STALEMATE [MAFIA] [MXM] ✓

26: ATTAINABLE

Salem's not that great at planning, if he's honest.

He enjoys having a plan, likes to know exactly what to expect from any given situation. However, he himself is not particularly talented at creating them. He tends to overthink, to try to think of any outcome and what to do if any given thing goes wrong. He makes it way too complicated, to the point where it's far too confusing to follow at all.

This is not a good quality to have, if Salem wants to finally focus on bringing down Catrine once and for all.

All these years, he's just been waiting. He knew that it would be much easier to do this if he was in internal affairs. However, Catrine isn't stupid. Annoying and horrible and the bane of Salem's existence? Sure. However, she does have a brain on her. She couldn't have gotten as far as she has if she didn't. She also has a lot more power than Salem thought, since her and her sister lead Black Fucking Cross.

Not as much power as Atlas, obviously, but still. Anyway, she's not stupid. She will never let Salem into internal affairs. At this point, he needs to abandon all hope of going about this legally.

The next day, Salem is awoken by a buzzing sound. He and Atlas didn't go to bed until pretty late, and right now it's not even six AM. Salem jumps, looking around the bedroom for the noise. At first he thinks it might be an alarm or something, but that wouldn't make sense.

Salem fully sits up, and eventually finds the cause of the noise. It's Atlas' phone, which is on the bed between them. Salem frowns and picks it up, blinking his eyes to get them to adjust. He can barely make out the name.

Leo.

Leo? Oh shit, he's out of custody? Well that's good, Salem felt bad for him being locked up like that. He knows how uncomfortable those jail cells are first hand. Thanks, Atlas.

That's right, Atlas! Salem looks beside himself and finds Atlas completely passed out. Hm.

Oh, well.

Salem hits the green button and puts it up to his ear, because he's still waking up and his judgement is off. Also, he's curious.

"Hello?"

"Sir, there's— wait. Mr. Di Angelo?"

Yeah, Salem and Atlas sound nothing alike. Atlas' voice is much rougher and deeper, far more intimidating than Salem's own soft voice. He radiates kindness, and is very approachable. Atlas sounds mean.

"Uh." Salem says, "no. Can I take a message?"

There's dead silence for a moment. Salem yawns, rubbing at his eyes and trying to wake up. He grabs his glasses off the nightstand and starts cleaning them with his shirt. He waits a few seconds for Leo to respond, and when he does, he sounds kind of worried.

"I don't... I don't know, I've never—this has never happened before. Where is he?"

"Sleeping," Salem says, glancing back at Atlas, who is stirring a bit. Salem turns away from him in hopes of keeping the noise down. Salem doesn't really want to wake Atlas up, because they went to bed so late. Salem can usually function alright on little sleep, but Atlas? Atlas is always in a shitty mood if he doesn't get enough.

"Um." Leo says, and he sounds really nervous. He's probably scared of Atlas, and Salem wonders what else Atlas has threatened him with. He doesn't think Atlas would ever actually hurt one of his employees unless they deserved it, and Leo seems pretty loyal. He probably doesn't have anything to worry about. "May I ask who this is?"

"Salem." Salem replies, like Leo would even know who he is. Salem's pretty sure they've never met, he didn't even confront this guy when he was in custody. Jordan and Catrine handled all that.