Archie
The salon looked like a war zone.
Blood smeared across white tile. Glass shattered into glittering fragments underfoot.
Gunfire always left something behind—an echo that clung to the edges of your hearing like the world hadn’t quite caught up to what you’d just heard.
My gaze tracked across the room automatically, cataloguing everything without conscious effort. Bodies. Bodies. More bodies. And blood. There was so much of it, I knew it would take days to clear the mess and debris. Absolute chaos had turned the room on its head.
Tone was crouched near the back, stitching up one of the last men still breathing—one of ours. Her hands were steady, precise, like violence hadn’t touched her at all.
I leaned back against one of the broken stations, arms loose at my sides, watching her work. She didn’t rush or fumble. Every movement had purpose, each touch calculated.
Atlas stood a few feet away, phone in hand, his expression shifting as he read something on the screen. It was a subtle change, one that most people wouldn’t catch. But I wasn’t most people.
His jaw tightened. Then he lowered the phone and looked up. Something had changed.
“Raze,” he called.
The shift was immediate. Every one of them stilled—not like strangers reacting to a voice, but like something instinctive had been triggered.
Gianni stopped mid-motion, cloth still in his hand.
Raze’s head turned before Atlas had even finished saying his name, his body already angling toward him.
Even the subtle movements—the tightening of shoulders, the way their weight shifted onto the balls of their feet—spoke of something deeper than awareness.
It was reflex. Not learned, but lived.
I’d seen men work together before. Crews.
Soldiers. Teams trained to move as one. This wasn’t that.
This was something forged over years—shared walls, shared fights and blood.
They didn’t need instructions spelled out for them.
They read each other in glances and silence, in the smallest shift of tone.
Like a clock that had been set once—and never lost time.
That kind of connection didn’t come from loyalty alone. It came from growing up with each other. From knowing where the other would stand before they even moved. From trusting—without question—that when things went bad, they’d be there.
Atlas didn’t waste the moment.
“There’s a problem at the warehouse,” he said, his voice tight. “We need to make a stop.”
Raze didn’t ask what kind of problem. Gianni didn’t question the timing. They just moved. Because whatever it was—they were there for it.
Raze straightened. “Let’s go, then.”
Atlas’s gaze shifted to me.
“Take Tone home,” he said. “Do not leave her on her own.”
Before I could respond—Tone did.
“Oh, absolutely not!”
She stood in one fluid motion, tossing the bloodied cloth aside like it had personally offended her.
“I’m not sitting this one out.”
Raze didn’t even look at her.
“Tone—”
“No,” she snapped, cutting him off as she stepped forward. “What is this? Since when do I get benched?”
Her voice wasn’t just sharp. It was wounded in a way she didn’t like displaying.
“I was just in the middle of that fight,” she continued, gesturing vaguely at the bodies like they proved her point. “And now suddenly I’m what—too fragile? Too inconvenient?”
“That’s not what this is,” Gianni said.
“Then what is it?” she shot back.
The silence was brief but telling. Her eyes narrowed.
“Why are you shutting me out?”
Raze’s jaw tightened.
“That’s not—”
“You never keep things from me,” she pressed. “What’s changed? What’s going on?”
I watched it unfold but didn’t step in. It wasn’t my place.
But I could so clearly see that this wasn’t about the warehouse. This was about her place in the family. And the fact that something had shifted. Even if she didn’t know what it was yet.
With nowhere else to direct her anger, her gaze swung to me.
“Are you just going to stand there?” she demanded.
I exhaled slowly, my jaw tightening before I even opened my mouth.
“Antonella—”
“No,” she snapped. “Don’t Antonella me. Since when do you do everything they tell you to do?”
I pushed off the counter and stepped toward her, taking my time.
“Since it started making sense,” I said evenly.
Her eyes flashed.
“Oh, so now you’re one of them?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“That’s exactly what you said.”
“Christ,” I muttered under my breath, dragging a hand down my face before looking back at her. “Can you stop being such a petulant child for five minutes? Just give me five fucking minutes!”
Her eyes widened, then narrowed.
“Oh, you did not just call me a child.”
“If the shoe fits.”
Her hands went to her hips in a show of intimidation which fell flat at my feet.
“Keep arguing,” I added mildly, “and I’ll throw you over my shoulder and carry you out myself if I have to.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Try me,” I countered.
Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
Fury, pure and unfiltered, distorted her features.
“You are insufferable.”
“Just so you know, you’re no walk in the park, either.”
“I swear to God—”
“Tone.”
Atlas’s voice cut through the room, low but stern.
Tone turned to him. She was still angry, ready to pick a fight.
“Enough,” he said. “This is not the time.”
Something in his tone had shifted, his voice sharp, cold. No longer the controlled authority he usually carried like a second skin.
“For once in your life,” he continued, his gaze locking onto hers, “listen to what I say and do as you’re told.”
The room was suddenly a chamber of silence as everyone went utterly silent.
Tone blinked. Once. Rapidly. Trying to work out if she had heard him properly.
Shock flickered across her face before she could hide it. I guess he’d never spoken to her like that.
Her mouth parted, ready to form a response. I could see she was ready to fight him on this.
But the look Raze gave her said enough.
Not now.
Her jaw clenched. I watched her swallow the words she wanted to say. I saw the fight in her dim just enough for control to take over.
She didn’t say another word before she turned and walked out, sharp and silent.
I exhaled under my breath and went after her.
Because whether she liked it or not—tonight, she was my responsibility.