Chapter 50 Atlas
Atlas
Eight Years Ago
I was halfway through a rep when Alessio shoved through the gym doors like the building was on fire.
The metal rattled in its frame. Dust shook loose from the rafters. Somewhere behind me, a weight clanged to the floor.
“Bro,” he panted, hands braced on his knees, hair damp with sweat and nerves, “you are not gonna believe what just happened.”
I didn’t even look at him. I finished the rep slow and controlled, feeling the burn pull through my shoulders.
“Whatever it is,” I started, “I already regret hearing it.”
“No, no, listen. Marcello just told me I’m finally allowed on a mission. A real one. With guns. And people. And money. And—”
I dropped the bar.
It hit the rubber mat with a thunderous crack that echoed through the gym. Alessio jumped like he’d been shot.
“No.”
He blinked. “What do you mean, no?”
I stood up, chest still heaving from the lift, sweat slick down my spine. “I mean you’re not going.”
“I am totally going—”
“You’re not.”
“Yes I—”
My hand came up and locked around the back of his neck.
Not rough. Not gentle. Just firm. Steady. The way you hold something you can’t afford to drop.
“You’re fast,” I told him. “You’re fearless. You’re also a disaster waiting to happen. You don’t think before you speak, and you don’t think before you move. That gets men killed in our world.”
He rolled his eyes. “I don’t need a lecture—”
I tightened my grip just enough to make the point. “You do.”
Silence fell between us.
He swallowed. “Okay. Maybe a little.”
I released him and shoved him back a step. “You don’t go anywhere until you can take me down in a spar.”
His eyes widened with disbelief. “That’s not fair.”
“Exactly.”
He grinned like I’d just handed him a crown. “You’re on.”
And then he came at me.
All momentum and bad decisions. I sidestepped, caught his arm, swept his legs, and put him on his back before he even knew what happened.
He wheezed. “That didn’t count.”
“It absolutely counted.”
“Again.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah—”
I flipped him again.
And again.
And again.
Each time he came faster. Smarter. More determined. Sweat soaked through his shirt. His breaths turned ragged. His grin never faded.
“You’re a dick,” he groaned from the floor.
“You’re alive,” I told him. “That’s the main goal.”
He sat up, wiping sweat from his eyes. His voice dropped, serious now.
“Real talk.”
I raised a brow.
“When I finally get a mission, I want it to be with you.”
That caught me.
“Why?”
“Because you won’t let me die,” he muttered. “Everyone else sees a soldier. You see me.”
My jaw tightened. I looked away before he could see what that did to me.
“…Fine. We’ll go together.”
His smile hit like a sunrise.
And for one stupid, dangerous moment, I believed I could keep him safe forever.
I came back to the world in pieces.
Not gently, or with drifting awareness or soft light. I tore my way up through the darkness like a man drowning, lungs burning, heart slamming against my ribs as if it wanted out.
Beeping.
Machines.
The taste of blood and metal.
My eyelids fluttered. Light stabbed into my skull. My body was a dead weight, wrapped in wires and pain and something tight across my chest that made breathing feel like dragging air through broken glass.
“—he’s waking—”
A voice. Though it’s not the one I wanted to hear.
My gaze dragged across the ceiling. White. Too white. Sterile. The smell of antiseptic and death.
Hospital.
My heart lurched.
No.
No, no—
“Alessio?” My throat was raw. His name came out shredded.
Nothing answered me but the monitor.
The memory hit me like a bullet.
Blood.
Screaming.
Gunfire ripping the air apart.
Alessio at the door.
My brother.
My baby brother.
Standing there with a gun too big for his hands, eyes fierce, body shaking—not running, not hiding—protecting me.
I sucked in a breath that turned into a broken sound.
“No…”
My eyes flew open fully now, panic flooding my veins. My head jerked from side to side, searching the room like if I looked hard enough, Alessio would be there, sitting in a chair, smirking, calling me an asshole for almost dying.
“Alessio!” I shouted.
Nothing.
The truth crashed into me, merciless and final.
He didn’t come back.
My chest seized so violently I thought my heart had stopped.
“Oh God—” I tried to sit up, but pain exploded through me, white-hot, savage. I didn’t care. I ripped against the tubes in my arms, the wires on my chest, the bandages binding my ribs.
“Alessio!” I roared again, voice breaking.
Hands grabbed me. Voices shouted. None of it mattered.
I had promised.
I had promised.
You don’t go anywhere unless you can take me down.
We go together.
I won’t let you die.
“I left you,” I choked, thrashing against the bed. “I left you there—”
A sob tore out of me, ugly and animal.
“I told you I’d protect you,” I screamed. “I told you—”
The memory of Alessio smiling in the gym, of him asking shyly if we could go on missions together, crushed me.
“You trusted me,” I whispered, broken now. “You trusted me not to let you die.”
The machines went wild, alarms shrieking as my heart rate spiked.
“Sedate him—”
“Hold him—”
“No!” I fought like a cornered beast. “Don’t— I have to— I have to get to him—”
I tried to rip the IV out with my teeth.
“Alessio is alone,” I sobbed. “He’s— he’s dead and he’s alone and I wasn’t there—”
My scream didn’t sound human. It was grief and rage and guilt all twisted together into something violent and unstoppable.
“I should’ve died,” I screamed. “It should’ve been me—”
The sedative hit my veins.
I felt it spreading, cold and heavy.
“No,” I begged weakly, tears pouring down my temples. “Don’t make me sleep— I don’t want to leave him—”
My strength failed. My body sagged back against the mattress.
The last thing I felt was the crushing weight of my brother’s absence.
The last thing I whispered was his name.
“Alessio…”
And then sleep took me, carrying my grief into the darkness.