The Atlas Six (The Atlas, #1)

by Olivie Blake

“Anyway,” Callum went on, “I noticed that if I did certain things—said things a certain way, or held her eye contact while I did them—I could make her … soften toward me.” The brandy burned in Tristan’s mouth, more fumes than flavor. The opposite of the tang from his last foray into absinthe, with yet distressingly heightened results. “I suppose I was ten when I realized I had made my mother love me. Then I realized I could make her do other things, too. Put the glass down. Put the knife down. Unpack the suitcase. Step away from the balcony.” Callum’s smile was grim. “Now she’s perfectly content. The matriarch of the most successful media conglomerate in the world, happily satisfied by one of the many boyfriends half her age. My father hasn’t bothered her in over a decade. But she still loves me differently; falsely. She loves me because I put it there. Because I made myself her anchor to this life, and therefore she loves me only as much as she can love any sort of chain. She loves me like a prisoner of war.”