Page 74 of Lady and the Butcher
I shivered. Part fear. Part heat.
The deal that followed was short, clipped. Numbers spoken, a crate inspected, a signature scrawled. But underneath the efficiency, tension simmered.
One of the men muttered about “late shipments.”
Atticus moved before the words had settled. His hand landed on the man’s shoulder, heavy, the kind of weight that could be guidance or threat depending on how it was received. “Late isn’tan option. Not if you want to keep moving freight through this river.”
The man paled. His throat worked around a swallow that looked painful. He nodded once, jerky.
“Good,” Atticus said, voice low but carrying. “Then don’t make me repeat myself.”
The silence that followed wasn’t empty—it was charged, like the air just before lightning splits it open. I could feel the other men in the room watching, their attention darting between the wiry man pinned by Atticus’s grip and the crates stacked like silent witnesses along the wall. Forklifts idled. Clipboards froze in midair. The entire warehouse seemed to hold its breath, waiting to see what happened next.
I should have been horrified. My brother’s voice in my ear warned that this wasn’t sunlight, that men like Atticus didn’t bend without breaking something. And maybe I should have listened. But standing there, my pulse hammering, I felt the ground tilt under me.
It wasn’t just that he held the man like that—it was the way the entire space recognized him in that moment. Watching him command that room was like watching gravity bend. Terrifying. Magnetic. The kind of force you didn’t argue with, because arguing meant you’d already lost.
The wiry man muttered something I couldn’t hear. Atticus’s hand didn’t move, but the shift in his jaw did. Slow. Controlled. His voice dropped lower, intimate enough that only the man and I—because I was standing close enough to catch every syllable—could hear.
“You think I don’t know what you tried to push through last week?” His tone was calm, lethal. “I know the count was short. I know you skimmed. And I know you thought no one would notice while I had my eyes on other fires. You were wrong.”
The man shook his head violently, denial spilling out in a frantic rush. “No, boss, I—I wouldn’t?—”
Atticus pressed harder, not enough to hurt but enough to remind him how fragile his position was. “You wouldn’t?” His words sliced quiet through the room. “Then why am I standing here wasting my time?”
The man broke. I saw it in the way his knees softened, the way sweat beaded at his temple. He looked like he might collapse right there on the oil-stained floor.
“Fix it,” Atticus said. No raised voice. No dramatics. Just a verdict. “You have until dawn.”
“Dawn?” the man croaked.
Atticus’s gaze didn’t flicker. “Not a minute later.”
The man nodded so fast it looked like it might snap his own neck.
Atticus released him then, but not gently. He shoved him back just enough that he staggered against the container wall. Then Atticus turned, already dismissing him, already walking away like the decision had been final before the man even opened his mouth.
And just like that, the room exhaled. Forklifts rumbled back to life. Conversations restarted in clipped tones. The men didn’t look at me anymore—they didn’t dare—but I could feel the heat of their stolen glances, their silent curiosity about the woman who had just watched the boss remind everyone why his word was law.
I followed him out on legs that didn’t feel like mine, my pulse still ricocheting against my ribs.
What kind of man holds the world like that?
And what kind of woman chooses to walk beside him?
Back at the loft, my body shook with adrenaline. He saw it, caught my chin in his hand, and kissed me like he was claiming every shiver.
“You’re scared,” he said against my mouth.
“Yes.”
“You want me, anyway.”
“Yes.”
His mouth curved. “Good. That’s the truth.”
He pushed me back onto the bed, the mattress catching my fall while the heat of his body followed me down.
