Page 41 of Atlas and the Traitor

“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.”

Twenty-Nine

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