Page 70 of Lady and the Butcher

A man stepped out from behind a crate. Tall, wiry, shirt soaked dark with sweat. His eyes flicked to me, lingered, then back to Atticus. That single look made my stomach drop.

Atticus’s palm landed on my hip before the breath finished leaving my chest—no flourish, just weight, like he was setting a nameplate on something that already belonged to him. His body angled and put half of himself between me and the stare. The temperature of his face didn’t change. His eyes did. They went from winter to black ice.

“Eyes on me,” he said, not loud, and the man’s chin snapped back like it was on a pulley. I felt the warning vibrate throughAtticus’s hand before I heard it in his voice. He didn’t squeeze. He didn’t need to.

“You said tomorrow,” the man said.

Atticus didn’t stop walking. He slid his hand from my hip to the small of my back—a guide and a promise—and stepped past the rusted pallet jack like he owned the air. “I said today.”

“It’s not ready.”

The room stilled. Even the forklift idled quiet.

“What’s complicated,” Atticus said finally, “is you mistaking my patience for permission.”

The man’s throat bobbed. His hands flexed at his sides. “I need more time.”

Atticus tilted his head, slow. “No.”

That one syllable cracked the air.

I wanted to step forward, to touch his arm, to pull him back into something resembling normal. But my feet stayed rooted. My pulse hammered at my throat.

This wasn’t my world.

“Atticus—” I whispered.

He cut me the briefest glance. Not warning. Not dismissal. A tether:Stay back. Let me do this.

Then he moved.

It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t messy. One second he was in front of me, the next the man was pinned against a container, Atticus’s hand braced at his throat. Not crushing, not choking, but near enough. Enough to make air an effort. Enough to remind everyone watching that air could be taken away, if he chose.

“You owe,” Atticus said. His voice was low, for the man, but every set of ears strained toward it. “You deliver. Or you disappear.”

The man made a choking protest. Atticus leaned in, steady. “I don’t care about your reasons. I care about your word. You gave it. You keep it.”

He let go suddenly. The man staggered, coughing, face blotched red.

“Tomorrow,” he rasped. “It’ll be ready tomorrow. I swear.”

Atticus’s eyes stayed fixed, cold. He looked past the man to another worker, a shorter one who’d gone pale. “Make sure it is.”

“Yes, boss.”

The warehouse shifted back into motion, as if on a signal. Men picked up clipboards. Someone restarted the forklift. Everyone avoided looking at me.

Atticus turned, already walking. His expression hadn’t changed. He might as well have been adjusting furniture.

“Let’s go,” he said.

I followed on unsteady legs. The gravel outside sounded too loud under my shoes, each crunch a broadcast of my nerves.

In the car, I sat stiff, hands clutched in my lap. The warehouse door loomed in the mirror. The man’s cough echoed in my ears.

Atticus drove in silence. Calm, steady, like he’d just balanced a ledger instead of threatening a man’s life.

Finally, I found my voice. “What was that?”