All Hail - J. Bree Page 0,86

my direction. “You drove here alone. I imagine there are always threats on your life… especially when you consider the way you go about business. Why are you any different, Crow?”

He really doesn’t like it when I call him that.

I really don’t care.

“I wanted to have the opportunity to speak with you privately. Your recent… distaste for Luca meant that I thought it was a good idea to leave him back at my place until we’ve had this discussion.”

I slide into my seat and let him shut the car door behind me. The car is stunning, everything that you could possibly want in a luxury car, and I look around at every little one of the details while he gets in and starts the engine.

I might get one of my own.

“I need to apologize—”

I cut him off, “Don’t. I don’t want or need it. Thank you for letting me stay with you, I’ll stay out of your way if you stay out of mine.”

He sighs at me and I take a better look over at him. His sleeves are rolled up on the dress shirt he’s wearing and one of his arms has a trail of feathers down one side. I haven’t seen him in less than a three-piece suit for years… since he was nothing more than a child and I had no idea he even had tattoos.

I mean, obviously I knew he had to have his markings for being a member of the Twelve somewhere in my mind but to see it for myself is another thing.

I want to know if he has any more.

“Avery, I’m trying to fix things between us. This is the first chance I’ve had to speak to you privately in months… years, even. Other than at the gala, I lost my head.”

I look out of the window so I don’t obsess over the tattoos enough that he notices my interest. “What you do with your head is none of my concern. You had every opportunity to do the right thing, Atticus, you chose not to.”

My phone buzzes in my pocket and I think about ignoring it. Yet when he glares down at it, I can’t help but pull it out and scroll through my messages slowly just to piss him off some more.

“I need your full attention, Avery. I’m willing to discuss some things with you now if it will repair what is happening between us.”

I speak without looking up from my screen, “Is this because you know I’m seeing Aodhan? Is this your jealousy speaking?”

His jaw clamps shut and he speaks between his teeth. “If you want to play with Mounty trash then that’s your own issue to deal with. I’m talking about what happened with my family. I’m talking about the game you’re playing with Amanda Donnelley that is more dangerous than you know.”

My eyes narrow in his direction at his comment about Aodhan but I focus on the other issues for now. I can chew him out later about the absolute hypocrisy of talking down about Mounties when he himself is a member of the Twelve… a Mounts Bay institution.

“Give me one good reason to listen to you because everything you’ve given me so far has been veiled lies and half-truths for no reason other than keeping me out of your world. This isn’t about the sex, Atticus. I think I’m ready to walk away from you if this continues because I’m not going to be treated like this… not even by you.”

His hands tighten on the steering wheel until the leather creaks. I settle back in my seat, expecting that to be the conversation over with. There was a moment, after Luca had found me and Aodhan and walked me back out of the old and dilapidated bank, that I thought Atticus was going to finally open up to me. The look on his face when I walked out of there, covered in burns and bruises, wearing Aodhan’s shirt and Luca’s jacket… he looked at me like I was the sun. Like everything in his world revolved around me, like I was the most precious thing he’s ever encountered and he would live and die for me.

Something changed.

I don’t know what happened after that day, but his careful surveillance of my life went into overdrive and it was as though he no longer trusted me to keep myself safe. Still doesn’t trust me. Something very obviously has happened but I don’t know what it is.

If he can’t trust me