Chapter 26 Atlas
Atlas
Ask me what I hate more than anything in the world, and I’ll tell you without hesitation:
I can’t stand a man who doesn’t keep his word.
Which is exactly what I was handed the moment Gianni and I pushed through the curtains and stepped backstage to claim my purchase.
A wall of bodies shifted—guards, handlers, low-level scum trying to look important—and then he stepped forward.
Viktor Sokolov himself.
He had a thick neck and an even thicker ego. His suit strained at the seams, his jaw clenched around an accent thick enough to cut with a knife. He planted himself directly in my path, arms crossed like he thought he was the one with the authority here.
“The sale has been rescinded,” he announced, his voice smug with the kind of confidence only stupid men possessed.
Gianni stiffened beside me. I didn’t.
I moved forward slowly, controlled, like a man walking calmly into a viper’s nest because he already knew he was the deadliest thing in the room.
“Why?” I asked, my tone flat.
Viktor shrugged, pretending boredom. “Her owner no longer wishes to sell her.”
I blinked once.
“Her owner?” I repeated.
He gave a careless wave. “Yes. There was… some confusion.”
A muscle ticked in my jaw.
I stepped closer, just one inch, but it was enough to make his closest guard shift uneasily.
“Explain,” I said.
Viktor smirked, trying to look like a man in control. “She was never meant to be in the auction. An oversight on our part.”
I leaned in slightly, close enough that he could smell the danger coming off me in waves.
“I bid on her, and I won her, fair and square. And now it’s time for you to uphold your end of the bargain.”
“She’s not for sale,” he argued, his jaw tightening.
I slid my hands into my trouser pockets and rocked back on my heels, studying him with a kind of calm that should have terrified anyone with a functioning brain.
“Well,” I said mildly, “you should have thought about that when you were standing at the side of the stage watching the auction unfold. Or…” my gaze cut into him “…was it that you realized you could get more for her elsewhere than you made here tonight?”
His eyes flared. Offended. But only on the surface.
Viktor Sokolov might have been a small-time brute in the Russian Bratva, but compared to me—compared to the Cavalho empire—he was a toddler stomping around in borrowed boots. And I thought he needed to be reminded.
I took another step closer. Then another. Until the only thing he could see was me—my height, my posture, eyes that promised violence without even trying.
My gaze dragged over him, slow and certain. “Let me be perfectly clear.” My voice dropped to a low, lethal register. “Whether you like it or not, the girl leaves with me today. There’s no two ways about it.”
His nostrils flared. “She belongs to someone else. I do not have authorization to release—”
“Viktor,” I interrupted softly.
Softly enough that the guards behind him shifted uneasily.
“This is the moment,” I continued, “where you decide whether today is a business disagreement… or a bloodbath.”
The room went dead silent.
His men stopped breathing.
Gianni didn’t move.
Viktor squared his shoulders. “You can’t threaten me on my own turf.”
I smiled, and there was nothing remotely kind in the way my lips curled—only a warning and the promise of violence.
“Your turf?” I echoed. “You’re running a trafficking ring in my region. In a club the Cavalho family has allowed to operate for the sake of balance. You think this is your home court?” I shook my head once. “No. You’re a guest in my kingdom. And you’ve just insulted your king.”
A flicker of fear crossed his face—brief, but real.
“Now,” I said, leaning in so close he had no choice but to meet my eyes, “you’re going to walk me to her. You’re going to hand her over. You’re going to shut your fucking mouth. And you’re going to pray to whoever Bratva men worship that I don’t decide to dismantle your entire operation tonight.”
His jaw worked. His eyes darted. The facade cracked.
I could smell fear.
Finally, he ground out, “I… will need to make a call.”
I tilted my head. “Make it. But make it fast.”
Gianni stepped forward, blocking the doorway behind us, arms crossed.
The guards continued to hover, unsure, wide-eyed.
Viktor turned away, shoulders rigid with tension, barking orders in Russian into his phone.
And I stood there, every muscle thrumming with fury, one thought looping like a knife inside my skull: Neve had been hurt. Someone had dared lay hands on her. And someone was going to fucking pay for it.
Tonight, this club survived or died depending on one man’s answer.
And either way, I was walking out with her.
A sudden, vicious bang split the room in half.
Viktor was still mid-sentence when the first gunshot cracked through the backstage hall.
The second shot followed a heartbeat later—closer and angrier.
Screams exploded everywhere. Men scattered like rats. Chairs overturned. Tables crashed. Guards shouted in Russian and Italian as they scrambled for cover.
Gianni’s voice roared over the chaos: “ATLAS — DOWN!”
Bullets ripped through the air.
Glass detonated as panels exploded, shards raining down like knives.
Viktor vanished into the stampede—there one moment, gone the next, swallowed by bodies sprinting for exits.
I dropped behind a heavy table, shoulders braced. A fallen guard lay half-crushed beside me, blood pooling beneath his head. I snatched the gun from his holster, checked the magazine, and rose hard and fast.
My pulse was a drum. My vision tunneled. My jaw was steel.
There was only one thought thrashing inside my skull, violent and absolute: where the fuck was Neve?