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"For who? Enemies of the Hades Brotherhood?" I guess.
"Sometimes. The Golubev Bratva is the syndicate that kidnapped me when I was ten."
Air whooshes out of me as I process this. He's saying that he dispenses justice on his own behalf too, killing his enemies. The tattoo on his back makes so much sense now. A Greek Spartan warrior conquering the symbol of Russia, a bear.
Wait. Another truth hits me. "The same bratva that you just made a truce with?"
"Yes. They wanted to make turning over thepalachpart of the terms."
"Palachis Russian for executioner, isn't it?" A picture is starting to form and despite his betrayal, my heart hurts for the little boy he was and the killer he became.
"I started when my uncle and brothers came to save me. I made my first kills that night."
"You were only eleven!"
"Yes."
"When did you start executing them again?"
"I never stopped. I hunted the Golubev Bratva soldiers who participated in my torture over that year first. I learned my skills on the backs of their corpses."
Atlas began slaying his enemies at the age of eleven and never stopped.
"Are there any left?"
"Of the men who kidnapped and hurt me? No. Golubevs? Obviously, yes. I only killed bratva connected to my capture, or ones who tried to do business in our territory."
"Killed. That's what Michael was going to say."
"Yes. No one has killed more bratva than me."
I shiver. "Who named you Dimios?"
"Constantin."
"Your uncle."
"Yes. For the first few years, only he and my brothers knew what I was doing. Later, when Constantin took over asNonós tis Nýchtas, he made me an official assassin forÁdis Adelfótita."
Legitimizing what his nephew was doing anyway. "He was protecting you."
"Yes."
"If your grandfather knew you were doing unsanctioned killings, you would have been punished."
"I would be dead."
A man who left his ten-year-old grandson in the hands of monsters for a year would not have hesitated to kill that same grandson for disobedience. For some in the mafia disobedience equals betrayal.
"I don't want to live in the mafia world again." That brutal world where a child is sacrificed for power and the broken man he becomes could be killed by his own people for seeking the vengeance due him.
"I am sorry."
Because he knows I have no choice. I can remain "dead" to my family in Detroit, but because the baby inside me is Atlas's, I will always be connected to his Greek mafia.
"Why did youwantto get me pregnant?" I don't get it. The consequences are lifelong for both of us. "You were fucking me for information. Why connect our lives inexorably like this? What was the point?"
"The point was keeping you. Pregnancy is an unbreakable bond between us."
