Page 10 of Crown of Lies

I can’t help the dry chuckle that falls from my lips as I shake my head. “Until the other day, I had no idea that my husband and his two best friends were lying to me, so why should I have any clue about this either? What the hell do I know?”

He winces at my cutting words—as if the truth hurtshim,somehow.

“Nico already told you that we’d planned on cutting The Saint loose. No more intel, no more spying,” he says, as if that should be some kind of absolution for all of their lies.

“I don’t fucking care.” I look away from him, unable to bear the sight of his once-familiar brown eyes. It feels like looking at a stranger now. “A lie is still a lie. Changing your minds or having an attack of conscience at the last minute doesn’t change the fact that you all entered into this alliance—into thismarriage—planning to betray me.”

Atlas laces his tattooed fingers together, shaking his head.

“Come on, vicious. We all came into this alliance hating each other. Don’t tell me you didn’t have it in your head that the momentwe found out who was fucking with us, the second we dealt with our unknown attacker, you’d go right back to being our enemy.”

“Maybe at first,” I admit stiffly, because he’s right. “But by the end? No. I didn’t think we’d be enemies. I thought?—”

I stop myself from finishing that sentence, literally biting my tongue to hold the words back. The tang of blood hits my palate, and the sting of tears threatens the corners of my eyes, but I don’t let them fall.

My father didn’t raise a girl who cried over boys, so the woman that I’ve become sure as hell won’t cry over these men.

Silence fills the room for a long moment, and it’s almost as if the words I refused to speak have somehow filtered into the air around us, echoing softly despite never being uttered.

Atlas swallows, and it strikes me suddenly how exhausted he looks. His clothes are smeared with dirt and soot, his shirt torn in a couple of places—probably by stray branches as they chased me through the woods—and there are dark circles under his eyes. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days, a feeling I can relate to, even though all of this has taken place in less than twenty-four hours.

Slowly, he straightens and then stands up from the chair, walking closer to me. The room seems to grow smaller with every step he takes, the space around us seeming to disappear until all that’s left is the few feet separating him from me.

“What if we had told you ourselves?” he asks quietly. “If we’d come to you and confessed everything, would you have understood? Would you have forgiven us? Given us a chance to prove ourselves, to make it up to you? Or would you have hated us just as much?”

There’s an edge to his voice, something raw and almost pained sounding, and it calls to the pain that burns through every inch of my chest.

I don’t know.

That’s the honest truth. I don’t know how I would’ve reacted if the men had admitted they were supposed to be spying on me for their mysterious employer but had decided not to anymore. That they had chosen me over their contract. Would it have been too late, even then?

Atlas’s gaze stays fixed on me, waiting for me to answer, and the weight of everything that’s happened suddenly crashes down on me, leaving me as exhausted as he looks.

“It doesn’t matter what I would have done,” I say, my voice dull. “That’s not what happened, is it?”

His shoulders slump almost imperceptibly, and then he shakes his head as if banishing some internal thought. He takes another step closer, and I steel myself when he reaches for me. But instead of touching me roughly like he did earlier, his hand is almost gentle as it grips my jaw, tilting my chin up and forcing me to meet his gaze.

“Youhaveto talk, vicious,” he says, his voice low and intent. “Nico thinks you know something, that you must have some idea why The Saint thinks you’re valuable. So tell us what you know.Anything you can think of. It will be much better for you if you do.”

There’s something almost like concern in his voice, but instead of softening me toward him, it just hardens the walls around my heart. I know what he’s getting at. He’s trying to play good cop, trying to warn me that if I don’t tell him what he wants to know when he asks nicely, they’ll have to try to get the information from me by other means.

But fuck him.

He doesn’t get to care about my well-beingnow.

He doesn’t get to play the role of protector or try to be my knight in shining armor.

He already chose his side, and it’s not mine.

So if he and the other Princes plan to torture whatever information they think I have out of me, he’ll just have to face that fact with eyes wide open. I won’t let him pretend to be the noble one here. This is war, after all, and war is never pretty.

I lift my chin, breaking his hold on me as I stand as straight and tall as possible. A cold smile tugs at my lips as I shake my head.

“Even if Ididknow, I wouldn’t tell you anything.” I arch an eyebrow. “What if I was more valuable dead than alive? Nico would order me killed in a heartbeat, and you and Killian would rise to the occasion without a second thought. Don’t pretend you wouldn’t.”

A dark look passes through Atlas’s eyes at my words. They narrow, and he leans so close that I can feel his breath dusting across my lips. For a second, I think he’s going to try to torture an answer out of me right here and now. My body tenses, my abused limbs bracing for more pain…

But instead of touching me, Atlas lets out a low, furious growl under his breath, then turns and stalks away.

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