Gage’s doubt was evident.“That’s a weird thing to say.”
“I don’t find it weird at all.”
“Huh.Well, see, I questioned a guard at your main office earlier today, and he told me that you’d had Lily tossed out of your building.That you’d given orders for her not to be allowed onto the premises again.”A twist of his lips.“Weird that you want her to marry you after kicking her out so recently.Talk about mixed messages.”
That guard would be handled.ASAP.
“Want to explain that to me?”Gage pressed.“You, barring the woman you love from your own building?Having her tossed out?”
“I am deeply ashamed of my actions.”Did he sound suitably ashamed?Theodora had just winced, so probably not.He tried again, “I was trying to fight my feelings for Lily.I was an idiot.”His gaze caressed the delicate lines of Lily’s face.“I thought she’d destroy me.”Truth poured in those words.Maybe he’d just stick to the truth as much as possible.“Self-preservation mode at its worst.I didn’t realize that she would make me better.Stronger.Now I see that I can’t live without her.”
“Uh, huh.”More doubt from Gage.
“She risked her life to save me.She could have died when she jumped on the attacker’s back.She could have died in that basement.”He and Lily would have to talk about that scene, very soon.She would never take those risks again.“I will not let someone so brave and caring slip away from me.We’re getting married.”Done.Almost exactly like my dream.
No, in his dream, she’d been wearing a white dress.Standing in front of a priest.Atlas had been vowing to love her forever.
Love.I’ve never loved.Like I told Lily, I’m a damn psychopath.The label had been tossed onto him when he was thirteen years old.One of the counselors at his group home had called Atlas a psychopath when he’d thought Atlas wasn’t close enough to overhear him.
“This isn’t oppositional defiance.Have you looked into that kid’s eyes?Seen how he acts?He’s ice cold.Frozen inside.Nothing touches him.He’s a freaking psychopath just like his father, and he scares the shit out of me.I don’t want to be alone with him.Do you hear me?Don’t leave me alone with Atlas.Not ever.”
A forty-year-old man had been terrified of a thirteen-year-old kid.
“Lily?”Gage prompted.His voice drew Atlas back to the present.“Got something you want to add?By the way, I don’t see a ring on your finger.”
Lily didn’t have on any rings.No jewelry at all.He’d handle that problem.Atlas made a mental note to get her an engagement ring.One that included a tracking device.The better to make certain that Lily never vanished on him.The watch he was currently wearing had a similar tracker.When he’d been taken from the parking lot, Desmond and the security team had found Atlas at the cabin by following another tracker that he’d had on him at the time.Atlas had made it a point to always have a tracker on him.Especially with the dangerous games he tended to play.
“No ring yet.”She exhaled.“But you heard what Atlas said.He can’t let me slip away.”
“You two areseriouslygetting married?”Now it wasn’t just doubt.Anger hummed in Gage’s voice.And damn if the man didn’t jump to his feet.
Atlas turned his head so that his gaze locked with the angry Fed’s.“Some people don’t value what they have.That will not be my mistake.I will value Lily for the rest of my life.”Unlike you, you dumbass tool.
Gage glared at him as he loomed at the table.
“Uh, excuse me?”Theodora cleared her throat.“Are you going to harp on my clients’ romantic relationship or do you have questions about the actual killer who took them?”
Gage’s Adam’s apple bobbed.“Did either of you ever see the killer’s face?”He kept standing.
The cop, Kurt Wry, tugged on the collar of his shirt.He looked like he wished he was anywhere but at that dining room table.
As for the female FBI agent, Sharon Hinkle, she was scribbling notes frantically on a small pad in front of her.Why all the scribbling?They hadn’t even gotten to the real interview yet.
And, speaking of the interview…Gage’s question about the killer…
“No.”From Atlas.“I never saw him.He attacked while my back was turned.”While I was thinking about Lily and lowered my guard for just a moment because I was sure he wouldn’t come for me quite so soon.He’d waited three weeks on taking his second victim.I thought I had more time.That I was still setting up my trap.
Atlas had been wrong.He didn’t like being wrong.Especially when his errors could prove fatal.
“No.”From Lily.Softer.“I didn’t see his face.”
“Can you describe him at all?”Gage pushed.
