Chapter 30
30
ATLAS
I hated goodbyes. Always had. They were messy, jagged things—splinters that dug in deep and festered. But this one? This one carved something out of me I didn’t know I’d given up until her arms were around me, her breath warm against my chest, and the storm screaming like it wanted to swallow us both.
Hurricane Arden had turned Charleston into a war zone before it even made landfall. The wind tore at the cottage, clawing at the roof with a sound like metal shredding, rain slashing sideways in sheets so thick I could barely see the road beyond the porch. Trees bent double, their branches snapping like brittle bones, and the air tasted of salt and ruin. It was chaos out there—wild, untamed, and hungry. A beast I understood better than most.
Anna clung to me in the doorway, her fingers knotted in my shirt, her face pressed to my sternum. I felt her heartbeat through the layers—fast, fierce, alive. She didn’t cry. Not her style. But her grip said everything her voice didn’t.
“Come back to me,” she whispered, the words half-lost to the wind. “You hear me, Atlas? You come back.”
I tilted her chin up, met those green eyes that saw too much of me. “I always do.”
Her lips pressed into a thin line, like she wanted to argue but knew it wouldn’t change a damn thing. I kissed her—hard, brief, a brand more than a farewell. She tasted like rain and salt and something sweeter I’d never deserve. When I pulled back, her hands stayed on me a second longer, like she could anchor me here if she tried hard enough.
She couldn’t.
Ryker’s armored SUV rolled up then, a black beast cutting through the storm like it was born for it. The headlights sliced through the wind and rain, illuminating the water pooling on the cracked pavement, the debris skittering across the ground. He didn’t get out—didn’t need to. My brother knew the drill.
“Go,” I said, stepping back, letting the wind fill the space between us.
Anna hesitated, her gaze flicking over me like she was memorizing every line. Then she nodded, turned, and ran through the rain to the passenger side. The door slammed shut behind her, and I watched her silhouette through the tinted glass as Ryker gunned the engine. The vehicle lurched forward, tires churning through the flood, and disappeared into the gray curtain of the storm.
I stood there longer than I should’ve, the water sinking into my bones, the wind whipping against my body. She was gone. Safe. That was what mattered. Everything else was noise.
I turned back into the cottage, shutting the door against the howl outside. The quiet hit me like a punch—too still, too empty without her. I didn’t linger on it. Couldn’t. There was work to do, and I was good at work. Better at war.
Preparation was simple. I didn’t need much. Never had.
When it was time, I stripped out of the damp clothes, trading them for black—cargo pants, long-sleeve shirt, combat boots. All matte, all shadow. No reflection, no sound. I strapped a knife to my thigh—seven-inch blade, serrated on one side, sharp enough to cut through bone. Another went into my boot, smaller but just as lethal. The silenced pistol came next, suppressor already threaded on, tucked into a holster at my hip. I checked the mag, racked the slide, felt the weight settle in my hand like an old friend.
Last was the face paint. I stood over the cracked bathroom sink, smearing black across my cheeks, my forehead, the bridge of my nose. My hazel eyes stared back from the mirror, too bright against the dark, so I streaked paint around them until they dulled into something predatory. Something that belonged in the night.
I didn’t look human anymore. Didn’t feel it, either. Good. Humanity was a liability where I was going.
Darkness fell hard over Charleston as Arden closed in. I stepped outside, the wind slamming into me like a fist, rain stinging my skin. The sky was a bruise—black and purple, swollen with fury. Streetlights flickered, some already dead, casting the city into a patchwork of shadow and glow. The streets were empty, abandoned to the storm. Water rushed ankle-deep down the roads, carrying trash and broken branches in its current. Palmettos thrashed, their fronds ripping free and sailing through the air like shrapnel.
I climbed into my truck—a matte-black F-150, stripped of anything that could gleam—and started the engine. The rumble was swallowed by the storm, insignificant against its rage. I drove slow, deliberate, through the flooded streets, tires cutting through the mess. No one else was out. No sane person would be. Just me, the hurricane, and the ghosts of a city holding its breath.
The congressman and senator had holed up in a mansion south of Broad Street, a relic of old money with walls that had seen wars and worse. They thought they were untouchable there—private security, a fortress built on arrogance. I knew better. Invulnerability was a lie men like them told themselves to sleep at night. I’d woken up plenty of liars.
I parked blocks away, under the sagging canopy of a live oak, its limbs groaning in the wind. The truck blended into the dark, just another shadow in a city full of them. I stepped out, rain soaking me instantly, and moved fast, sticking to alleys and side streets. The storm was my cover—its noise drowning out my steps, its chaos hiding my shape.
The mansion loomed ahead, a hulking silhouette against the storm-lit sky. Three stories of brick and ivy, windows shuttered tight, a wrought-iron gate bent inward from the wind. I didn’t bother with the front. I circled to the back, where a service entrance sat unguarded, the lock rusted and weak. One twist of my knife, and it gave.
Inside, the air was dry, warm, a stark contrast to the hell outside. I moved silent, boots soft on the hardwood, water dripping from my clothes in a faint trail I couldn’t avoid. The first guard was in the kitchen—big guy, mercenary by the look of him, sipping coffee like this was just another night. He didn’t hear me until my blade was in his throat, slicing clean through the carotid. Blood sprayed hot across the counter, his mug crashing to the floor as he gurgled and dropped. One down.
The second was in the hall, pacing with a shotgun slung over his shoulder, airpod in one ear. Sloppy. I came up behind him, wrapped an arm around his neck, and drove the smaller knife up through his spine then once in the neck. He twitched once, then went limp, dead before he hit the ground. I dragged him into a closet, left him crumpled among the coats.
Two more waited upstairs, stationed outside the den where I knew Graves and Kemper were hiding. I didn’t waste time. The first caught a bullet from the pistol—silenced shot, straight through the temple, a clean drop. The second turned too late, my hand clamping over his mouth as I buried the serrated blade in his gut, twisting until his eyes rolled back. He slumped against the wall, blood pooling dark on the carpet.
Four bodies. Four minutes. The storm didn’t care, and neither did I.
I kicked the den door open, the wood splintering under my boot. The room was warm, soft—too damn cozy for men like them. A fire crackled in the hearth, casting gold across the leather armchairs where Congressman Vincent Graves and Senator Klein Kemper sat, drinks in hand, faces calm like they’d been expecting a guest, not a reckoning.
Graves was older, softer, his silver hair slicked back, a tumbler of bourbon resting on his knee. Kemper was leaner, sharper, middle aged with cold blue eyes and a glass of something clear—gin, maybe—dangling from his fingers. They didn’t flinch when I stepped in, black paint streaking my face, blood on my hands, the pistol still warm.
“Well,” Graves said, voice smooth as velvet, “this is dramatic.”
I didn’t answer. Didn’t need to. I crossed the room in three strides, grabbed him by the collar, and hauled him out of the chair like he weighed nothing. His drink hit the floor, glass shattering, bourbon soaking into the rug. He clawed at my wrists, eyes wide now, but I didn’t give him time to beg. One hand on his jaw, the other at the back of his skull, and I twisted—hard. His neck snapped with a wet crack, spine giving way, and I let him drop, limp and lifeless, back into the chair he’d been so smug in.
Kemper didn’t move. Didn’t even blink. Just sipped his drink, ice clinking against the glass, and watched Graves slump like it was a mild inconvenience.
“Suppose that gets my attention,” he said, voice cool as the storm outside was wild. “What do you want, Dane?”
I turned to him, blood dripping from my fingers, the monster in me still snarling, still hungry. But I reined it in—barely. I wasn’t here to kill them both. Not yet. I needed answers, and dead men don’t talk.
“Department 77,” I said, voice low, rough from the cold and the killing. “What’s your role?”
Kemper raised an eyebrow, like I’d asked him about the weather. He took another sip, then set the glass down on the side table with a deliberate clink. “I usher legislation. Nothing overt. Subtle pushes when it matters—funding here, a loophole there. And I feed them intel from the committees I sit on. Defense. Intelligence. The usual.”
I stared at him, the firelight dancing across his face, his calm grating against the rage in my chest. “Why tell me?”
He shrugged, a lazy roll of one shoulder. “If I’m not useful, I end up like Vince there. I’d rather not. Besides, I need a new golfing partner now.”
The casualness of it—Graves’s body cooling not five feet away, and this bastard talking about golf—made me want to snap his neck, too. My hands flexed, the knife at my thigh calling to me, the weight of the pistol begging to be used. I could see it: his head caved in, his blood on the walls, his smug fucking smile gone forever. Anna’s face flashed in my mind—her green eyes, her laugh, her family safe at Dominion Hall. My brothers. My father’s voice, faint but there, telling me to think.
I stayed still. Forced the monster back. “You’re too calm.”
Kemper leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. “I love Charleston, Dane. More than anything. Department 77’s getting sloppy—too loud, too showy, too ambitious. That mess with the mayor? Amateur hour. They’re risking this city, my home, and I don’t take kindly to that.”
“Why’s that my problem?”
He smirked, faint but sharp. “Because given the current situation, what are you and your brothers going to do? Sit back and sip sweet tea? No. You’ll burn heaven and hell to find them. And they know it.”
I didn’t argue. He wasn’t wrong. The Danes didn’t bend. We broke things—people, plans, empires. Whatever it took.
“So what?” I said. “You’re switching sides?”
“Not switching,” he corrected, leaning back again. “Adjusting. An alliance, if you will. Uneasy, sure, but practical. You want them gone as much as I do.”
I narrowed my eyes, the fire popping behind me, the wind howling outside like it agreed. “And Anna’s family? How do they fit?”
Kemper’s gaze flicked to Graves’s body, then back to me. “I can handle that. Give me time. The Danes are the priority target—always have been. If you’re willing to stay the bullseye, and with the right convincing, I can get the Petrov—Peters, whatever—family back to their cozy little truce with the CIA. No blood spilled.”
I didn’t trust him. Not even close. But I didn’t need trust. I needed leverage, and he was handing it to me on a silver platter. For now.
“Why should I believe you?” I asked, stepping closer, letting the full weight of my presence fill the room. Hundreds of pounds of muscle and menace, blood still wet on my knuckles.
Kemper didn’t flinch. “Because I’m still breathing. That’s your choice, not mine.”
Fair point. I could’ve ended him already—would’ve, if I didn’t see the use in him. Yet.
“One more thing,” I said, voice dropping lower, colder. “What’s this got to do with my father?”
His smirk faded, just for a second, and something flickered in those blue eyes—regret, maybe, or recognition. He picked up his drink again, swirled the ice, took a slow sip.
“Byron Dane,” he said finally, almost to himself. “Should’ve listened to him all along.”
I froze. The name hit like a blade between the ribs, sharp and unexpected. My father—dead years now, a shadow I carried in every fight, every choice. “What the hell does that mean?”
Kemper met my gaze, steady and unreadable. “It means he saw this coming. Knew what Department 77 could become. Warned us—me, Graves, others. Said it’d eat itself alive and take everything else with it. Guess he was right.”
The room went quiet, save for the fire and the storm. My chest burned, not with rage this time, but something heavier—grief, maybe, or the weight of a legacy I hadn’t fully understood until now. Byron Dane hadn’t just built Dominion Hall. He’d seen the rot long before I had.
I stepped back, the monster in me still pacing, still hungry, but leashed for now. Kemper watched me, waiting, like he knew I was deciding his fate right then.
“Prove it,” I said. “You want this alliance? You deliver. Anna’s family stays safe. Department 77 bleeds. Anything less, and I come back. And next time, I don’t stop at one neck.”
He nodded, slow and deliberate. “Fair enough. I know you Danes keep your word.”
I didn’t say goodbye. Didn’t need to. I turned, left the den, stepped over the bodies in the hall, and walked back into the storm. The wind hit me like a wall, rain soaking through the black, washing the blood from my hands as I made my way to the truck.
Kemper was a snake—smooth, calculating, and dangerous. But snakes could be useful if you held them by the throat. For now, he’d live. For now, we’d play this game.
Because Anna was waiting. Her family was waiting. My brothers were waiting. And I’d burn this city to ash before I let any of them fall.
The hurricane roared around me, a mirror to the war machine I’d become. Let it come. Let them all come. I’d be ready. We’d be ready.