Chapter Thirty-Four-Atlas
Dimitri’s compound sits on the edge of the old cliffs, a mockery of the estate my father once owned. It was meant to be a retreat. A private sanctuary.
Tonight, it is a tomb.
My car barely stops before I’m off it, sprinting across the pier with four of my remaining loyal guards at my heels.
I don’t wait. I don’t strategize.
I don’t fucking breathe.
My wife is inside there.
The gates to the compound hang crooked, one of them broken clean off the hinges and smoking from an earlier blast.
Stone walls charred black. Windows blown out. The scent of gunpowder and ash thick in the air. I stalk through the rubble, each step heavy with purpose, the weight of rage coiled in my gut.
My breath rasps loud in my ears, harsh and uneven.
But louder still is the sound of my heartbeat.
A war drum in my chest.
Faster. Louder. Unrelenting.
And underneath it, the fear.
It claws at me like a living thing.
That I’m too late.
That she’s hurt.
That I’ve lost her.
I tell myself I can’t think like that, not now. Not when every second counts.
Men approach. My uncle’s men.
They’re outfitted for battle, but they look hesitant.
I don’t give a fuck.
“Take them out!” I order my men.
And we do. I lift my automatic, and I pull the trigger.
The inner courtyard is a battlefield—Dimitri’s guards lie groaning or still, some already dead, others scrambling to beg for mercy they’ll never receive.
My men are mopping up what’s left, grim-faced, efficient.
I don’t stop. I don’t speak.
I just move.
Every wall I pass feels like it’s holding her scream.
Every door I kick open should have her behind it.
Every second I waste is a second she’s in there, scared, suffering, maybe bleeding.
Motherfucker. I close my eyes, willing the image of a hurt Cece from my mind.
The gates are unguarded.
Or they should be.
Two men stand there—my men. Or so I thought.
They straighten when they see me, hands going to their weapons.
“You! What are you doing here?”
“Wait! No—”
I shoot the one in the head before he finishes his sentence.
The second barely has time to gasp before my blade is in his throat.
Traitors.
Dimitri’s rot has spread further than I knew.
I shove through the entrance.
I hear footsteps pounding behind me—my men, shouting that the Sigma operatives Luc sent are five minutes out, maybe less.
Five minutes.
That’s too long.
I’ve already lost too many.
Another guard steps into my path, raising his gun, but he hesitates.
He recognizes me.
He shouldn’t have betrayed me.
I disarm him, slam him into the wall, and snap his neck cleanly.
He falls like a puppet whose strings have been cut.
I move deeper, heart hammering a rhythm that is nothing but murder and fear.
Cecilia.
Her name beats inside my skull like a war drum.
Cecilia.
Her scent—sweet citrus and warmth—lingers faintly in the hall. With it there’s the coppery tang of fear and blood, and my stomach twists.
CECILIA.
Her heartbeat is the only sound I want to hear.
Then, I hear a cry.
Soft. Pained. Choked.
I sprint.
I slam open the heavy double doors to my uncle’s royal chamber—his pathetic imitation of the throne room he always imagined he deserved.
And time stops.
She’s there. So close, but too far.
Cecilia is tied to a chair.
Arms bound.
Face bruised.
Blood drying at her temple, her nose, her lip, her hand.
Her bottom lip is split.
Her dress is dirty and torn.
“CECILIA!” I roar.
My entire body is trembling with rage, but before I give into it, she twitches.
Just a flicker. A breath of movement.
The smallest shift of her bound hands.
The faintest lift of her chin.
Like her soul is refusing to give up even when her body is screaming in pain.
Her head rises slowly, as if gravity itself is fighting her, as if every bruised muscle protests. It looks like it costs her everything.
But still, she does it.
Because she’s Cecilia fucking Stavros.
Her dark green eyes—so fucking beautiful, like pine forests after a snowfall, ancient and stubborn and alive—drag upward until they find mine.
And I stop breathing.
Defiant. Bold. Brilliant. Even now.
Even battered and bloodied.
Even when her lip is split, when blood trickles down her jaw, when a bruise is blooming across her cheekbone like some cruel, poisonous flower.
Even when the dress she bought before she knew where I was taking her—the one she’d twirled around in while laughing this morning—is torn and dirty.
Even then, she shines.
My heart seizes in my chest, a violent, wrenching clench that knocks the breath from my lungs.
Fuck. Thank God.
She’s alive.
And she’s never looked more beautiful.
But I wasn’t here when she needed me.
The realization hits like a blade to the gut. It tears something fragile inside me wide open—a thing I’ve kept locked away for years.
The soft part of me.
The human part.
The man who dared believe he could protect her from all of this.
It rips.
And what pours out is not a man.
It’s the monster I’ve spent my entire life repressing. The one I buried under strategy and composure, beneath charm and diplomacy, behind clever plans and calm smiles.
The monster I swore I would never unleash. Not ever.
But now?
Now that control is dust at my feet?
Now that I’ve seen my wife tied to a chair like prey in my uncle’s pathetic imitation of a throne room?
The human in me is gone.
“Cecilia,” I whisper, except it’s not a whisper at all—it’s a vow.
Violence wrapped in velvet.
A promise of retribution drenched in devotion.
A prayer carved from fury and love and the absolute certainty that she will be safe again, even if I have to burn everything on this fucking island to ash.
She lifts her head fully at the sound of my voice.
Her breath shudders.
Her eyes are glassy, rimmed red with unshed tears.
Her lips tremble—my lips, the ones I’ve kissed awake every morning since dragging her here.
And then she says my name.
“Atlas.”
A broken, breathless whisper.
But it destroys me.
It detonates whatever thin strand of sanity I had left. Cuts through the last fragile tether holding the beast inside me at bay.
This is it.
This is the moment the monster takes over completely.
Because she’s mine.
Because I love her more than my own pulse.
Because whoever touched her will beg for death long before I grant it.
The entire world has just been given notice.
There will be no mercy.
No prisoners.
No escape.
Not for the man who dared lay a finger on what’s mine.
Dimitri Stavros is already dead.
He just hasn’t realized it yet.
My blood is lava. My bones feel like they’re splintering under the pressure of holding in the monster clawing its way up my throat. I can barely hear over the roar in my head—rage, grief, fury so sharp it could cut steel.
“Speak of the Devil,” I growl.
Dimitri steps out from behind her like he’s taking a bow on a stage built from my nightmares, wearing that smug, oily grin I’ve hated since childhood.
The grin that says he thinks he’s clever. That he thinks he’s won. That he thinks he’s already counted Cecilia as his prize.
He’s smiling like this is some grand finale.
Like this is his moment.
Like tonight ends with me broken and him triumphant.
He has no idea.
“There you are,” he sneers. “I knew you would crawl back to rescue the fat American whor—”
He doesn’t finish.
Because I don’t let him.
Something inside me snaps—clean, violent, irrevocable.
My vision tunnels.
The world blurs.
Color drains out until all I can see—all I can feel—is his throat.
That vulnerable column of flesh that dared to shape her name.
That dared to insult what is mine.
I move before the thought even completes. Instinct. Fury. The kind of predatory violence bred into my bloodline long before I was born.
My hand closes around his neck—tight, punishing, unforgiving.
I lift him half a foot off the marble floor like he weighs nothing.
His feet kick wildly, knocking over a marble planter.
His shoes scrape.
His hands claw at my wrist, nails dragging across my skin.
I don’t loosen my grip.
I don’t even blink.
“You touched her,” I snarl, and the sound that leaves me isn’t human. It’s an animal with nothing left to lose. “You took her. You dared.”
His face purples. His eyes bulge. His mouth opens in a wet, wheezing sound.
Pathetic.
I lean in close—so close I can smell the fear dripping off his skin.
“You called her what?” I whisper, my voice a razor aimed straight at his soul. My lips graze his ear. “Go on. Say it again.”
He can’t.
He won’t.
He’ll never speak again.
Because I don’t wait for an answer.
With a vicious twist of my wrist—a movement I’ve practiced, perfected, mastered—I crush his windpipe.
And then, before his brain can even process it, I snap his neck.
The sound—God, the sound—echoes through the hall like thunder cracking open the earth.
A sharp, final, sickening crack that feels like justice.
He drops. His body collapses like nothing more than the dead weight he is. A boneless sack of filth collapsing in a heap.
A gurgle, then silence.
I release him only after life has fully drained from his eyes.
Only after I’m certain there’s nothing left of him—no breath, no heartbeat, no chance of resurrection.
My chest heaves.
My hands shake—not with fear, but with the force of the fury still boiling inside me.
He’s dead.
But it isn’t enough.
It will never be enough.
Because there is no punishment severe enough for what he did to her.
For what he took.
For what she endured.
But I swear—on my blood, my crown, my soul—this is only the beginning of his end. I will wipe every piece of him from this world and the next.
Someone retches. Probably one of the guards.
I don’t care. I step over my uncle’s corpse without looking down, rage still burning through me, but all of it redirected now.
To her.
To Cecilia.
She’s all that matters.
I drop to my knees and lift her chin with trembling fingers, afraid to see how broken she might be.
But when her lashes flutter, when her gaze locks on mine—my heart fractures.
She’s alive.
“I’m here,” I whisper, voice ragged. “Cecilia. Kardhoúla mou. I’m here. I’ve got you.”
Relief washes over her face. Her lips part. “I knew you’d come.”
Then she blinks again, fighting to stay conscious.
“Wait,” she murmurs. “He-he took my ring.”
I freeze.
My stomach clenches.
That ring. That promise. That symbol of everything we are.
“I’ll get it back,” I vow, already glancing toward Dimitri’s crumpled body—but I can’t leave her. Not even for a second.
So, I do the only thing that matters in this moment.
I get her free.
My hands are shaking as I undo each knot, and when her body slumps forward, I catch her against my chest.
She fits there.
Perfectly. Like she was made for me.
She was. She’s mine.
And I feel the blood on her skin soak into my shirt, and I swear—I swear to every fucking God that’s ever been prayed to—I will never let this happen again.
She’s mine.
“I got you. You’re safe,” I tell her.
“Oh, Atlas,” she whimpers.
“You’re mine, you hear me? Mine. And it’s gonna be okay. I’ve got you now. I won’t fuck it up again.”
Sigma agents storm in behind me, their boots pounding, radios crackling, but they might as well be ghosts. Background noise.
I cradle her tighter, shielding her from the noise, from the stares.
“Michail!” I bark.
He appears instantly, wide-eyed but smart enough not to glance at my wife.
“Yes, sir?”
“Search that filthy son of a bitch for her ring. Clean it. Return it to me personally.”
“Yes, sir.”
I stand. She groans, curling into my chest, wincing.
“Where did he hurt you?” I ask, voice raw.
“Does it matter?” she whispers. “You saved me.”
God. She’s so brave.
And I did this.
I brought her into this world. I exposed her to this danger. I thought I could keep her safe, but the truth is—she’s too good for this.
Too good for me.
I press my lips to her hair, rocking her gently as sirens wail outside the walls and Sigma finishes the clean-up.
“I’m taking you home,” I promise. “We’re done here.”
And I don’t just mean the compound.
I mean Greece.
I mean this godforsaken war for legacy.
I have what matters now.
Her.
Everything else can burn.