Chapter Eight - Alexei
The call ends, and the silence it leaves behind is heavier than any gunfire. Dimitri’s face is carved in stone, but his eyes flick to me like he’s waiting for the storm. Around the table, the men shift uneasily, not one of them daring to speak above a whisper.
I stand. The chair’s legs scrape the floor, loud and final. “Coats,” I say. “Now.”
Dimitri falls in beside me as we head for the door. Behind us, the men scatter, some fumbling phones, others grabbing weapons they won’t need until later. My driver barely gets the ignition before I wrench the back door shut. The SUV roars into the dark streets, tires spitting gravel.
“They hit the convoy hard,” Dimitri says, his tone clipped. “Fast. Precise. Like military.”
I light a cigarette, draw slow. “Survivors?”
“None.”
The smoke tastes bitter. “That’s impossible.”
“Not if someone handed them the route.”
The words hang between us.
We reach the outskirts just as the sky starts to pale. Smoke hits my nose first—rubber, metal, blood. Then the sight: two trucks gutted and blackened, SUVs riddled with holes, crates scattered like bones. The smell of fire and iron clings to everything.
I step out, boots crunching on gravel and broken glass. The wind pushes smoke low, stinging my eyes, but I keep walking, slow, deliberate.
“Christ,” one of the younger men mutters behind me. “It’s a slaughter.”
“Shut up,” Dimitri snaps.
Bodies lie crumpled where they fell. Some burned, others shot. Their weapons are gone. Whoever did this knew exactly what to take, what to leave, how to leave it. Not chaos—control.
“This was no accident,” I say.
Dimitri nods grimly. “They knew everything. Timing, route, numbers. They came prepared.”
“Then someone close fed them.” My jaw tightens. “Someone who breathes my air.”
I kneel beside one of the bodies, fingers brushing the cold fabric of his jacket. A man I trained myself, whose loyalty had been tested more than once. Now his eyes are glass, his mouth slack. He hadn’t even had time to raise his weapon.
I stand again, the cigarette burning low between my fingers. “This was a message.”
One of the captains clears his throat, voice low. “Boss, maybe it’s—”
My glare cuts him off. “Say it.”
He swallows hard. “Maybe it’s not just rivals. Maybe someone inside… maybe someone tipped them.”
The others shift uncomfortably, as though even speaking it might draw suspicion.
I take another drag, exhale slow. “You think I don’t already know that?”
The captain drops his gaze to the ground.
“Lock it down,” I say to Dimitri. My voice is steady, but the weight in it makes even the wind still. “Every phone, every file, every person. Nobody breathes unless I tell them to. Anyone who hesitates, anyone who feels off, you bring them to me.”
“Yes, sir.”
The men exchange wary glances, but none argue. Orders are already being whispered down the line, phones pressed to ears, cars sent flying toward safehouses.
I walk further into the wreckage. A crate lies split open, its contents ruined, soaked in fuel. I crouch, lift a piece of burned wood, drop it again. My hands itch for violence. Whoever did this didn’t just want the product. They wanted to humiliate me. To remind me I can bleed.
“They were efficient,” Dimitri says. He toes one of the discarded magazines, empty. “Quick. No time to fight back.”
“Military.”
“Or trained like it.”
I narrow my eyes against the smoke. “Who profits?”
“Rivals in Brighton, maybe. Or someone inside with debts too heavy to pay.”
My teeth clench. “Find out which. I want names by nightfall.”
Dimitri nods once, pulling his phone again.
I glance back at the men lingering near the cars. They stand silent, eyes down, waiting for a cue. Their fear hangs thick, heavier than the smoke.
I flick the cigarette to the gravel, grind it under my heel. “Listen carefully,” I say, my voice carrying over the wind. Every head lifts. “This wasn’t business. This wasn’t theft. This was betrayal.”
The word sinks in, and I smile.
“They thought they could carve us open and leave us bleeding,” I continue.
“They thought they could send me a message.” I pause, scanning their faces, letting the silence drag until it cuts.
“So here is my message. We do not break. We do not scatter. We do not forget. We find them. We gut them, and when I’m finished, there won’t be enough left to bury. ”
The men nod, some murmuring assent, others crossing themselves quickly.
I turn back to Dimitri. “Burn the rest,” I order. “Nothing leaves here but ash.”
He signals two of the men, who move to douse what remains in fuel. Flames roar to life again, crackling over ruined steel, black smoke clawing at the morning sky.
I stand with my hands behind my back, watching the fire consume everything. Millions lost. Twelve men gone. Routes compromised. My circle pierced.
Not just a loss. A declaration.
When the blaze grows high, I light another cigarette from it, the paper catching instantly. Smoke fills my lungs, bitter and sharp, steadying the rage boiling under my skin.
“They wanted war,” I murmur.
Dimitri hears me. “We’ll give it to them.”
“No,” I correct softly, eyes fixed on the flames. “We’ll give them something worse.”
The fire crackles, devouring what’s left of my convoy. The sun finally breaks the horizon, pale and cold against the smoke.
I exhale hard, my voice a promise to the ash and to the men who dared betray me.
“This doesn’t end until I have the traitor’s head in my hands.”
The estate feels too quiet when we return.
Not the usual quiet of stone walls and heavy carpets, but the hollow kind, the kind that makes footsteps sound louder, breaths feel stolen.
Word has spread; men move like shadows through the hallways, heads low, voices clipped.
Everyone knows what happened at the convoy. Everyone knows what it means.
I don’t go to my rooms. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I head straight for the council chamber and order a meeting.
By the time I sit at the head of the long oak table, the others are already there. Captains, lieutenants, enforcers: men who usually laugh, smoke, whisper while waiting. Tonight, they are silent. The only sound is the scrape of chairs against the floor as they settle.
Dimitri stands at my right. Vivienne sits lower down, a leather-bound notebook open, pen poised.
She plays her role with care: the sharp lawyer keeping meticulous records, the professional too disciplined to betray emotion.
Her hair is pinned back, her expression calm, her eyes moving across the room with quiet calculation.
I say nothing.
Minutes pass like hours. The weight of my silence presses down on them. Some shift, some clear their throats, some stare at the table rather than risk my eyes. Vivienne writes something in her notebook, quick, neat strokes of her pen. When she looks up, her gaze brushes mine for an instant.
Too calm.
I study her longer than I mean to. She doesn’t look away. There is something in her expression. Serenity, maybe, or something like it. Either way, it unsettles me.
Finally, I lean forward, my voice low, deliberate. “Twelve men are dead. Two trucks, three SUVs, gone. Crates gone. This wasn’t chaos. This wasn’t bad luck. Someone knew our schedule. Someone handed it to them.”
No one speaks.
The silence stretches, heavier than any confession.
I let my gaze sweep the table, resting briefly on each man, weighing the flickers of expression. Dimitri’s jaw tightens. Pavel scratches his beard. Maksim leans back, his smirk absent tonight. Vivienne keeps her head inclined, pen ready, eyes focused but unreadable.
“Someone gave them our schedule,” I repeat, louder this time, the words falling sharp against the silence.
Again, no answer.
“Not a guess. Not a theory. A fact.”
The men shift uncomfortably. Still, no one speaks.
I sit back, folding my hands together. “Until I know who, every conversation is suspect. Every phone, every file, every movement will be monitored. Assume nothing. Trust no one.” My gaze lands on Dimitri. “Surveillance. Internal and external. Tonight.”
“You got it,” he says immediately.
The others nod, murmur assent, some more eager than others. They know better than to protest.
I close the meeting with nothing more. No promises, no reassurances. Just silence.
One by one, they file out. Vivienne lingers, closing her notebook, tucking it into her bag. She rises smoothly, adjusting the line of her jacket. As she moves toward the door, her eyes catch mine again. Calm, steady, unflinching. She nods once—polite, professional—then disappears into the hall.
The chamber empties. Only Dimitri remains. He watches me carefully, his hand resting on the back of a chair.
“You think it’s one of them,” he says quietly.
“I know it’s one of them.”
“Then why not say more?”
“Because names without proof are weakness.” I lean back in the chair, exhaling slow. “I’ll know soon enough.”
He nods once, then leaves me alone.
The room is too big, too still. The fire crackles in the grate, shadows moving across the carved walls. I pour myself a drink but don’t touch it. My thoughts circle, tightening like a noose.
“Someone gave them our schedule.”
The words repeat in my head, echoing off the silence. Each time sharper, each time heavier.
The list in my mind is growing short.
Maksim, reckless, resentful. Pavel, cautious but ambitious. Sergei, too loyal for his own good—or perhaps only pretending. Even Dimitri, blood brother or not, cannot be immune to suspicion.
Then there’s her.
Vivienne Wilder is calm when she should be shaken. Silent when silence is dangerous. Eyes that hold mine longer than anyone else dares. She shouldn’t even be in this room, yet she is. She knows more than most of them now. I’ve let her.
I replay her movements over the last few weeks: the way she dismantled Sergei’s trial, the way she handled the bait file I slipped across the table, the way she stood still in the study when I pulled the trigger. Calm, always calm.
Is it strength? Or is it hiding?
The silence of the chamber offers no answer.
I rise, pacing to the window. Outside, the estate grounds lie still, the gardens ghostly under moonlight. Guards move in pairs along the paths, rifles slung across their shoulders, eyes scanning the dark. They’re loyal. Or so they appear.
I light a cigarette, inhale deep, let the smoke burn through me.
“Everyone’s a suspect,” I murmur.
Not just her. All of them. Every man who drinks my vodka and calls me brat. Every captain who swears loyalty with one hand and counts profits with the other. Every guard who watches the door but may already have sold his watchfulness to someone else.
Trust is a luxury. One I can’t afford.
By nightfall, I issue the orders. Every phone checked. Every ledger reviewed. Every man watched, whether he knows it or not. No exceptions.
Not even her.
Especially not her.
Dimitri comes to me after the orders are given, his face unreadable. “You want her followed?”
“Yes.”
“She won’t like it.”
“She doesn’t need to.”
He studies me for a moment. “You think she could be the leak.”
I say nothing. The silence is louder than words.
When he leaves, I stand at the window again, smoke curling around me, eyes fixed on the dark horizon.
This isn’t just about betrayal. This is about power. About control. About the fact that someone thought they could carve into me and leave me hollow.
They were wrong.
Night sinks heavy over the estate, the kind of dark that presses against the windows like a hand. I haven’t moved from the study in hours. The fire has burned low, the whiskey in my glass untouched. I watch the flames gutter and think of steel and ash and blood scattered across gravel.
The convoy wasn’t a loss—it was a theft of certainty. Someone close enough to breathe my air sold us out. That thought cuts deeper than the millions lost.
My phone buzzes once on the desk. A message from Dimitri: Surveillance in place. No one moves untracked.
I type a short reply: Good. Keep it tight.
My gaze lingers on the shadows across the room, as though an answer might shape itself there. Instead, what I see is her. Vivienne, steady under my stare, pen scratching across paper like nothing could touch her.
Calm when everyone else trembled. Calm when I pulled the trigger.
The list of suspects is long, but her name won’t leave my thoughts.