Page 5

Five

A week passed with no more surprise visits from Mary or Robin.

No more visits with Niall either, the holy man keeping his distance.

Atlas had even gone to church with Daphne to try to steal two minutes alone with him, but all Atlas got for his trouble were two awkward hours with family.

He was no closer to confirming who Evan had wanted to meet with among the Chumash, but with Niall’s slip about the casino, and a week’s worth of excavation, Atlas had a pretty good idea and was ready to make his own approach.

Dressed in a suit for the first time in over a month, he forced himself not to fidget as he surveyed the practically deserted casino.

A few folks at the penny slots, a trio of guys around a corner poker table, dealers scattered among the other game tables, ready to move where a visitor might go.

Not as busy as Atlas would have figured for the weekend.

Halfway through his second sweep, Atlas spotted his mark: Lucy Aguin, né Marin.

According to the excavator he’d hired, Lucy was a recent transplant from the Huimen Enclave.

She was also the dealer here with the newest license.

Multiple angles he could work. He sidled up to the blackjack table she stood closest to.

“Good afternoon, sir,” the young woman greeted, as she stepped behind the table. “You know the rules?”

He placed two chips in the box at his position. “Hit me.”

A barely-there smile turned up one corner of her mouth before she righted her professional mask, perfectly neutral as she shuffled, then dealt two cards for him and two for herself. His two of hearts and three of diamonds gave him time to work. He tapped the table for another hit.

Seven of hearts, up to eleven, and Lucy wasn’t over yet either.

He doubled down, another chip in the box, and tapped the table again, flashing her a smile. “You’re new here.”

A blush warmed her tan cheeks, but she otherwise kept her tone as neutral as her expression. “My second month.”

Jack of diamonds; he was over.

Lucy wasn’t, hitting twenty with the last card.

“Well played,” he acknowledged, as she swept the table of cards and chips. He put another two in the box. “Are you from around here?” he asked, as she dealt another hand. He already knew she wasn’t, but it was the question a stranger would ask on the way to the answer he needed.

“Talahalusi,” she replied. “My husband’s family is here, though. I moved down after the wedding.”

“How’s the tribe treating you?”

She cocked a brow. “What do you know about tribes?”

Very little, anyone would guess on first glance.

He was a pale white man with blond hair and green eyes, dressed in an expensive designer suit.

But looks, Atlas knew, could be deceiving.

He flicked two fingers just above his chips and turned them over with a tendril of green magic. “I know we’re on the same side.”

She gasped, then hastily flipped over the next card, a queen that pushed them both over twenty-one.

She cleared their cards in a single sweep, knocking his hand aside in the process.

“Don’t let them see you do that,” she whispered with a flick of her gaze toward the nearest eye in the sky.

“They’ll throw you out if they think you’re cheating. ”

“I wouldn’t dare,” he said with a wink, tapping the table for another round.

She dipped her chin, hiding her smile. “Are you from around here?”

“Santa Maria, originally, but I’m in Yerba Buena now.”

“Ah!” she said, brightening. “I’m technically from the Huimen Enclave, but it’s easier to tell folks down here that I’m from Talahalusi.”

“I know the actual place,” Atlas said with a smile he hoped didn’t look too forced. He’d helped his former boss purchase cold-storage properties along the enclave’s borders in order to hide hostages in them.

“What brings you back this way?” Lucy asked.

“My brother passed.”

She paused mid-flip. “I’m sorry for your loss.” Then laid down the card, pushing him over twenty-one again. She apologized again before clearing the table.

“Thank you,” he said, chin lowered and swallowing hard, playing on her sympathy. He kept his gaze downcast as he put two more chips in the box. “I hear one of your elders here—Dyami, I think?—is particularly good at helping people with their grief.”

“White people don’t usually come to us seeking peace. You have churches and saints for that.”

He lifted his gaze, meeting her dark one. “You mean big buildings built to false idols?”

“Some say that about Dyami too.”

Her tone implied she was among the some . “You’re not a fan?”

“I preferred our Miwok elders.”

“How are they?” he asked, feigning curiosity.

“I heard about the sinkhole and what happened to Pati Miwra.” He’d engineered it in fact, kidnapping Pati for a giant Vincent had wanted to curry favor with.

But as soon as Atlas had realized who she was—the tribe leader’s daughter—and what she carried—a child that could end the war between Nature and Chaos, that could spare him from his role in it, eventually—he’d made sure Pati was stashed at one of those cold storage properties with her protector.

Quinn had ultimately sacrificed himself for her, and in so doing, had bought Mary, Paris, and their team enough time to rescue Pati and kill the giant.

The story had apparently traveled far, Lucy’s smile sneaking free again. “But Pati made it out, and her son...” Her smile broadened. “He’s the real deal.” A true eagle shifter, the first in generations. Unlike Dyami, who, by all excavated accounts, had only assumed the name. “He’ll bring?—”

“Peace,” Atlas finished. He’d known it as soon as he’d touched Pati’s arm. It had killed him to leave the very thing his mother had dedicated her life to bringing about in someone else’s care, but he’d had no choice. And in the end, it had been the right call. Barely.

“It feels good to talk about it,” Lucy said, drawing him out of his own half regrets.

“They’re not celebrating here?”

“Not everyone believes,” she said, as she swept the table once more.

He tossed his last two chips in the box. “Meaning Dyami?”

With his power and reputation threatened, Dyami would be Evan’s ideal ally. Rich, power hungry, selfish, afraid. Everything his brother and Chaos preyed on.

Lucy finished dealing and glanced up, her brow furrowed and mouth open, as if she were about to agree, but then her gaze skated over his shoulder and her eyes grew wide.

The next thing Atlas knew, he was being yanked off his stool by two giant men.

“Didn’t we tell you last week to get out of here? ” one of them said.

Or maybe his brother hadn’t been welcome, after all.

“Last week?” Lucy said, brows snapped together, but before Atlas could reply, the guards dragged him away from her table.

He waited until he was out of her earshot to continue the ruse he’d been dealt, angling for more information. “I just wanted another word with Dyami. I’m sure we can reach an agreement.”

“The eagle has nothing left to say to you.”

They hauled him to the nearest exit doors and tossed him outside. He spun to try to beg his way back inside—to talk with the man his brother had—but his vibrating phone stopped him short. He yanked the device out of his pocket and read the text from one of his sources in La Purisima. SOS.

The same source who, weeks back, had alerted him to the giant there. As much as he wanted back inside that casino, Atlas couldn’t ignore the text, not after the last one had proven so pivotal. He hit dial and lifted the phone to his ear.

The call connected after one ring, and Watson launched right in, not bothering with pleasantries as a crash sounded in the background. “That green-haired woman you sent me a picture of is here.”

“Where, exactly?”

“The Gathering House in La Purisima.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” The Gathering House was across the street from the town’s largest church, and on a Sunday afternoon, it would be packed with people eating and shopping at the local merchant booths before evening service.

“She and the dog with her are asking questions,” Watson said. “The sort that will let on what they are before long.”

Atlas gazed longingly at the casino, cursing Mary and Robin for making him leave the very warm lead inside. Cursing fate that wouldn’t leave him the fuck alone. “I’m on my way.”