Atonement (Master's Protege 2)

I blow out a whistle. “Wow, baby. That’s a shit ton of money.” Violet will literally never need for a thing. I can’t feel elated, though.

“Why do you look worried?” she asks curiously. “Why isn’t this something to celebrate?”

“Didn’t say that it wasn’t.”

“Ah, right,” she says with that gleam in her eyes that tells me she’s pissed. If we were down by the training field, she’d grab a cudgel right about now. “You’re not pissed, yet you’re not happy, and it doesn’t take a brainiac to figure that one out.”

My own anger simmers. “Oh yeah? You figured me out before I figured myself out, did you?”

“Yeah. You want to be wanted. You need to be needed. And the idea of me being independent and not needing your money makes you insecure.”

“Jesus, no,” I say, shaking my head. “It’s not that at all.”

Why would my mind even go there, knowing that she’s leaving me?

“Then what is it?” she asks, arms crossed on her chest.

“It was too easy. Too damn easy.” I shake my head.

“What was?”

“Going in. Claiming the money. You have to jump through hoops to get any amount of money that is rightfully yours, never mind money you have to prove belongs to you.”

She sputters. “Are you implying that it doesn’t belong to me?”

“God, no. That’s not what I’m saying.”

I’ve never wanted to turn her over my knee so badly.

“You two stop!” Skylar puts her hands up like she’s a ref at a football game. If she had a whistle around her neck, I’d be deaf right now.

“For God’s sake, you’re so fucked up over arguing with each other and this whole breakup thing you don’t see the forest for the trees, do you?”

I turn down the road that takes us home.

“Spit it out, Skylar.”

“The bank’s owned by the Castellanos. They made a note on that account to alert them when the daughter of their enemies came to collect their money. Why? I dunno. But we know that Armand was following you, he’s got an ax to grind, and there’s a good possibility he worked for them. Yes?”

“Yes.” We both nod in unison, then glare at each other when we realize we’re agreeing.

“Go on,” I tell her.

“So you have to draw Armand out. The guys haven’t found him yet, but you know that he’s lying in wait, just biding his time for a chance to come and ruin everything. Right?”

“Right,” Violet says, warily. “Hard to do when everything’s already ruined,” she mutters under her breath.

I grip the steering wheel even tighter.

“Listen to me. Armand’s a coward, right? That’s like his trademark, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

“So what will make this easier for him? What would a coward do? Cain, what does he have that he can use against you?”

I swallow hard. I don’t want to say it out loud. “Cain,” Skylar prods. “C’mon.”

“The bullshit I did to Violet,” I confess. Makes me feel like I want to throw up.

“So, easy solution, then, isn’t it?” Skylar says triumphantly. “Easy peasy.”

Violet scowls. “Let’s hear it.”

“You go out alone. He doesn’t know that she already knows the bullshit you pulled, does he?”

I shake my head.

“You act like you’re still in love. Kiss or… whatever,” she says with a wrinkled nose. “And then, separate. Like, Violet goes her way and Cain goes his. And if my suspicion’s right, Armand will come for you to tell you the awful truth, Violet. You pretend to be shocked and outraged and to leave, and boom.”

“Boom what?”

“That’s where you come in, and you get the answers you need. Got it?”

Pretend to be into each other. Pretend to be in love.

It sounds so much easier than it is.

I grit my teeth. “Got it.”

Chapter Fourteen

Violet

The rollercoaster ride of emotion I’m on today is killing me.

He loves me, he loves me not. He loves me, he loves me not.

It’s hard to reconcile the man I’ve fallen in love with… the man who knows me, who sees me, really truly sees me for who I am, with the same man who confessed to me today.

I can’t get past what he told me. I can’t reconcile my need for him, for us...with the need for truth and trust. How could I ever trust a man who would lie to me like that?

But at the same time… how could I walk away from everything? From Skylar and the boys, the house on the hill and my training ground… from Cain, who’s become my best friend?

My throat aches. I swallow hard and try to stay focused.

And then finding out I’m worth so much money… I can hardly wrap my brain around it. I’m a merry-go-round of emotions.

I have enough to live on for the rest of my life.

But I have a mission to fulfill, and I won’t rest until I’ve done so. I can’t. I won’t.

My parents died because someone thought it best to seek vengeance. I grew up parentless because of someone driven to retaliation. That can’t go unpunished.