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"I'm surprised you took the time to assess my club too," I tell his crew when Atlas formally introduces me to them, letting them know I remember seeing them in the club before last night. "Atlas had access to everything."
Including the profit and loss ledgers for the Nuovi Inizi. What could his men add to his already minutia level knowledge?
Bobby puts his hand on the back of his neck and looks over to Atlas, who is giving his stoic face. "Uh, yeah. We weren't here for that."
Did they come to check out the woman their boss is…wasbanging?
"Why were you here then?" I dare them to tell me but they all stand there like silent robots.
Deadly robots if the aura they give off is to be believed. And I'm done ignoring my instincts.
I turn to Atlas. "Why were they here? Did they want to know what the woman you duped looked like?"
Atlas's jaw ticks and I am ridiculously pleased with myself for getting to him so easily.
"No, ma'am." Michael's hair is cut short, a high and tight like a Marine's and he talks like one too.
Ma'am. For crying out loud.
"Then why?" I demand.
"We were here to protect you when the boss was out hunting those bratva bastards," Bobby blurts out.
He's the youngest and most impulsive of their little group.
I shoot a glance toward Atlas, but he's letting his men speak for themselves. He's made it clear that as long as they don't get too close, he wants me to get to know them.
"We weren't the only ones watching over you," Theo adds when I don't respond to Bobby's revelation.
Why is he telling me this? Atlas's crew should be more circumspect, shouldn't they? They're doing their version of talking their boss up.
A tendril of warmth unfurls inside me. His crew wouldn't want to talk him up if they didn't think he wanted me. Which means they never thought he was banging me for information.
Putting that away to take out and examine later, I turn to Atlas. "Hunting?"
He shrugs.
"Atlas is the Golubev Bratva'spalach." Bobby's youth shows in his enthusiastic hero worship of his boss. "No one has ki—"
"The guys will be with you when I am not," Atlas says, cutting Bobby off.
Theo smacks Bobby on the back of the head and the younger man turns on him instantly, his entire demeanor changing. Gone is the affable young man proud of his boss's accomplishments, whatever they are, and in his place is a stone cold killer.
"The fuck?" Bobby demands.
Theo barks something at Bobby in Greek and the other man's eyes widen. He looks from me to Atlas and then back at me again.
He asks Atlas something in Greek.
Michael simply stands in stoic silence during this interaction, his attitude one of watchful readiness. I'm not sure what he's watching for in a closed nightclub, but his behavior is familiar.
Maybe if the Detroit Cosa Nostra had men like that on their payroll, that final night in Detroit would have gone differently. But Augustino Sr.'s men were like his son. Fourth or fifth generation mafia with an attitude of entitlement and certainty no one would be brazen enough to storm their kingdom.
They'd been wrong and unprepared for warfare when it came to them. Atlas will never be caught unaware like that. The fact he went hunting for the bratva, rather than waiting for them to try to attack him and his brothers shows how different he is from the Revello men and my former don.
Atlas shakes his head. "English from now on, when Lucia is around."
"Unless we need to keep things private," Theo says.
