Total pages in book: 35
Estimated words: 33166 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 166(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33166 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 166(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
I glanced at the green pasture before me, relishing the serenity of the Meyer country estate. “It’s a job. Gotta eat.”
“Plenty of jobs out there that don’t require getting your hands bloody.”
“None that pay as well.”
“Money isn’t everything.”
I laughed. “The only people who say that are those who have it.”
That seemed to shut Atlas up. He didn’t have a quick answer to deny a fundamental truth. I appreciated that he wasn’t trying to deny our stations in life to feel better. So many times, people wanted to believe they were better. They cozied up to the lesser mortals to improve their reflection when they gazed into the mirror. Atlas wasn’t trying to pull that shit on me. Good thing for him he didn’t because it would be the quickest way to get his pretty boy face bashed in.
We sat in silence—it unnerved me how comfortable it was. I couldn’t do this with others. I would need to fill the void of silence with mindless chatter.
“I hate my life,” Atlas whispered, but those four words were so loud that they shattered the silence. “All the money, top-tier education, and villas in the Riviera are worthless when all you can think about is burning it all down.”
“What’s so horrible about your life, Atlas? Did Daddy not buy you the car you wanted?”
“My father is a monster, Callum. A vicious, selfish piece of human trash. He’s a weak man. A small man. A man who knows he can’t wield power of any value, so he cheats, lies, manipulates, abuses, and kills to feel. My life, the life you covet and see as some sort of fairytale, is nothing but a simmering nightmare, ready to pull me under and suffocate me.”
I chuckle. “I slit the throats of people who trash talk Marcus Meyer.”
Atlas’s warm hand enveloped my cold one, and he pressed a wooden handle into my palm, pulling my arm toward his throat. “That’s why I told you.”
A vast emptiness spread through my chest at the broken plea in his voice. Each word he uttered was a piercing shard of glass cutting into my already mangled heart. Sadness saturated Atlas’s eyes, a bone-deep pain encapsulating his soul in a fiery inferno destined for destruction.
“Atlas,” I said, my voice low and steady, “I might be a murderer, but I’m not killing you.”
“You’d be providing me with mercy.” Atlas pulled out his phone and pressed a few buttons before showing me the screen. “It’s fifty million. My mother left it to me. It’s all yours. You could leave here. Start a life. A good life free from all this insanity. It’s all yours if you do this one thing.”
I let his words linger between us, allowing their poison to fester and suffocate me as they permeate my ears. Fifty million was a lot of money. But a small voice in my mind was shouting at me, repeating the same two words on a loop. Save him. At that moment, I understood my purpose in life. My reason for being there was to save Atlas Meyer.
“What are you thinking about, Callum?”
Atlas’s voice pulls me back from the past. I stare into his eyes and feel the sense of peace that always overcomes me when I’m with him. Then the guilt hits. The guilt that I can’t give him what he wants. What he craves. Stability.
“How I’ve betrayed all the things I promised to give you.”
Atlas smiles, and I swear all the air abandons my lungs at his sheer beauty. Atlas puts up with a lot from me. More than any other man would. When we met, I thought he’d be my world, the only thing I’d ever need. For years, Atlas was my only reason for breathing. The day I refused to kill him was the day he saved me. He gave me back a shred of humanity when all I knew was brutality.
Atlas leans forward and brushes his lips to the tip of my nose. “Why are you still hiding from me? I’ll never turn my back on you, Cal.”
Atlas yanks at the tie around my neck, and I tumble to my knees. “I like you like this, Callum. A fuckin’ bitch who knows his rightful place. How many more years do I need to do this? How much longer do I have to wait for you to realize I’ll do anything for you?”
His words are sharp with their precision. To an outsider, his words might seem cruel, but the reality is that we give each other what we need. Through our relationship, we have found solace—a balm to heal the brutality of the marks inflicted upon us. The complicated and confusing parts that no one has seen. The fragmented parts of ourselves that no one knew about until we found each other. Through these games, we remain level—as level as two disturbed people with fragmented minds can be.