Page 52 of Kneeling to Candy

Oh, hell no!

My face must say what my inner monologue is shouting. Gauge immediately jumps to my defense. “Atlas, be reasonable. Candy has been through enough shit.”

“Gauge,” Atlas cautions his best friend to stay out of it before he turns his attention back to me.

I stare back at Atlas, unflinching.

Atlas’s face softens as much as his hard mug allows. “Candy did great on the Sacramento assignment. Kept Cynthia Higgins away from my sister-in-law, gave Trent someone else to focus his attention on, and handled the shootout at the accounting firm like a pro.”

What’s Atlas getting at? I say nothing, waiting to hear more.

“Your woman is a natural in the field. Nothing gets through her thick skin.”

True. Candy did her assignment perfectly and has been unaffected by the shit that went down.

“Perhaps we need to give her some credit for her efforts and not assume she’s a dainty flower that’ll wilt when questioned about Lorenzo’s trafficking ring.”

“No,” I clip, nearly snarling.

Chase, who’s been mostly silent during the exchange with Piero, weighs in. “Bro, I get it. I went through the same shit with Simone prior to leaving for Sacramento. I didn’t want my woman involved any more than you want your woman involved.”

“The difference,” I grit through my teeth, “is the persons involved in the Sacramento investigation didn’t rape your wife.”

“We’re not asking her more than filling us in on what she knows,” Atlas says in a placating tone.

I look around the table, hoping to find another brother to come to my defense.

Gauge, who previously was on my side, says nothing as he glares at the conference table in front of him. Either he’s afraid of Atlas reprimanding him or he’s turned coat. Considering Gauge has never had a problem calling out Atlas on his shit, it’s clear he’s flipped on me. He may hate the idea of digging into Candy’s past abuse, but he probably sees no alternative if we’re to get to the bottom of this case.

Tank won’t dare make eye contact with me, as he shouldn’t. He drug Candy into this mess. All my other brothers give me empathetic looks, but none shares my position.

“If there was another way, you know we’d leave Candy out of this mess. We’ll not ask invasive questions—” Atlas tries again to reason, but I cut him off.

“It’s all invasive,” I shout heatedly, ignoring the strain on my weak vocal cords.

My brothers flinch, not used to hearing me raise my voice in anger. They’re used to my low tones and ragged murmurs.

Livid, I glare at Atlas. “What you’re asking is wrong. And what’s worse is, you know it’s not okay. There’s no way you’d put Jo through this.”

The room falls eerily silent. Everyone looks ready to jump out of their seats to stop a brawl from happening—like I’m David, about to face a modern day Goliath. It’s a fair comparison, given our size difference.

I expect Atlas to fly off the handle, flip a table, or toss a chair. Hell, if I was within arm’s reach, I’d expect him to grab me by my cut and haul me across the table before throwing me against the wall. All things he’s known for when tested, especially when his wife is in the middle of it.

To my shock, he does none of those things.

His cold black eyes go distant, like he’s deep in thought. “There are many things I’ve handled poorly in my relationship with Jo.”

Atlas slowly stands from his seat and walks the length of the room, pacing like a lion ready to break through his cage. His posture is stiff, militant. The muscles in his exposed neck and forearms taut. He’s on the cusp of going all Hulk smash, but he’s keeping himself in check.

“I invaded her privacy by having Chase run a background check on her and combed through her social media accounts. When on my first mission after meeting her, I ignored her calls and text, leaving her to think I fucked her and left her. On my order, Jo continued to see a therapist she didn’t trust for our crew to find out if Lorenzo was keeping tabs on her. I gave a hacker a pass after she invaded my wife’s therapy notes, knowing it would hurt my wife, but doing it anyway to fucking nail Lorenzo to the damn wall. And I wasn’t there for her when not one, not two, but three different fuckers abducted my wife. And one of them damn near kept her hidden from me.”

A rush of memories floods my mind, recalling all those moments Atlas is reminding me of. There’s plenty Atlas should have handled differently with Jo. I recall thinking Atlas was love-blind half the time. And the other half…ah, fuck.

The other half was always outside of his control, having him pick the lesser of two evils.

Atlas opens his hands out by his sides, accepting his transgressions. “I inserted myself into her life when I knew keeping her would put her in harm’s way. But I’m a selfish bastard and married her, filling her with my babies.”

He sighs, stopping in front of me. “There are a lot of choices I made in my relationship I should’ve handled differently. Unfortunately, most of the situations I found myself in were out of my hands. Given the opportunity to go back in time, knowing the outcome I do now, I would do the same damn things. I made the right calls.”

---