Atlas didn’t hesitate.“The fact that he’s dead,” he remarked flatly, “makes things worse for you.”
The words hit me like a slap.
“When he wanted you dead, it was personal,” he continued, his voice dangerously low.“But now that he’s gone, everyone connected to him wants blood.They don’t care how or why.They only care that you’re the reason two Sokolov brothers are in the ground.”
My breath snagged.I didn’t need him to explain it.I’d lived enough violence to understand what came next.There had been consequences when I’d killed Viktor’s brother in that alley.There would be consequences now.Worse ones, much deadlier.
Atlas stepped closer, not enough to touch, but enough to make my pulse stumble.
“Trust me when I tell you that you’re safer in this room than you would be anywhere else in the city.”
I swallowed hard, my throat constricting.“And why do you care?What difference does it make to you if I live or not?By my calculations, you’d be better off if I were dead.”
“Perhaps.But you’re not leaving now.When the threat is contained, you can leave.Hell—” his jaw flexed “—I’ll walk you to the curb myself.”
He said it like the words tasted bitter on his tongue.Like the idea of me leaving dug under his skin.
Anger simmered in him, sharp and sudden, and I wanted to scream back that it had just been a kiss—if that was what was eating at him.But it hadn’t just been a kiss.Not to him.Not to me.Not to the part of me still shaking from how easily I’d forgotten who he was.
He turned toward the door, paused like he was fighting with something inside himself.Something he refused to say aloud.Then he stepped out.
The latch clicked behind him.
And the silence that followed hit like a verdict.
This wasn’t a prison.But it wasn’t freedom either.I was suspended here—caught between worlds, between truths, between the man who should have killed me and the man who had kissed me yesterday like I was the last breath he had left.
I wasn’t safe anywhere.
Not with him.
And definitely not with myself.
I didn’t moveuntil the door clicked shut behind Atlas and his footsteps faded down the hall.Then I pushed myself upright, every muscle screaming in protest.The room tilted, but I caught myself against the wall and forced it to stop spinning.I eased the door open just enough to let the sounds slip through, then leaned in close, my cheek pressed to the cool wall as I listened in silence.
“I know who she is.”
It was the younger brother, Marcello.His voice cut through the quiet.My stomach dropped.
“You know nothing, Marcello,” Atlas hissed back.
“Why didn’t you kill her fifteen years ago, Atlas?”
Blood roared in my ears so loudly I barely heard Atlas’s breath—slow, controlled, betraying nothing… except the truth he refused to voice.He didn’t deny it.
“I kept my mouth shut,” Marcello’s voice was tight.“Not for you.For the family.But don’t stand here and pretend I’m blind.You owe me that.”
A pause.A shift in weight.Leather creaked.Someone let out a tense breath.
“I owe you nothing,” Atlas bit out.
Marcello scoffed.“No?You don’t have a merciful bone in your body.Yet this girl—this Trimboli—has you completely undone.”
My heart stuttered painfully.
Atlas spoke low.Steady.Frigid.“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I haven’t seen you this invested in a woman since?—”