Page 150 of Like Grim Death: Part One
I swallow down my irritation as he takes one step back in his black, high-top sneakers, twirling the knife expertly between his fingers without nicking himself. I watch the blade, fascinated, saying nothing.
“Come on. Tell me. Who else is hurting you, baby? Is it my dad? Is it Mikhail himself? Pretty big position, if the boss is coming to you, baby.”
My heart flutters inside my chest. “It’s no one. I’ve been working out. You know that. Sprinting.” I don’t stumble into his trap and instead I stick to the story I would have told Mavy, if he ever asked. “I’m clumsy. I… fell, before. No one is hurting me. And if they were, you wouldn’t care.”
His smile slips, and he clenches the blade’s handle in his fist. “Wouldn’t I?”
I feel warm all over, imagining it. Someone else in the Unsaints actually giving a shit about me. I see the way everyone reacts to Sid. She’s… precious. I’m… annoying.
“No one else does.” I hate saying it, but it spills from my mouth all the same. “I mean, even Maverick is too wrapped up in the Malikovs to give a damn.”
Atlas stares at me a moment, the knife handle still, threaded between his index, middle, and ring finger now. “He know you’re so jealous?”
I flush hot and I want to turn and run, maybe more so than when he held the blade to my chin. “Yes,” I answer, my jaw clenched.
“Does he know just how much you fucking hate Sid?”
I want to hit him. I feel raw. Fucking exposed, especially as I remember her name on Mav’s hand, his fingers inside of me when we were having sex that time in the kitchen. Then last night, when he made me say her names to embarrass me.
I think of texting her afterward out of some wild hope. How she never replied.
My stomach twists into knots and I feel sick.
“He wants you,” Atlas interrupts. He smiles then, lifting up one shoulder in a lazy shrug. “More than you know. He shot at Sevryn for you.”
At the mention of Sevryn, my face flushes, and he seems to notice.
He smiles, shaking his head. “You know you could wreck your whole world with this shit we’re doing.”
“Then why do you keep letting me?”
He glances down at the blade, flipping his palm and examining the handle between his fingers. He slides it out with his free hand carefully, then he closes his fingers around the blade.
I wince, but he doesn’t squeeze hard.
His eyes come to mine. “If someone else were hurting you, Ella, someone outside of us, I’d want to know. But you won’t tell me anything, I can’t find anything, and as for what happens between you and Maverick, no matter how bloody it gets, it’s not my problem.”
I blink, confused. “If he found out you were lying to him too, if he knew what you’re doing for me, he’d—”
Atlas smiles and I falter in my words. “He’d what?” He cocks his head, keeping his gaze on me.
I throw up my hands, rolling my eyes, thinking of what Maverick said he’d do when he was feeding me ice cream in the theater room. “I don’t know. Kill you?” I drop my hands, glancing at the bar stools along the island and suddenly wanting to sink down onto one. This entire night has exhausted me in ways I didn’t expect.
“Kill me?” Atlas deadpans.
I look up at him and find the hint of a smile still on his face.
He jerks his chin. “Come here, Ella.”
“Not with that knife in your hand.”
He rolls his eyes. “If I wanted to hurt you with it, I would have. Come on, we don’t have all night.”
After a moment’s hesitation, I slowly close the few feet between us, eyeing the blade in his hand, his fingers still around the sharp side.
His grin widens, flashing his canines. His teeth are extremely white, but the canines are more pronounced. Almost like a… vampire.
I bite my cheek, chastising myself mentally for being so stupid, for noticing all of these things about him when all he wants to do is fuck with my mind.
