Chapter 25 - Alexei
Three hours. Three fucking hours since I found her gone, Mikhail’s room destroyed, that back door swinging like an accusation.
The flashlight beam cuts through gloaming darkness, catching nothing but empty woods and my own controlled fury.
My shirt is torn from branches, knuckles bleeding from pushing through undergrowth that shouldn't be this dense.
Every tree looks the same in the dark. Every shadow could be her collapsed form.
My voice is raw from calling her name, but I keep searching. Methodical. Systematic. The way I hunt men who think they can hide from me.
"Sofia!"
Nothing. Just my echo dying between trees that close in with each pass. The lakehouse sits behind me, windows dark, holding whatever secret sent her running.
I sweep the beam across the forest floor again.
Broken branches, disturbed leaves, the faint impression of bare feet in soft earth.
She went this way first, then doubled back.
Smart girl. But not smart enough. There, caught on a low branch, a thread from that oversized shirt she wore to bed.
My shirt. I pull it free, the fabric soft between my bloody fingers.
She was here. Confused, maybe. Running without direction.
The dock next. Where we sat yesterday morning, her legs swinging over the water while she told me about Nico's pact of honesty.
The wood creaks under my weight, still damp with dew.
No sign of her. But I can see her there, phantom-like, turning to me with the sun in her hair.
"I forgive you," she'd said about my father's cruelty bleeding into mine.
Lies. She ran the first chance she got.
The lake stretches black in the darkness. If there's blood, I'll burn this whole forest down.
Morning mist clings to the water's surface, hiding everything beneath. I wade in knee-deep, cold water flooding my shoes, flashlight skimming across the glassy surface. Looking for ripples that shouldn't be there. For the pale flash of skin beneath dark water.
The image assaults me: Sofia floating face down, hair spread like gold seaweed. My chest constricts hard enough to crack ribs.
No body. Good. She's still out there for me to find.
Back to the house. Mikhail's room, trying to understand what triggered this.
Boxes scattered, photos everywhere, tissue paper torn like she'd been searching for something specific.
One of Mikhail's architecture books lies open to a sketch of a concert hall, his neat notes in the margins about acoustics and sight lines.
She'd been looking at this. Reading his dreams.
Then I see them: two halves of a silver heart on the floor, bracelet chains tangled together.
Two halves of one heart. Like something lovers would share.
My hand shakes as I pick them up. The metal is tarnished, old. One piece has initials etched so faint I almost miss them. M.V. in Cyrillic. The other piece has S.R.
My brother's? And hers? The metal burns cold in my pocket.
Whatever memory these unlocked sent her running from me. After I'd sobbed in her arms. After I showed her every fractured piece of myself. After I told her about my mother, my father, every shameful thing I'd done.
She ran.
The road to Chicago stretches ahead, empty as the passenger seat where she should be.
Her scent still clings to my shirt from last night: flowers and sex and promises neither of us knew how to keep.
Night falls heavy over the highway, car headlights showing what the darkness tries to hide.
My hands on the wheel are destroyed. Cuts from punching through underbrush, dirt caked under nails from checking hollow logs where an injured woman might crawl.
I've called her phone twenty-three times. Dead or off, doesn't matter. The silence is answer enough.
My contacts throughout the city get the same order: find her. A woman on foot, probably disheveled, possibly injured. Every hospital, police station, bus depot.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
Then my phone rings. The informant I keep inside the Rosetti compound.
"She was here. This evening. Saw her eldest brother in his study. Left about an hour ago."
The words hit like ice water in my lungs. She went to them. After everything, she chose them.
"How did she seem?"
"Destroyed. Like something inside her had broken." A pause. "She was only inside for twenty minutes. Whatever happened in that study… Marco was breaking things after she left. Heard glass shattering from the hallway."
Twenty minutes. Whatever confession or revelation she had, it took twenty minutes to destroy her relationship with her brother.
"Which direction did she go?"
"East. On foot. Looked like she was sleepwalking."
Before I can process that, my phone buzzes again. Gleb, my head of security.
"Sir, we have a problem."
The leather steering wheel creaks under my grip. "What?"
"Kaz took a team out this morning. Unauthorized."
The temperature drops twenty degrees. "Where?"
"Chicago. They picked someone up off the street."
Every muscle in my body locks. The memory crashes over me: Sofia last night, her face when I talked about Mikhail's bonsai. The way she'd pressed into me when I showed her how to prune it, her body warm and trusting against mine.
"Who?"
"The Rosetti girl, sir. Your… the woman from the compound."
Time stops.
"Where is he taking her?"
"The old warehouse. The one we use for… tribunals."
Executions. Where traitors die screaming. Where my father used to take men who betrayed the bratva. Where the drains in the floor run red.
I pull over hard, tires shrieking against asphalt. My fist goes through the side window in one explosive motion, glass shattering around my knuckles. The pain is nothing. Clean. Clarifying. Blood drips onto expensive leather as pieces of window fall like frozen rain.
She's there. In that warehouse. With Kaz.
My mother is dead. Died calling for Mikhail while I held the woman responsible. I wasn't there. Chose her over my mother's last breath. The guilt of it burns like acid in my chest.
I gave Sofia everything. The truth about my father. My shame. My weakness. The way I broke on that porch, sobbing like the child I never got to be. And she ran without a word.
Now Kaz has her. Has what's mine.
The rage doesn't dissipate. It crystallizes into something useful. Into the cold fury that's kept me alive this long. Every mark I left on her body is probably fading while Kaz plans her execution. The thought makes me want to tear the world apart with my bare hands.
She doesn't get to die. Not until she explains. Not until I understand. Not ever.
I dial Gleb back. "How many men do we have? Not loyal to the family. Loyal to me personally."
His pause speaks volumes. "Thirty for certain. Maybe forty if I call in the markers."
"Call them all. Armed and ready in forty minutes."
"Sir, if you move against Kaz openly…"
"He took what's mine."
"This could split the family permanently. The old guard still respects his claim as cousin. If you attack him directly…"
"Then let it split."
Silence. Then quietly: "Is she worth it? Destroying everything your father built?"
The question hangs between us. I think of her in my bed two nights ago, the way she'd traced my scars and asked about each one. The way she'd kissed the one my father gave me, like she could heal it with her mouth.
"My father built an empire on fear. It can burn." My voice drops to absolute zero. "She's the only thing worth saving from the ashes."
The calls go out fast. First to Sergei, one of my father's old lieutenants who taught me to shoot when I was seven.
"Alexei." His voice is careful. "I heard about your mother. My condolences."
"I need your men, Sergei. All of them."
A long pause. "Against who?"
"Kaz."
"Christ." The sound of a cigarette being lit. "You're asking me to choose between blood and blood."
"I'm asking you to remember who pulled your son from that burning warehouse in Minsk."
The memory hangs between us: his boy, sixteen and stupid, caught in a rival family's trap. I'd gone in myself when everyone else said he was already dead.
"My men are yours," Sergei says finally. "All twelve."
Next, Dmitri who runs the south territory. His daughter is engaged to Kaz's cousin on his mother's side. This one will hurt.
"I can't, Alexei. You know I can't."
"Then stay out of my way."
"This woman…" His voice drops. "She's worth a civil war?"
I think of her standing in my kitchen yesterday morning, making terrible eggs while wearing my shirt.
The way she'd laughed when I'd tried to save them, adding too much salt.
How we'd ended up ordering delivery instead, eating Chinese food in bed while she told me about the time Luca tried to teach her chemistry and nearly burned down their garage.
"Yes."
"You're going to lose men today. Good men."
"Then I'll lose them."
The third call is to Pavel, who runs our weapons cache. Young, ambitious, smart enough to fear me.
"Whatever you need," he says before I even finish explaining. "The entire arsenal if necessary."
"Why?" I ask, genuinely curious. "You could stay neutral."
"Because I've seen how you've been since she arrived. Different. Almost…" he searches for the word. "Happy. If she makes you human enough to be happy, she's worth protecting."
The observation cuts deep. Happy. Is that what I was?
The convoy forms behind me on the highway shoulder.
Black SUVs falling into formation like a funeral procession.
Through the rearview, I catch my reflection: blood on my hands from the broken window, death in my eyes.
This is who I really am. Not the man who sobbed in her arms. Not the man who showed her how to tend a bonsai with infinite patience. This.
Chicago's skyline rises ahead like a promise of violence. The warehouse district spreads before us, all industrial decay and perfect killing grounds. My phone buzzes with updates. Kaz is locked down with fifteen men. No word on her condition.
The not knowing burns in my throat. Copper and ash, the taste of everything I'm about to destroy.
I make one final call. To Sasha, who oversees our medical team.
"I need you at the warehouse in ninety minutes. Full trauma setup."
"Who's injured?"
"No one yet." I watch the city blur past. "But they will be."
"Alexei…" His voice is careful. "I heard about your mother. And about Kaz taking the girl."
"And?"
"Nothing. Just… be careful. Grief makes men do stupid things."
"This isn't grief." Though it is: grief for my mother, for Mikhail, for the woman who ran from me. "This is calculation. Kaz made his move. Now I make mine."
The convoy takes the exit toward the warehouse district. Forty-three vehicles now, based on the count in my mirrors. Men who've chosen my side in what's about to become a family civil war. Some for loyalty, some for fear, some because they think I'll win.
They're right. I will win. Because I have nothing left to lose except her.
The warehouse looms ahead, surrounded by Kaz's vehicles. He's probably inside explaining to Sofia how justice works in our world. How blood demands blood. How the guilty must pay.
He's not wrong. Blood does demand blood.
But she's already mine. Her blood, her body, her lies, her truths. Mine to punish or forgive. Mine to keep breathing.
The convoy stops. I step out into Chicago morning, glass crunching under my shoes from the shattered window. Blood still drips from my knuckles, leaving a trail as I walk toward the warehouse.
Behind me, doors open. Weapons check. Magazines sliding into place. The sound of men preparing for war.
I don't know why she ran. Don't know what memory those bracelet halves unlocked. Don't know what she told Marco that made him shatter glass.
But I know this: she's in that warehouse, probably thinking she deserves whatever Kaz has planned.
She's wrong.
The only thing she deserves is me. My fury, my obsession, my broken promises, my violent love.
Time to remind my cousin why they call me pakhan.
Time to paint that warehouse red.
Time to take back what belongs to me.
Even if she spends the rest of her life hating me for it.