Chapter 18
Chapter
Eighteen
Alexei
Idon't bother flicking the light on in my brother's office. Instead I pause at the threshold, leaning against the door. Everything is the way I left it, with a haze of darkness and despair layered over it to mirror what I feel inside.
I was told to give her space, to put some distance between the vicious princess and myself. But perhaps I am the one who needed it.
Coming home though, I realize nowhere feels like home anymore. This space was never mine, but I've lived in it like I'm the one that died. Doomed to spend eternity haunting this place.
I lower myself onto the green couch, the brief flicker of orange flame the only light when I light my cigarette.
How could she think her grief is any comparison to mine?
He was the brother I'd known and loved my whole life.
Up until a year ago, there wasn't a day I was on this earth without him.
I watched him grow up, grow into the role our father laid out for him and over the last few years I watched him devolve into a madness that I couldn't stop.
I did a great job at pretending I didn't see the truth about Victor. Believing that a gentle, or sometimes violent, influence could keep him close to me.
Then there was Chet.
It stabs me through the chest to think that Victor was ever going to allow him back onto our property and into our lives.
Of course Sage doesn't know the full story. How could she? I'm not sure I even do.
I still remember the day my father kicked Chet off the property. I was only very young. Too young to understand probably. Victor was older, though, and he should've known better.
We were hiding in the bushes when, back then, Uncle Chet had come barging through the gates of the property covered in blood and in the middle of a meltdown that slung accusations of my father betraying him. My mother had grabbed Vic and I, pulling us away from his path of wrath.
Father had come out quickly, an imposing figure of stability against his brother. I don't remember much of what was said. Just that Chet had been cut off. He was no longer welcome in our business or our family for what he'd done.
There's only one thing Father said that stuck in my mind. "I know you want to chase her memory, but we don't mutilate little girls around here, brother. No matter what their fathers have done."
That one quote stays playing over and over in my mind as I stub out my cigarette and make my way to bed. The inside of the house is quiet, all our people outside by the lake on this warm night.
My tattooed hands clench as I push open the glass door and stand on my bedroom balcony to overlook them. Isla is down there with the others. Making connections that feel too far away for me now.
My father disowned Chet because he wouldn't let go of his vendetta against Dimitri. Then we held peace between our families for years.
Whatever Chet wants now is clearly the same thing he wanted back then. Sage. Like always, she is at the center of everything. Victor must have known why Chet wanted to hurt her so badly. Or did he simply not care?
My father always made a big deal about family and succession. Whatever Chet held against Dimitri was enough for him to be disowned forever. I've never been anything like my father, but like a mirror of my relationship with my own brother, disowning Chet can't have been an easy choice.
Over a decade later and Chet still can't let it go.
I release a deep sigh and lean against the railing, watching the stars twinkle in the open sky.
What were you thinking, Vic? Why do this? And why hide it from me?
Sadly, I know the answer to the last one. He couldn't trust me. He knew I wouldn't approve.
There's a knock on the door and I look over my shoulder to see Isla has left the party below and is coming to join me on the balcony.
"Good news. Your new car should be here in a few days," she says, smiling as she leans against the rail with me.
I let out a small laugh, mostly at the hilarity that I'd completely forgotten about what that little heathen had done to my car.
"It comes with all the upgrades you wanted this time," Isla says, jostling me with her elbow. I just shake my head, my mind once again distracted by Sage and what her presence means for my family.
"Don't be mad at her for it," Isla says on a sigh and my eye instantly twitches. "She was only-"
"Trying to kill me?" I finish for her, huffing out a laugh and finding my muscles tense of their own accord.
"I was going to say get your attention," Isla says, a knowing smile on her face.
I roll my eyes and don't bother to respond. Because whether either of us likes it, Sage has always had my full attention and she knows it.
I look down over the men walking around our property, some setting bonfires as the sun sets while the braver ones enjoy the lake. I never paid much attention to anything beyond my own needs while Vic was alive, so now I can't even tell if I have the loyalty of my own men.
"Do they trust me, Isla?" I ask, gesturing down to where they are. "They certainly trust you."
"They do," Isla says. "Not a lot of them trusted Victor. With Victor there was division. A select few invited in to see what he really planned and all it did was sow discord amongst the rest. Who couldn't fully trust that your brother's motives were right anymore."
It shouldn't hurt me to hear that. But it does.
"I suppose they were right," I say, fingers clenching the railing, hating the words as they come out.
"Big thing for you to say," Isla says, brushing her hair back from her face in the wind.
"Doesn't mean he should've died for it."
"Fair enough," Isla says. "But it couldn't hurt you to get closer to our people Alexei.
They trust you. They want to follow you.
They support you working with the DeMarcos in order to protect us.
It was a brave call. You put all your personal shit aside and you made that call for them. They see it."
There's not much else I can say to that. I wasn't born to be a leader. This was never a role I was supposed to play. I didn't have the training and preparation that Victor did. I don't have his mind. I'm impulse. He was strategy.
I stand up straight, frowning, when I notice lights coming up the road that leads to the house.
Isla follows my eyes in curiosity and her face goes hard when she sees it too.
The lights get brighter and as they draw closer a convoy starts to appear.
A uniform row of cars, and the noises of angry men shouting getting louder.
I go to my bedside table and grab my phone, dialing Anton's number.
"Rushkoff, what-"
"Chet's men are here for a little visit. Doesn't look friendly."
"Fuck. Okay. That's the fifth one this week," Anton says on a sigh. "Where are you?"
"The house."
"That's bold," Anton says. "Freddie is in the area with our men. We'll get him there quickly."
"Thanks."
I hang up and throw the phone away, going back to the balcony just as the convoy is starting to arrive.
I put two fingers in my mouth and whistle, getting the attention of the men.
They look up to where the cars are arriving, just as one begins to ram the front gate.
My men rush to get weapons while Isla returns with a gun for me.
I sling it over my shoulder and take my pistol too.
Bracing myself on the railing, I throw myself over the balcony, landing on the ground with perfect balance as I head towards the gate.
My gun goes up just as the invaders swarm out of their vehicles. The main car continues to ram the gate.
"We have a message from Chet!" The man at the front shouts.
"Oh really?" I say, rolling my eyes. All this stupid show is doing is giving my people more time to prepare. So I allow them to draw this out, watching in my periphery for my men to arm up and be ready.
"He is coming for your blood," the man says. "And you do not have the power to stop us."
Their car makes an awkward ram against the gate that isn't enough to break through. I turn away with a growl, walking back up the path to Isla and two men who I recognize as senior in my empire but who I don't know well enough to know their names.
"Shoot them," I command. "Gun the fuckers down while they waste time trying to get through the gate."
"There are a lot of them," one man comments. "Will we-"
"We'll have backup," I promise, ignoring the rest of what they have to say as I trudge up the path back to the house, barking commands at my men on where to stand to best thwart this ambush. It's fucking annoying how much harder it is to lead people than it is to just worry about myself in a fight.
I watch in satisfaction as the gunfire begins at the front gate, dropping several of their men and sending the others fleeing back into their cars.
A bang sounds behind me, and I startle towards the noise. I rush up the path around the lake, stopping in my tracks when I see the side entrance has fallen. We are breached and Chet's men are pouring their way into the property.
I squeeze my fists, rage boiling up inside me as the front gate succumbs to the assault and falls, landing with a crash on the ground. My own men surge past me, meeting the attack from the side gate at the same time that fighting breaks out on the front lawn.
With a growl I throw myself into the fight too, gun up as I headshot the last ones coming through the gate. Next, I push past one man, slitting his throat and rescuing one of my men by grabbing the hair of his attacker and snapping his neck cold.
Isla fights right alongside me, face tense as she fires single shots of her rifle, expertly taking down an opponent each time she does. But their resources are never ending, and no matter how many we take down more are appearing in their place.
I shoot a few more down before wiping some sweat from my brow as Isla comes to my side. "They've broken down the west gate now, too," she says, relaying a message from her phone that she then pockets. "Sergei says they've nearly reached the house."
I shake my head, no time to ask who the fuck Sergei is.
"We have to group them up, stop them from attacking too many places at once. We don't have the people to hold them across multiple sites."
Isla gives me an exasperated look. "I mean, I'll try," she huffs. "Don't have a lot of control over the situation."
She goes back into the fight, shouting things at our people as I rely on my instinct to do what I do best. Fight unfair whilst only worrying about myself.
Threads of responsibility gnaw at my bones, telling me to help my people and warring with myself at the fact that I don't really know how to work anything other than alone.
I falter, looking around as my men fall to Chet's. They fight gallantly, there's often two or three men to my one. Far more than is reasonable to expect them to fight against alone.
Out of nowhere, I'm attacked, and one of Chet's men reaches for me with his knife. I bare my teeth as I grip his neck to stop him from reaching me. I'm about to violently snap his neck when his head explodes right in front of my eyes, spraying blood and brain matter on the grass.
"DeMarcos!" Chet's men shout, trying to warn the others. I breathe a tense sigh of relief as I hear the roar of backup finally making its way to me.
I drop the mans neck and let what's left of his body fall to the ground, finding Freddie standing in my view, aiming the gun that fired the bullet. He comes sauntering up to me with several DeMarco men in tow and a smirk on his face.
"Took your fucking time," I growl.
"Yes, yes, very good to see you too," Freddie says, flipping a knife in his hand as he jumps into the fight like fighting is his only passion.
I whistle again, shouting so my men can hear me through the fighting. "Fight to kill! Don't let a single one of them get away."
I raise my gun and join the others in this fight. Herding them away from the house and out to the lawns to face us, feeling far more optimistic that this might actually end up okay now that we're working together.
I fight the urge to vomit. Together. Yuck. How annoyingly effective. Yet, together, we will make a mess of my Uncle Chet.