Chapter 57Where Secrets Rot and Fester
Where Secrets Rot and Fester
Dominik
They can’t hunt what no longer bleeds.
The entire underworld already thinks he is dead; now only his captors need to be convinced he will no longer be a ‘problem.’
First, I need a body.
Not just any John Doe, we’re not dealing with street rats. This is Aslanov. Pakhan . The weight of his name echoes across cities. His enemies know his bones.
So I call in a favor from an old contact at the morgue. A fresh body, similar build, matching height. Skin tone close enough. His face will be destroyed, of course, that’s key, but the body has to hold up to scrutiny before that.
The corpse I get is perfect. Overdose, homeless, no next of kin.
No one will ask questions when he disappears.
I prepare the body the same night: same tattoos for the parts that will be somewhat visible, surgically burned in if needed.
It’s meticulous work. So I start the clock.
I give myself twelve hours. My fingers ache with the detail.
Then I douse the body in gasoline, but not all at once.
I soak specific parts; torso, arms, and most of the face.
Enough to ensure total disfigurement, but not enough to make him unrecognizable by dental records.
Because I’m going to give them those too, fabricated, of course. Everything doctored to match.
I burn the fingerprints with acid. Not beyond recovery, just enough to be ‘inconclusive.’ For men like his captors, that casts doubt, but the rest of the evidence will drag them into belief.
Blood is easy. I have tubes of Aslanov’s from the clinic. I scatter it at the scene; inside the motel and along the route outside. A trail, like he crawled and bled out. I smear it across door handles, light switches, the floor, under fingernails.
When they come for him, they’ll find everything they need.
It will be irrefutable. A textbook case. Case closed.
They’ll believe he died through self-destruction.
I don’t need to torch the motel, it’s already a fucking decay.
It’s staged, the body on the bed, already mutilated in a way that implies a struggle. Blood sprayed on the walls, drag marks from the bathroom to the bed. A shattered phone near the window, fingernails under the sill, the smell of copper and gasoline thick in the air.
It fits, he was a mad man once we found him.
I light the fire and walk away with no hesitation.
It burns fast. The motel is old, built in the 60s, insulation like dry hay. It goes up like it wants to be erased. It will catch their attention to this forsaken old place.
The Devil died in a blaze of his own rebellion. That’s the story they’ll tell.
I push through the clinic doors just as the first light of dawn breaks the horizon. The sky outside is that cold kind of blue, the kind that makes your bones ache.
Smoke still clings to me. Not just in my clothes, it’s in my skin, my throat, buried somewhere between my ribs. Even after two showers and three changes of clothes, it follows me like a shadow.
Inside, the clinic is quiet. Too quiet. The kind of silence that builds in places where hope runs thin.
Fluorescent lights hum faintly above me. They always hum here. They don’t let you forget you’re in a place that keeps people on the edge of dying.
I move down the hallway, boots dragging a little more than usual. It’s been two days since I left. Two days of no updates. Two days of silence.
I had to do it in secrecy, no one could disrupt me.
I reach the common room near the nurses’ station. Isabella is there—exactly where I expected her to be.
She’s hunched over the counter, pouring herself a cup of coffee like it’s the only thing anchoring her to this world. Her hand trembles just enough to spill a drop. It hits the tile like a gunshot.
No one else is in sight, and I wonder where the rest might be.
She looks like she’s been hollowed out. Same clothes as before. Her hair is tied up in a messy knot that’s slipped halfway down her neck. Deep shadows cling beneath her eyes, turning her face into a haunted version of itself.
She doesn’t notice me at first. She’s staring into the cup like she’s trying to divine something from it.
When she finally senses me behind her, she turns fast. Sharp. Her eyes are wild for a second, like she doesn’t know whether she’s about to scream or cry.
“Where the hell have you been?” Her voice cracks mid-sentence, rough from exhaustion, sharper from fear.
I don’t answer—not out loud. I never do.
Instead, I let my eyes drift down the hallway, toward the isolation room.
Then I bring my hand to my throat and drag my finger across it in one smooth, clean line.
Dead.
Her brow furrows, confusion folding into anxiety. “What do you mean—” she starts, but I’m already pulling out my phone.
I tap out the words slowly in notes.
‘‘I staged his death for his captors. They can’t hunt what’s dead.’’
I hold the screen up for her. Let her read it.
She stares at the message, lips parting like she might say something, then just—
breathes .
A shaky, uneven exhale, like she’s been holding it for forty-eight hours straight.
Her shoulders drop. Just a little. Just enough to see the cracks.
“Jesus,” she mutters. “Let’s hope they take the bait.”
I nod once. No hesitation.
They will.
“He’s a little more stable,” she says softly. “Vitals have evened out. Symptoms still up, but… the medication’s doing its thing.”
She pauses, the coffee forgotten in her hand.
“He’s healing. Just slower than I’ve hoped. He’s fighting it,” she adds, glancing toward the hallway like she can see through the walls. “Like his body wants to give in but something inside him won’t let it.”
She looks back at me.
“You can check on him, if you want.”
I nod once, eyes steady on hers.
Before I turn, I reach out and gently run my palm across the top of her head. A quiet, wordless gesture. Familiar. A thank you. A “you did good” . She freezes for half a breath, then closes her eyes briefly, leaning just a little into the touch.
When I pull my hand back, I mouth a single word to her.
Sleep.
She huffs out a tired breath. “You’re right. I should.”
I wait until she makes her way over to the couch in the corner of the clinic, curled slightly on her side, one hand still cradling the warm mug. Her eyes shut before her body settles. She’s asleep in less than a minute. Not deep, but it’s something.
Then I turn and walk down the hall. My steps are silent, the old floor creaking under my weight like it resents the peace.
I pause outside the isolation room.
I step inside.
The room is dim, lit only by a single lamp in the corner and the rhythmic green pulse of the heart monitor beside him. The soft beep… beep… beep .
He’s lying in the bed, eyes closed, jaw slack in sleep.
His face is less sunken than before, but the bruises are still fading in slow circles across his skin. Bandages wrap around his side and up over his ribs. The IV drips slow and steady, he is buckled up pretty heavy, even for Aslanov’s terms.
His hands twitch every now and then, like even in unconsciousness, he’s not fully still.
I walk to the chair beside him and sit. Quiet.
He’s restrained; thick straps across both wrists, clipped into the sides of the bed. Isabella said he let her do it. No fight. No protest. That alone tells me how far gone he still is.
Aslanov doesn’t submit easily. Not even to pain. But he trusts her. Enough to let her buckle him down like a man haunted by his own body.
My cousin is in love . It’s obvious now.
But I could see it way back then.
His eyelids twitch.
A flicker, barely there, then a deeper furrow in his brow as the world tries to claw its way back into him. His breathing picks up, shallow, uneven.
Then his mouth moves. Dry. Cracked.
“Isa—”
His eyes open, still glassy and fogged, and his gaze darts across the room.
But when he sees me, still and waiting in the chair, he stops.
The fog shifts, just enough clarity pushing through.
“Dom,” he croaks, voice shredded.
I nod once.
He blinks, then studies me harder this time. Like he’s measuring something beneath my skin.
“You look like hell,” he croaks.
I raise an eyebrow.
He lets out a broken sound that could almost be a laugh if it didn’t hurt so much. “Yeah, yeah. I know. I look worse.”
A silence stretches between us, but it’s not empty. It’s heavy. Familiar.
He stares. That thousand-yard stare starts to fracture, memories slipping back in jagged pieces. His jaw clenches. He looks away. Shame blooming slow in the hollows of his face.
His wrists pull slightly against the restraints, then he stills. Breathes in slow through his nose.
“Fuck…” His voice barely holds. “I hit you.”
I don’t move. Just watch him.
His eyes flick back to mine, and there’s something in them that wasn’t there before. Something softer. Raw.
“I didn’t know. When you came in the room back then… my head—” he swallows hard. “I wasn’t here. I saw someone else. Someone from there. I just… reacted.”
His voice cracks at the edge. “I’m sorry.”
I blink once. Then reach out, press my hand lightly to his wrist, just below the strap.
Not pulling. Not holding. Just there .
It’s a: I get it, you’re still my brother.
It’s not forgiveness. He doesn’t need it. We have always forgiven each other. We’re the only family we have left.
They laid hands on him.
They laid hands on me.
We are cut from the same blood, raised by the same wolves. His scars are mine. His torment, mine to answer for.
What they did to him is a debt written in flesh.
And in our world, debts are paid.
There is an old saying, one our fathers whispered when vengeance came slow but certain:
“Тронешь брата — хоронят семью.”
(Touch a brother—bury the family.)
Aslanov never took much from the man who made him.
But this he will.