by M. A. Grant
No, Atlas did not care for that shit at all.
“Who is this?” he asked.
Cristian opened his mouth to answer, but bit his lower lip in frustration when he couldn’t come up with the name. The other man, seemingly unoffended by it, offered, “James.”
“Yes,” Cristian said, “this is James.” The man in question nuzzled at Cristian’s neck. Cristian hissed, his head tilting back to grant better access. “Leave, Mr. Kinkaid.”
“Mr. Slava,” Atlas bit out, “an unknown man followed you in here. I am not leaving until I know he’s not a threat.”
“A sexual threat, maybe,” James laughed. It was not a funny joke.
Atlas’s world narrowed to the still chuckling man in Cristian’s arms. He would show this asshole exactly how easily he could neutralize a threat.
James must have sensed the danger, because he lifted his mouth from Cristian’s neck when Atlas took a step forward and warned, “He told you to go.” He nipped at Cristian’s collarbone, smiling when Cristian sucked in a startled breath in response. “Think you need a new bodyguard,” he mumbled against the reddening skin. “This one doesn’t listen.”
Enough. Contractually, he had to put up with Cristian’s crappy attitude, but that did not require him to suffer any other fools. Atlas took a step forward, eyeing the best place to grab James, but a hand settling firmly on his shoulder stopped his forward momentum.
He hadn’t heard anyone enter the room behind him, a concerning sign of how distracted he’d let himself become in the heat of the moment. The rumbling question in Romanian, too fast to catch any words, came from Andrei. There was also movement to his left as Ioana stepped up next to him and addressed Cristian. She sounded resigned, not surprised, to arrive at such a scene.
Cristian answered with a sharp tone Atlas hadn’t heard him direct toward his friends before. They must not have been used to it either, since Andrei sucked in a breath and Ioana narrowed her eyes at whatever vitriol had been spewed in their direction. Cristian dragged James’s mouth off his neck, ordered in English for him to wait for a second, and spoke again to Ioana in Romanian. When he finished, she sighed and turned to face Atlas.
“We need to go,” she said flatly. “If not, he’ll call his father.” And, as if she knew what Atlas was about to argue, she continued, “He’s done this before. Decebal will side with him. He always has.”
Andrei released Atlas, as if the threat of Decebal’s ill humor was enough to ensure his compliance. Probably a mistake on Andrei’s part. Atlas closed the distance to Cristian and James. He pulled James away, stepping between him and Cristian to form a physical barrier. Cristian’s body brushed against his back. The memory of his bare skin was a distraction Atlas couldn’t afford. A potential threat still stood before him.
James’s surprised expression soothed some of Atlas’s anger, but not enough to keep the venom from dripping into his voice. “I’ll leave. After I do my job and search Jimmy here.”
James squeaked. Ioana and Andrei tried to reason with Atlas. Cristian remained silent. His shocking lack of protest was all the encouragement Atlas needed. He patted down James with brusque efficiency. He didn’t even give a sharp, cruel twist to the man’s balls, though he was sorely tempted to. Deserved a fucking medal for his professionalism. By the time he’d finished, James looked suitably chastised and sexually frustrated, Constantin and Vasilica had found them, and Atlas thought he was prepared to face Cristian’s rage. He gave James a nod and announced, to no one in particular, “He’s clean,” before turning to face his charge.
He’d expected anger from Cristian. Instead, he found the flush of embarrassment. “Happy?” Cristian spat, unable to meet his gaze.
Oh, fuck.
“No,” Atlas said.
He hadn’t meant to humiliate Cristian in front of everyone. He didn’t want to hurt him. He wanted to do his job well. He wanted—
Fuck, he didn’t have words to explain it all, especially since he wasn’t sure he understood his reaction. Vetting sexual partners was a familiar, albeit awkward, part of the job. He’d never done it with such a personal investment though. He needed to pull back and try to get the situation back under control. He promised Cristian, “Now that I know he’s not a threat to you, I’ll leave you two alone.”
Cristian laughed, a low, hollow thing, and shook his head. “He’s not a threat. You are, but not him.” He finally looked at Atlas, really looked at him, and Atlas’s heart sank at his bitter curiosity. “I’ve never seen you lose your control before, Mr. Kinkaid. How interesting. Makes me wonder why.” He leaned in, bare chest on display and his breath warm on Atlas’s cheek. The allure vanished with his explosive words, which wounded Atlas like a shot to the chest. “Did you wish it was you?”
He flushed.
“Bad puppy,” Cristian whispered.
“Cristian.” Ioana’s sharp call cemented Atlas’s fuck up. She’d heard the exchange. The others likely had too.
Cristian didn’t argue with her. Instead, he drew back and glanced past Atlas toward Ioana. “Get Mr. Kinkaid out of my sight.”
Atlas didn’t wait for her to escort him away. He walked out of the small room of his own volition, head held high. Vasilica had already vacated to the hall, where she leaned against the wall to watch Atlas. She had the grace to wait for Ioana to close the door behind them before saying, “Well, that could have gone better.”
Atlas braced for her to unleash on him. Instead, she offered him a shrug. “But, since he didn’t try to rip out your throat, I guess it didn’t go too badly either.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Constantin said, clapping Atlas on the shoulder. He looked a little nervous to be so close, but he didn’t move his hand right away. He was offering...comfort? A dubious attempt, but an attempt nonetheless. “We’ve all dealt with something like this at one time or another.”
Andrei grunted in agreement. “Never stood our ground though. Either you’re brave or stupid.”
“Or maybe just good at my job,” Atlas argued.
Constantin gave a slow nod. “Yeah, you’re good at that too. Cristian won’t ever say it to your face, but he does know that. We all do.”
Not reaching out to accept that olive branch could come back to bite him in the ass one day soon, so Atlas seized the moment. “Thank you, Constantin—”
“Dinu.” He tilted his head, his dark hair falling over his brow and a genuine smile lighting his face. “Anyone who’s trying to keep Cristian safe gets to call me Dinu.”
“Fine. Dinu. Thanks.”
Ioana cleared her throat. “Mr. Kinkaid,” she said, “we can take care of Cristian from here. It won’t be long until he’s—” She made a face, one that wrinkled her nose and made her look younger, hinting there might be something beyond her seriousness. “I just mean that we’ll bring him out to the car once he’s done.”
“And,” Vasilica said with a grin, “if you’re already in the car, he can’t slip past you and leave you here, a mistake which would require an explanation to his father.”
“Good point,” Atlas said, surprised by the help. “I’ll have the valet bring it around.”
Dinu walked him the short distance to the employees-only door, fidgeting all the way. Atlas sighed and came to a halt before he stepped back out into the club proper. This probably wasn’t a conversation to be had in public.
“Spit it out,” Atlas said.
“Look, you may not want to hear this, but you seem to actually give a shit about this job beyond the paycheck,” Dinu muttered. “So you should know... Decebal isn’t the only one who values loyalty. Cristian values it more than his own safety. Lots of the other agents, they didn’t get that. They didn’t realize how hard Cristian works to keep us in his father’s good graces. So I wouldn’t worry about the clinic or Nell or anything. He’ll take care of it all. That make sense, Mr. Kinkaid?”
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“Atlas,” he said without hesitation. And then he lied, “And yes, it does. I appreciate the explanation.”
He mulled over Dinu’s words long after he dropped the crew off at Decebal’s house and returned to his shitty apartment. Doing his job and ensuring Cristian’s safety were his contractual obligations. Yet Dinu made it sound like it was Cristian’s role to ensure the safety of everyone else, and that doing otherwise was a sign of disloyalty. He just couldn’t figure out if Dinu was referring to his curiosity about Nell, or his reaction to James in the back room. Regardless of the situation, Atlas would put Cristian’s safety first. It was his duty as a professional.
Unbidden, he recalled Cristian’s accusation. Did you wish it was you?
He groaned and turned over in his bed, staring at his alarm clock in a fruitless attempt to forget the final barb and his subsequent embarrassment. He hadn’t come up with a response then, and he still couldn’t figure one out now.
The minutes ticked by. He ran through the night again, trying to find evidence to disprove Cristian’s assumption. No matter how many times he tried, his memory kept sticking on foolish details, like the way the flush had spread over Cristian’s chest, or the way the shadows caught along the line of his jaw when he tilted his head back—
The twist in his stomach was warm, gentle, and nothing like the frustrated churning he normally experienced when he reflected on the day’s shift. It was tantalizing. And wrong. There were few commandments held for Whitethorn employees, but no entanglements with clients was at the top of the list.
He twisted onto his back and threw an arm over his eyes, desperate to block the images from replaying again. It didn’t work. The longer he lay there, the clearer the awful truth became: Cristian Slava was not just another job, and he was absolutely fucked.
Chapter Six
“To what do I owe this dubious pleasure?” Bea asked when the bakery bag landed on her desk.
“Wanted to pick your brain for a bit.” Atlas made himself comfortable in the chair opposite her and watched with amusement as she used a pen to delicately peer into the bag. “Pain au chocolat,” he told her. “I braved the lunch crowd for it.”
“Oof, now I know you fucked up somehow,” Bea mused. It didn’t stop her from neatly setting aside the paperwork she’d been doing to focus on the treat.
“Last shift was a bit rough,” he admitted.
Bea hummed and pulled out the pastry, eyeing it with a hunger that told Atlas she hadn’t eaten yet this morning. “Migraine?”
He tapped his sunglasses, which he still hadn’t removed, and confirmed, “Yep.”
“And you haven’t been to bed yet, have you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Trying to figure out how to deal with a situation that came up.”
She grabbed a tissue from the box in her desk drawer, kicked off her heels, drew her feet up under her in her chair, and leaned back to watch him as she ate. “Do tell.”
He did. She didn’t react as he told her what had transpired at Rapture, not even at his confused explanation of why he’d reacted so harshly, though he guessed she probably could read through the lines of his narrative to see the embarrassing confession underneath. Bea had always been good at keeping her thoughts to herself while Atlas talked through things. It had drawn them closer when they were younger and he’d vent about the kids who liked to pick on him for his secondhand clothes or the brown bag lunches the cafeteria workers served him when he couldn’t pay his hot lunch balance. When he was recovering stateside, her silence had given him the safety he needed to explain his physical symptoms or night terrors. Now, her unwavering support gave him the courage to finish speaking and await her judgment.
Bea finished the last bite of her pastry and licked a lingering spot of dark chocolate away. “Well, I’d say last night went badly.”
He winced.
She wiped her fingers clean, tossed the tissue in the trash, and leaned more comfortably against the arm of her chair. “Relax. You didn’t do enough to get fired. You can defend all your actions and show you were working in the best interest of the contract. Mr. Vladislavic may not take action against you, but I doubt you’ll be able to salvage your relationship with Mr. Slava so easily.”
“He already hates me.”
Bea shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. His feelings toward you have no bearing on this. What does is whether he’ll work with you or actively against you. Based on what I heard from other agents who walked away from the contract, he can be a prickly son of a bitch when he doesn’t get his way.”
“Don’t I know it,” Atlas muttered.
“And you said he doesn’t always obey his father,” she continued.
“No. That would make things much easier.”
“So why would the threat of taking your concerns to Mr. Vladislavic mean anything to him?” Bea asked.
“Wait... What?” Atlas asked.
“Look, I know that Mr. Vladislavic is paying us. Normally, that means we’d follow his orders to the T. But he’s giving Mr. Slava free rein and isn’t getting involved in conflicts between his son and you, or any of our other agents. So this issue isn’t something he’ll be able to solve.”
“But that means—”
“You and Mr. Slava need to figure it all out.” She rose from her chair, slipped her feet back into her heels, and grabbed a piece of paper from her desk. “Call him now. I want to know how you both intend to move forward by the time I get back.”
“Shit,” Atlas whispered when the door closed behind her. He closed his eyes and fished his phone out of his pocket. He didn’t have Cristian’s private number; the closest he had was Helias’s, and he was loath to bother the man. But he knew Bea wouldn’t accept any excuses, so he dialed anyway.
Helias picked up on the second ring. “Mr. Kinkaid, how can I assist you?”
“I’m sorry for calling so late after my shift,” he said, fumbling a little over the apology, “but I needed to speak to Mr. Slava and didn’t have a way to reach him.”
“Ah, I see. One moment, please.”
Atlas tapped his fingers on Bea’s desk while he waited. The nervous energy didn’t dissipate. If anything, it got worse when Helias returned to the line and said, “I’m putting Mr. Slava on now.”
“What do you want?” Cristian’s brusque question reset something in Atlas’s brain. He was used to dealing with this Cristian, and he found his footing much faster than he had last night when he’d been confronted by the man’s humiliation instead.
“I needed to apologize,” Atlas said.
Silence from the other end of the line.
“I reacted poorly out of my surprise by the situation,” he went on. “I would like to avoid such reactions in the future.”
“I’m not going to stop finding...partners,” Cristian warned.
“You are a grown man who can make that decision for himself,” Atlas agreed. “I simply ask that we come to a compromise so that I am able to do my job properly while still allowing you to have your privacy.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, miserable and wishing the conversation were over. But it was his own damn fault he’d messed up, and he needed to fix it before his shift tonight. He wouldn’t be able to face the full force of Cristian’s displeasure with this migraine.
Again, silence. He wondered if Cristian had hung up on him. At least that would have been an answer in itself.
“What?”
He sat up a bit in his chair, surprised by Cristian’s response. The question had none of the volume or anger he expected; if anything, it was a confused, weak thing, a reaction that had slipped out before Cristian could catch it. He capitalized on the slip before Cristian could pretend it never happened.
“I don’t want you to change your day-to-day routine,” Atlas said. “I don’t need to be privy to every decision
you make. I’d simply like us to come to an agreement about how to work together to ensure your safety.” He took a breath, squeezed his phone a little tighter, and decided to risk it. “I’m sorry I haven’t spoken to you about this before. That no one from Whitethorn did. But I’m asking now.”
“You actually mean that?”
“Yes.”
“I—I don’t know what you want, Mr. Kinkaid,” Cristian said. The admission sounded painful.
“I can’t allow unknown, unvetted people close to you. The risk is too great.”
Cristian made an irritated sound, but didn’t disagree. Slowly, grudgingly, he asked, “What if someone checked them before we go into a room together?”
He wanted to agree, wanted to capitulate and ensure he wasn’t removed from the contract, but he couldn’t say yes in good faith. Too much could still go wrong.
Cristian read his hesitation too easily. “Come on, Mr. Kinkaid,” he purred, “you said we were compromising. That means both of us need to communicate.”
“An individual check will help, but it won’t eliminate all other risk factors.”
“There will always be risk factors. I won’t let you keep me locked in my room like a Gothic heroine,” Cristian said flatly.
“That would be hell for both of us,” Atlas threw back. “I’m just trying to find ways to lessen the dangers we have control over.”
“I’ll use the same room at Rapture. That way it’s more familiar when it’s swept. And I’ll leave the door unlocked, on the condition I’m not interrupted.”
He doubted he’d get a better compromise. “I can work with that.”
“A check of the room and my partner then,” Cristian said. “In exchange, you keep the fuck out of my private business.”