Chapter 31 Atlas
Atlas
Neve woke like a bomb going off.
One second she was motionless on the bed in my penthouse, bruised everywhere, wrapped in blankets because she wouldn’t stop shaking, breaths thin and shallow like her body was fighting against itself.
The next, she shot upright with a gasp that rattled the room.
Her eyes were wide and wild. She fought for air like she was drowning. Her hands clawed at the sheets, searching for something solid.
And then she saw me standing in the corner of the room, arms folded, spine stiff, watching her.
I hadn’t slept in two days as I watched over her. I stayed awake through every twitch, every nightmare, every small sound she made in her sleep.
Her gaze snapped into focus. At first, there was shock. Then recognition. Followed very quickly by pure, blistering rage.
“You,” she spat, scrambling back so fast she hit the headboard. “Get the hell away from me.”
I didn’t move. I felt the tension in my shoulders pull tight, but I stayed where I was.
“You’re safe.”
She laughed, although it was more like the sound someone makes when the world finally cracks in half.
“Safe? With you?”
Then she lunged.
She was exhausted. Starved. Barely healed. Her legs shook when she stood. But she threw herself at me like she was ready to tear me apart with her bare hands.
I let her.
She hit my chest, my arms, my jaw. She delivered wild, sloppy swings that would have been so easy to stop. But I didn’t stop them. I didn’t raise a hand. I just took it. Every strike. Every shove. I let her get it all out, even as she stood unsteady on shaky legs.
“You followed me,” she yelled, voice climbing. “You stalked me. You brought them right to me!”
“I didn’t,” I answered, calm in a way that clearly made her angrier.
She swung again, nails scraping my skin.
“You almost got me killed!” she screamed. Her voice cracked on the edge of the words. “You ruin everything you touch!”
She shoved me so hard she trembled with the effort. But my huge bulk ensured I didn’t even sway.
Then she tried to bolt, to get around me, past me, anywhere but here.
I caught her wrist and held her steady. Just enough to keep her upright.
“Let go!” she shrieked, pulling until her skin burned against my grip.
My jaw clenched. “No.”
She twisted, thrashing like she was willing to break her own bones if it got her free.
And I let her fight. I let her rage. I let her scream every accusation she’d held in since we first met.
Because she wasn’t wrong; she survived hell and she had every right to hate me. I was glad she wasn’t done fighting.
And because watching her choose war over surrender told me everything I needed to know about her: whatever she became in the time since I last saw her, I created part of it.
But what she still didn’t understand—and couldn’t possibly understand—was that I couldn’t let her walk out that door.
Not after what went down at that club.
She thought she survived something monumental. Viktor Sokolov, the kidnapping, the auction, the violence. She thought the danger died with him. But she was wrong.
Two dead Sokolov brothers didn’t tame the Russians. It provoked them. A wound like that made the Bratva bleed outward—rage, retribution, retaliation.
Now they wanted answers. They wanted vengeance. And they wanted to start with her.
Half the city was sniffing for her trail like rabid dogs.
Brokers, smugglers, low-rank Bratva soldiers itching to prove themselves.
Men who would traffick her, torture her, carve her into pieces just to make a point.
Hell, there was even a bounty on her head.
She wouldn’t survive a minute out there without my protection.
She stepped toward the door anyway.
“You’re staying here,” I informed her.
“The hell I am.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
She froze. The fury that rolled off her was almost enough to hide how fragile she was.
She stepped closer, trembling with anger and exhaustion.
Every breath she dragged in was uneven, shaky.
The doctor said her injuries were mostly superficial—cuts, bruises, swelling—but the injection he gave her kept her drifting in and out of delirium for nearly forty-eight hours.
She was still wearing the fog of it now.
Her pupils were blown wide and her hands shook. Her legs wobbled when she stopped too fast, making her reaction time sluggish, her thoughts a half-step behind her mouth.
She shouldn’t even be standing. But the defiance… that was fully awake.
“Get out of my face,” she spat. “I don’t trust you.”
“Good.” I looked her dead in the eyes. “I’m not a man that can be trusted.”
Her throat tightened on a swallow. “Then let me go.”
“No.”
Her fingers curled into fists. “Why?! Why am I even here?!”
The room went silent. The air was thick and charged with tension.
She waited, like the answer might either save her or gut her.
And I could feel something inside me, buried for a generation, uncoiling. Dragging itself up my throat. Scraping the inside of my ribs.
Before I could stop it… before I could swallow it down… the truth started tearing its way out of me like it had a life of its own, spilling forth something I’d spent fifteen years denying. Salvation. Penance. But instead of telling her that, I told her what she needed to hear.
“You’re here,” I told her, voice low and raw, “because every monster in this city wants a piece of you.”
Her eyes widened, but I wasn’t finished.
“And because…” I took one step toward her, closing the space she tried to claim, “…I have a moral obligation to protect you from those monsters.”
Something flickered across her face; fear, anger, the memory of a pantry that could have been her final resting place.
I felt it hit me too. But I didn’t stop.
“You want the truth?” I rasped. “Here it is.”
My next words burned like they were branded into me.
“You’re here because I’m the only thing standing between you and the people who want to finish what they started.”
Her breath caught.
“And because,” I added, softer, deadlier, “at the end of the day, despite what you may think of me, I’m the lesser of two evils.”
The truth hung between us—ugly, heavy, undeniable.
And there was no taking it back.
I met her gaze without flinching.
“I spared you when you were seven. You shouldn’t have been alive when I left that house. But I let you live.”
She blinked… once. Twice. Then her voice dropped to something cold and deadly.
“You destroyed my life.”
My chest tightened, and the fire that surged through me was uglier than guilt — it was recognition.
“You killed my family,” she said, her voice climbing, cracking. “You left me alone. You stole everything I had. And now you’re standing there telling me you’re going to save me?”
The word came out like poison.
A raw, guttural sound tore out of her — not a sob, not a scream, something feral and broken — and she rammed both fists into my chest. Once. Twice. Again. And I let her.
Each blow landed over my ribs like she was trying to beat the truth out of me.
“You ruined me!” she cried. “I had nothing! I was a child—”
“You survived,” I reminded her.
“That is not the same thing!” she screamed. “Surviving and living are two different things!”
Her legs gave out. She collapsed onto the floor like her body had finally agreed with her heart, chest heaving, hair plastered to her wet face, hands shaking in her lap like she didn’t know what to do with all the pain still inside her.
My hands flexed uselessly at my sides. I’d gutted men with my bare hands and felt nothing. But her crumpled at my feet? She might as well have taken a sharp instrument to my heart and stabbed me there.
I crouched in front of her. “I’m not here to comfort you.”
She glared through her tears. “Of course not.”
“I’m here because the moment I decided to kill you, I realized something.”
She waited, barely breathing.
“I can’t.”
Her lips parted, confusion tripping through her expression.
I swallowed hard.
“You fought a man twice your size. You slit his throat. You stood there drenched in blood and you didn’t blink.” My voice dropped lower. “Something made you into that.”
There was only silence all around us.
“And whatever did,” I continued, “didn’t break you. It made you stronger.”
She shook her head. “Don’t pretend like you know me.”
“Too late.”
She froze. I leaned in.
“You’re not just a loose end for me anymore, Neve. You’re mine to handle. Mine to protect. Mine to deal with.” There was a long beat. “I decide how your story ends. Not the Russians. Not the trafficking ring they were trying to sell you into. Not fate.”
Her breath trembled.
“Why me?” she whispered.
I didn’t sugarcoat it.
“Because I’ve been obsessed with ending you for fifteen years.” Then, lower: “And now that I’ve seen what you’ve become… I believe I’m obsessed with keeping you alive.”
Her eyes widened. She tried to move away. I caught her chin lightly, barely a touch, but she shuddered in disgust.
“You’re staying here,” I whispered. “And this time, no one gets near you.”
She swallowed hard.
“And if I don’t want that?” she asked.
My answer was simple. Final.
“You don’t get a vote.”
Her final whisper was pure, shaking fury.
“You’re a monster.”
I nodded once.
“So are you.”