Epilogue - Raze #2
I sighed softly.
“Must we pretend this is a revelation?” I asked.
Atlas ignored me.
“You’ve made enemies, Archie.”
I smiled faintly.
“Occupational hazard.”
Atlas leaned forward slightly.
“Even retired professionals would come out of the woodwork for that amount of money.”
“Yes,” I said. “I imagine they will.”
The man across from us finally leaned in. And there it was. The moment he had been working toward.
“I might have information,” he said.
Atlas rolled his eyes.
I folded my hands on the table.
“Do you?”
He nodded slowly.
“But information has value.”
Here we go.
I waited. He waited.
We stared at each other across the table while the restaurant continued moving quietly around us.
“I could tell you who placed the bounty.”
Ah. Extortion. Classic.
“And what,” I asked pleasantly, “would you like in return?”
The man smiled.
“Protection.”
Atlas laughed. Actually laughed. A short, sharp sound that made the man stiffen.
“You want protection from the man whose head has a price on it?” Atlas asked.
The man flushed slightly.
“Well—when you put it like that—”
I sighed.
The sigh of a man who had hoped—briefly—that this evening might offer something interesting. Instead I had been given a con man.
“Let me understand,” I said slowly. “You came here. To a private dinner. With two men who have buried more enemies than most people have acquaintances…”
The man swallowed.
“…to attempt a negotiation based on information you refuse to share.”
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Then nodded.
“Yes.”
I looked at Atlas. Atlas looked at me. Then he leaned back again.
“Do what you want,” he said.
I reached for the fork beside my plate.
The man frowned slightly.
“I’m not sure you understand—”
I moved.
The fork slid across the table and into his eye before the sentence finished leaving his mouth.
The sound he made was extraordinary.
A wet scream exploded from his throat as the fork sank deep into the socket.
The table lurched violently as he recoiled, knocking over his wine glass.
Liquid sprayed across the white linen. And across my shoe.
I stared at it.
The man was screaming now, hands clawing at his face as blood poured between his fingers.
The restaurant had gone silent.
I sighed heavily as I looked down at my shoes.
“Now look what you’ve done.”
Atlas leaned back in his chair and rubbed his temple.
“You didn’t even give him a warning.”
“He had several.”
The man thrashed in his seat, shrieking.
I removed the fork carefully.
More liquid followed.
Atlas glanced at my shoe.
“Expensive.”
“Yes,” I said irritably.
I looked back at the man.
“Now,” I said calmly, “we’re going to try this again.”
He sobbed.
Fear is very clarifying.
“Who placed the bounty?” I asked.
He gasped.
“Russian—”
Progress.
“Which one?”
He choked.
“Bro… ther… hood.”
Atlas’s expression darkened.
That confirmed something we had both suspected.
I leaned closer.
“You see,” I said softly, “this could have been a very simple conversation.”
The man whimpered. I was sure he had now lost sight in one eye.
Blood dripped steadily onto the table.
Atlas looked bored again.
I placed the fork back beside my plate.
“Next time,” I added gently, “lead with the interesting stuff.”
The man nodded frantically.
Across from me, Atlas studied my face.
“You’re taking this remarkably well,” he said.
“The bounty?”
“Yes.”
I reached for my wine again.
The restaurant slowly began pretending nothing had happened. Europe is wonderful that way.
“Well,” I said calmly, “if someone wants me dead badly enough to spend two million euros…”
Atlas waited.
“…then I suppose I should start preparing.”
Atlas’s eyes sharpened slightly.
“Preparing how?”
I smiled faintly. Many times, I’d been told that I had a smile that makes reasonable men reconsider their life choices.
“My own funeral.”
Because someone had just placed a very expensive target on my head. And if there was one thing I had learned in life—it was that survival always favored the man who was prepared.
CHAPTER 2: TONE
The smell of blood refused to be ignored.
No matter how clean the room was—no matter how much alcohol and surgical soap tried to scrub the night away—it always found a way to linger. Copper-thick. Warm. Persistent.
Tonight, it clung to the walls like it belonged there.
The small medical room, buried deep within the estate, had seen its share of damage. But this… this felt heavier. Like the kind of mess that didn’t wash out, no matter how hard you tried.
My cousin Gianni sat on the examination table with the patience of a man who had learned long ago that complaining did absolutely nothing to improve his situation.
Which was fortunate. Because I was in no mood for it tonight.
“Hold still,” I said.
“I am holding still.”
“You twitched.”
“I breathed,” he corrected.
“That counts.”
He exhaled slowly through his nose and gritted his teeth as the heat of antiseptic penetrated his skin.
The cut across his thigh was ugly. Not catastrophic—if it had been, he wouldn’t be sitting here making sarcastic comments—but deep enough that ignoring it would have been a very poor decision.
I finished irrigating the wound and reached for the sutures.
“Remind me again,” I said calmly, threading the needle, “why exactly you thought chasing three armed men down a narrow stairwell was a good idea.”
“They insulted my suit.”
“Ah.”
I glanced up.
“That does justify a war.”
Gianni smirked faintly.
“Thank you for your understanding.”
I pushed the needle through the skin.
He didn’t flinch.
Most of the men around here were good about pain. Not because they were particularly brave—though some of them were—but because they understood that reacting dramatically in front of the others would never be forgotten.
Reputation was currency in this world. Whining devalued it.
I worked methodically, stitching the torn muscle with steady precision. The rhythm was familiar: pierce, pull, knot, repeat.
Another one of the wounded men sat in a chair across the room while one of Atlas’s medics finished wrapping his shoulder. The atmosphere was quiet, almost routine.
I tied off the last stitch and trimmed the thread.
“There,” I said. “Try not to tear it open.”
Gianni glanced down.
“Beautiful work.”
“Of course it is. That’s why you called me.”
He slid carefully off the table.
“Your body is starting to resemble a map,” I added, looking him over.
“Battle scars are attractive.”
“To whom?”
He considered that.
“Fair point.”
I looked up when the door opened.
Archie Popovich stepped into the room like he had just wandered in from a quiet dinner somewhere civilized instead of arriving to inspect the aftermath of a violent operation.
His suit jacket was gone, the sleeves of his shirt rolled neatly to the elbows. The white fabric was immaculate—no blood, no grime, not even the faint smudge of gunpowder.
Which meant, of course, that he had arrived after the fun part, which wouldn’t sit well with him.
My eyes dropped briefly to his legs without meaning to.
They moved smoothly when he walked now. Strong. Controlled. A slight limp which sometimes flared up and was more pronounced at peculiar times, a phenomenon that no-one had an explanation for.
Months ago, my cousin Gianni had shot him through both knees. It hadn’t been an accident, but a very deliberate act of violence.
I still remembered the moment clearly—the way Archie lay collapsed on the ground, blood pouring out of him while the rest of the world dissolved into chaos. Most men would have been screaming, or cursing, or begging someone to do something.
Archie had simply looked down at the damage like it was an inconvenience. Then he had looked at me.
“You are the doctor,” he had said calmly. “Yes?”
I had spent the next four hours elbow-deep in blood trying to save his legs.
The ligaments were shredded. There were bone fragments where bone had no business being.
It was the sort of damage that usually ended with a wheelchair and a lifetime of bitterness.
But somehow—against probability and logic—I had put him back together again.
And now he walked like nothing had ever happened.
Which was impressive. And mildly irritating. Because since that night, Archie had developed a habit of appearing in the periphery of my life like a particularly well-dressed parasite.
I had started privately referring to him as the Russian bug.
Not because he behaved like one—Archie was far too controlled, far too refined for that—but because he kept showing up when I least expected him.
In hallways. In meeting rooms. In the middle of bloody wars he had no business finishing. Each time with that same calm expression and faintly amused eyes, like he had wandered there entirely by accident.
He was a humorous bug, admittedly. But still a bug.
And I had a job to do. Men bled. Bones broke. Bullets had to come out of people before they died. There wasn’t time in my life for distraction. Especially not the kind that wore tailored shirts and observed the world like a chessboard.
His gaze swept the room now in one quiet, assessing pass. He didn’t speak immediately. Archie rarely wasted words before deciding if they were necessary.
His eyes landed briefly on the medic across the room. Then on Gianni. Then on me. Something shifted in the air when his attention settled there. Subtle. Almost invisible. But I felt it.
It wasn’t obvious. Archie wasn’t the type of man who stared like a fool or lingered long enough to draw attention. But there was something in the way his gaze sharpened—something quietly attentive that made it impossible not to notice.
“Well,” he said mildly. “The surgery looks like it was relatively successful.”
Gianni gestured lazily toward his leg.
“Depends on your definition of successful.”
Archie moved closer, his gaze dropping briefly to the fresh stitches I had just finished tying.
“You’ll live. Same way I did.”
“How comforting. Why does it feel like you’re gloating, Archie?”
Archie’s mouth twitched slightly. Which, for him, was practically laughter.
“You shot out my knees, remember?”
Archie moved to the counter beside me and rested his hands against the edge, studying the instruments I had spread out with quiet curiosity.
“You were nearby?” he asked.
“I was dragged here,” I corrected.
His eyes flicked toward me again.
“Yes,” he said calmly. “That sounds more accurate.”
Gianni leaned back in his chair, frowning as he looked at the quiet interloper.
“Why are you here, Archie?”
Archie glanced at him.
“I came as soon as I heard. First, to gloat,” he smirked. “Then to offer any assistance should you need it.”
Gianni huffed. “You should see the other guys.”
“I suppose I already have,” Archie said, rather cryptically, a wistful look on his face. I could only imagine the crazy Russian had already sorted out the gang of merry men who thought it wise to try to mug my cousin Gianni.
His attention drifted back to me.
“Any serious injuries?”
“Nothing catastrophic.”
I began gathering the instruments, rinsing them carefully in the basin.
“Shame.”
“Yes.”
I dried my hands on a towel and glanced over my shoulder at Gianni’s leg.
The stitches held clean and tight.
“Try not to do anything heroic for at least forty-eight hours,” I said.
He shrugged.
“No promises.”
I sighed. Then looked directly at Archie.
“And if you get your knees blown out again,” I said casually, “don’t expect me to come to your rescue again.”
For a moment, the room was quiet.
Archie’s expression didn’t change. But something behind his eyes shifted—something warm and dangerous all at once. Then the corner of his mouth lifted in what looked suspiciously like the beginning of a smile.
“Noted,” he said.
His gaze lingered on me a second longer than necessary.
Long enough for something unspoken to pass quietly between us.
Then he straightened and turned his attention back to the room. But the air had changed. And judging by the way Gianni looked between us with sudden interest—I wasn’t the only one who had noticed.