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“Don’t mind if I do,” he jeered, stepping forward, his belly pushing me out of the way. His wallet protruded out of the back of his pants, and I bit on my lower lip, tempted to snatch it, but he reached for it before I could. Instead, I pocketed my stolen chips and backed away, settling among the onlookers.
Through my peripheral vision, I noted a craps table within reaching distance, another handful of chips just in grabbing length. Before I could stop myself, I shuffled for them, whipping my body around with what I believed was grace. I’d been lucky at the blackjack table. Another couple of snatches like this, and I could be on my way. Maybe I could even come back tomorrow.
A shadow fell over me, and I gasped. Mac lumbered before me. Perspiration broke out over my hairline, and I tipped my head back to look up at him, the plastic coins in my fingers falling to the floor, bouncing off my holey sneakers.
“E-excuse me,” I breathed, trying to sidestep him.
Without a word, he seized my arm, and I yelped in protest. In seconds, another guard dressed identically to Mac flanked me and lifted me into the air, hauling me away from the gamblers.
Hopelessly, I looked to Mr. Ryan, who offered me little more than a scathing look of contempt before turning back to his game, like I was nothing more than dog feces on his shoe.
“I didn’t do anything!” I cried, the lie in my words evident even to me.
A trickle of chips lined my way toward the back room like breadcrumbs, expressing my guilt the entire trip.
“Stupid girl,” Mac’s companion snarled. “Don’t you know whose place this is?”
Tears of terror filled my eyes, but I kept my mouth shut. Of course I knew. Everyone knew whose place this was. I also knew that the punishment for stealing from him could only mean one thing. And now Dahlia would never be able to escape Jesse, not with me answering to Atlas for the crimes I had just committed.
I had truly and royally screwed us both.
Chapter2
Atlas
It was Sage who knocked on the door of my office just after one a.m. I barely heard the rap on the thick wood, my eyeballs burning as I studied the ledgers in front of me. Most of my counterparts had long since learned to rely on machines for their bookkeeping, but I still preferred the old-fashioned way of doing things, my own hand dictating the numbers stored deeply in my memory once I’d written them.
“Atlas?”
“Hm?” I vaguely nodded for her to enter, still fixated on the pages in front of me.
“We’ve had an attempted robbery.”
Well, that was enough to get my attention. In the centuries of running my empire, I could count on one hand how many times someone had attempted to steal from me. My gaze flittered upward, eyes narrowing in disbelief.
“Come again?”
The fae nodded, pursing her thin lips together.
“The girl didn’t take much, from what I can see, and she appears to be working alone.”
I pondered the scenario for a moment and drew an absolute blank. Short of full-on psychosis or a death wish, I couldn’t envision why anyone would do something so ridiculous.
“Is she stupid?”
“Apparently so.”
I sat back, folding my arms over my chest, a deep anger formulating inside my soul. The mere attempt was insulting enough.
“Who is she? Where did she come from?”
“We’re waiting for you to determine the details.”
Huffing, I rose, cracking my knuckles as I stood to my full, six-foot-three-inch frame. Rolling my tense neck muscles, I made my way around the desk, stalking purposefully across the waxed wood floors to the door, Sage trailing after me.
No one was that brazen, not without a purpose. Someone had sent her, even if it wasn’t evident yet. Now I had to kill her and show that I wasn’t going to accept this ridiculous message. It wasn’t a part of my empire that I particularly enjoyed, but it was necessary. If I let one get away with it, more would try. This I knew from two millennia of experience.
Jabbing at the elevator button, I shifted my weight, casting Sage a sidelong look.
