Page 91 of Beautiful Ruins
“You’re certain.”
“Yes.”
“Where is your intel coming from?”
“Partially from Archie Popovich.”
Gianni reacted immediately.Visibly.His shoulders stiffened.His jaw flexed.His glass hit the table harder than necessary.
“I cannot believe,” he fired back, “that you are still in contact with thatfuckingRussian.”
Marcello exhaled slowly.Here we go.
“ThatfuckingRussian,” I ground out, “has earned his stripes repeatedly.”
Gianni scoffed.
“He is Bratva.His loyalties are conditional at best and suicidal at worst.”
“He has provided actionable intelligence that has prevented three separate operational failures in the last year,” I reminded him.
“And one day,” Gianni shot back, voice rising slightly, “his own kind is going to be the end of him when they realize he’s in bed with the Italian mafia.”
Atlas raised a hand slightly.Not to silence the conversation, but to regulate it.
“Gianni,” he said evenly, “Archie has been crucial to our operations.”
Gianni leaned back, clearly agitated.
“He’s a liability.”
“He got us out of the Palermo bind,” Atlas pushed forward.“He got us ahead of the Marseille shipment ambush.And he will likely get us out of more situations if we allow him to go on doing what he does best.”
Marcello’s gaze moved between them thoughtfully.Then, slowly, his expression changed to something that resembled understanding.
“Ah.”
Gianni glared at him.“Don’t.”
Marcello leaned back in his chair.“That’s why you’re angry,” he surmised.
“I’m angry because he’s Russian and untrustworthy.”
“No,” Marcello returned calmly.“You’re angry because Mikayla thinks he’s dead.”
Silence dropped like a stone.Atlas blinked once.Then looked at Gianni.
“You haven’t fucking told her?!?”
Gianni ran a hand down his face.
“I didn’t see the point in reopening that chapter,” he argued.
I let out a slow breath through my nose.
“Mikayla has history with Archie,” Marcello reminded us.
“Yes, thank you, historian,” Gianni retorted.
