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Twenty-Eight

“Did you think we wouldn’t find it?”

Atlas ignored Adam’s question and boosted himself onto the table where Robin had done all manner of filthy things to him yesterday.

They’d gone their separate ways later that morning, each of them needing to be seen in public without the other to dispel any rumors that they’d been working together at Club Sutro.

Robin had spent nearly every second of the past thirty-six hours mentally replaying Atlas’s shouts and groans, remembering the silky hardness of his cock and the tight heat of his hole, fantasizing about when he’d get to taste and smell him again.

Atlas’s gaze drifted to where Robin stood behind the bar and one corner of his mouth hitched up, as if he knew exactly where Robin’s mind had drifted.

He hadn’t jerked off once since they’d parted, and he was paying for it now.

Atlas wasn’t helping, dressed in another tight tee and kilt, the tartan riding high on his thighs.

Robin flipped him the bird and the other side of the sexy fucker’s mouth turned up in a sly grin.

He was so distracted he missed Icarus hurling a balled-up napkin at him, hitting him square in the forehead. “Do you mind?”

“You two called this meeting,” Robin said with a shrug. “I can’t help that you put us in the same room together after a day apart. And for the record, you two are just as bad.”

Icarus glanced over his shoulder at his partner. “That’s true.”

Adam rolled his eyes, then tossed the first of the four folders under his arm onto the other table in the middle of the room, photos scattering across the tabletop. “There’s a wall of pictures in the hunter’s house. Of Atlas and his family.”

Fantasies forgotten, Robin shot out from behind the bar to get a better look at reality.

No, not reality, a nightmare. It was a massive collage—pictures of Atlas, of his brothers, of an older man he assumed was Atlas’s father, based on resemblance.

Some of the photos were posed, some were surveillance, taken from afar and up close, taken as recently as Atlas’s brother’s funeral.

He whipped his gaze to the liar still sitting on the table. “You didn’t think I needed to know about this?” Atlas had told him he’d found nothing at Cyrus’s house.

“Not until I knew more.”

“That’s not how this works.”

He hopped off the table. “That’s how this has always worked.”

The detachment in his words, in the tilt of his chin and the coolness of gaze, was a one-eighty from the flirty Atlas of seconds ago. Robin felt the whiplash in his chest and his balls.

“What else did you find out?” Atlas asked Adam.

“His mother was Indigenous, Bay Miwok, and the original owner of the house.” He tossed a second folder onto the table, this one a mix of papers and photo. “Malila Contra.”

Tan skin, short dark hair, dark eyes, tall and imposing. Robin could see where her son got his height from.

“Lila?”

Robin jerked his gaze up, not used to hearing Atlas’s voice so strangled. He’d only ever heard it like that when Atlas was about to come, when his gaze was lust-clouded and his cheeks rosy. Right then, Atlas’s eyes were wide with surprise and his face was pale.

He looked like he’d seen a ghost.

The ex-cop was no stranger to that look. “You knew her?” Adam asked.

“Knew,” Robin said, picking up on the past tense. Same as Adam’s earlier was . “She’s dead?”

Icarus waved a hand over the pile of Shaw family pictures. “See giant wall of vengeance.”

Atlas didn’t take the bait, a rarity where Icarus’s softballs were concerned.

He wandered over to the bar instead, grabbed the bottle of vodka, and tipped it up to his lips, not bothering with a glass.

Two big gulps later, he lowered the bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“She was the human who held Chaos before it was cast to the other side of the veil.”

“She was also your father’s mistress,” Adam said, dropping the third folder, open to a birth certificate.

For Cyrus Contra. Malila Contra was listed as mother; Pierce Shaw as father.

“That”—he tapped the grainy photo on the other side of the folder, Malila holding a baby, seemingly in an argument with Atlas’s father—“is your half brother.”

“I can’t believe you used your father’s name as an alias,” Icarus said to Atlas.

Atlas strode to the table and mimicked Icarus’s earlier gesture, hand circling over the collage of his father. “See giant wall of asshole. It fit.”

“I was so robbed of a punch.”

“Why is Cyrus trying to kill you?” Adam asked, righting the conversation.

“Has he actually tried to kill you?” Robin queried instead, this latest information putting a new spin on Cyrus’s prior appearance. “Or is it possible he just wants to have a conversation?”

Atlas glared at him. “I know what someone looks like when they want to kill me. He does.”

“What’s he after, then?” Adam said. “Your father’s approval?”

“Maybe,” Icarus replied. “His asshole dad does hate him.”

Robin couldn’t make any of those deductions without more context. “When did Lila die?”

“A few years after the Rift,” Adam replied.

Almost there. “How?” he asked Atlas, sensing the truth would blow things wide open.

Sure enough. “My mother and Daphne’s cast Chaos behind the veil again. Lila didn’t survive the spell.”

Wall of vengeance was right, from multiple angles. “And he’s been after your family ever since?”

“Apparently.”

Robin shifted into tactical mode, requiring a plan to protect his mate. “Do we have a location on him?”

Beneath Cyrus’s birth certificate was a map of Yerba Buena, dotted with red X marks, a cluster of them in the Lost Valley. “Sightings over the past three days,” Adam said.

“Fucking hell,” Robin cursed. “This place is burned.”

Icarus groaned. “We’re going to have to move all that shit again.”

Robin ignored his whining, more concerned with their safety. “Get back to the mountain,” he told Adam and Icarus. “Fill them in.” Then to Atlas, said, “Go to the condo. No one can get past those spells.”

As if the barked order had brought him back to life, Atlas straightened his spine and lifted his chin, barking back. “I’m not going to fucking hide. We’re six days from Solstice. We need to keep luring Evan out.”

“On that note...” Adam handed Robin the final file. “You look like you could kill someone.”

“Please.”

Robin flipped open the folder. On one side was a dossier for a witch who’d previously been a member of the Redwood Coven. On the other side was her photo. Attractive, middle-aged, white, with blue eyes, light brown hair, and a button nose.

“Your other brother,” Adam said, “just doubled the bounty on this witch.”

“What’s she to Evan?” Robin asked.

“A potential rival. Mac talked to his contacts in the coven. They tossed her out decades ago when they learned she was working against them to bring Chaos through the veil.”

And there went the color in Atlas’s face again, but he didn’t shrink like he had before. Almost like he knew the answer to this mystery and was steeling himself for it. “Name?”

“Karoline Wiles,” Robin read from the dossier.

His eyes slipped closed, but not before Robin recognized the guilt that streaked through his green gaze. “She’s one of Chaos’s devotees.”

“What else?”

“She was the one who recruited me, who tempted me with the promise of Chaos for a while.”

Robin saw red, imagining the worst of what all that entailed for Atlas, understanding that glimpse of guilt now, better than most. He felt it too, every time he killed, every time he remembered the day he let his sister get killed too.

“It’s a trap,” Atlas’s words yanked him out of the familiar mire. “Evan could easily defeat her. He did defeat her already. He doesn’t need to hire the job out, and he certainly doesn’t need to double the bounty.”

“So he wants us on her,” Robin said, following the train of thought, recalling what Atlas had previously said—he knew Evan better than anyone, and vice versa, even if Robin intended to change that eventually. “While he does what?”

“Eliminates the real threat to Chaos—Pati Miwra’s son.”