Chapter Twenty-five
Alessia
“You didn’t really think I loved you, did you?
” Marco sneered, his words dripping with disdain.
“God, you were nothing but a means to an end. How else was I supposed to get to your father? But no, you and your pathetic little fantasy of a relationship ruined everything. I should’ve had what I wanted by now, and if it weren’t for your stupidity, you wouldn’t even be here. ”
If someone had told me I would come to hate this man, I would have laughed in their face. But now, looking at him, I felt nothing but pure disgust. He wasn’t hiding his resentment because I never gave him what he wanted.
Renat had left the room, but Marco lingered. He reached out, his fingers trailing my face. I turned away, revulsion curling in my stomach. “Relax, we are just getting started,” he murmured while brushing his lips over my jawline.
“What the fuck is taking Renat so long?” Elena huffed impatiently from across the room.
“Calm down.” Marco chuckled, his words laced with venom. “There’s no way Rodion would come looking for her. Selling her to Leonid meant she was no use to him anymore.” He leaned in closer, smirking. “But we? We have a few questions for you. Answer them, and maybe we will be done.”
He was right. Rodion wouldn’t come for me. And in the hands of these three, I knew how this would end.
“Are you happy?” I asked Marco. “You destroyed me. Are you happy?”
He scoffed. “Your father destroyed you. He is a man in demand. But that’s beside the point.” His expression turned bitter. “I’m here because you’re the reason my brother is dead. You know that?”
“I—”
“You fucking sold him out,” he snapped, his eyes burning with raw hatred. “You think I would let that go?”
“Salva lied to me.” I struggled, but his grip tightened around my throat. “I did what you asked, but you lied to me.”
“No. If you had done what we told you, this would have been over by now. But you didn’t because you’re a worthless bitch.”
He stopped when the door slammed open. Renat stormed in. He shoved Marco aside and took his place.
“Here is what you’ll do,” Renat said, pulling out his gun. “You’ll give me answers. And in return, I’ll let you live.”
“No—”
My words died when his palm cracked against my cheek, the force snapping my head to the side. A sharp sting spread across my face, pulsing over my already aching head. This was Renat, who almost raped me. I knew this side of him, and I knew this wouldn’t end well.
“Renat, what happened?” Elena asked.
“Dmitri is in town,” he spat, his fingers tightening around the gun. “He just murdered my man.”
“What? I thought you said he doesn’t like this town?”
Renat turned his head toward her and glared at her. “Oh? And what do you think? That I fucking knew he would show up? We need answers. If we get to know who Luigi is, we will find him first, and use him to take that fucking Rodion down.”
So, Rodion was after Luigi, his greatest enemy, while Renat was also pursuing Luigi, hoping to ally with him against Rodion. Luigi must be dangerous.
Renat’s eyes returned to me, “Listen to me, Alessia. You can tell us the truth, and this will end.”
“I… I don’t know who Luigi is.”
The response earned me a savage blow to the face with the barrel of his gun. I gasped as pain exploded across my cheek, blood pooling where the skin tore open.
“What secret do you know about Rodion?”
“I swear, I don’t know.”
Renat’s free hand clamped around my throat. The air vanished from my lungs. “I warned you,” he whispered, his breath hot against my ear. “You will hate this day.”
“No.” My voice was barely a rasp. “I don’t know anything, please.”
“You made him kill Salva, remember?” He tightened the grip on my throat. “I only need a lead, and you’ll live. Look at me. Look the fuck at me!”
I shook my head, desperately hoping he would stop, but Renat didn’t care for mercy. “Renat.” He switched positions, pushing me between his legs. I gasped for air as his fingers dug into my throat. “Sto… stop. I can’t breathe.”
“Shut up.” His voice was raw with anger. He pressed the barrel of the gun against my forehead, a cruel smirk twisting his face. “It’s best you answer.”
When I shook my head, he slammed the gun against my forehead again. My eyes closed, and more pain shot across my head. I wanted to die.
If he pulled the trigger, I would take it.
I was done, emptied, stripped, nothing left to resist. The stillness inside me was almost a relief, a dark mercy I could fall into.
A door slammed open, rattling through the air.
For a moment, I couldn’t tell if it had truly happened, or if surrender was only tricking me with illusions.
Chaos erupted. Renat climbed off me, and I recoiled, gasping as I tried to catch my breath.
Gunshots exploded through the room, and glass shattered.
My ears rang with the violence of it all.
Through the haze of my pain, all I heard were footsteps and heavy thuds.
The window beside the bed broke, and then everything settled.
I coughed between sobs, my chest heaving as I breathed. My eyes found Rodion in the middle of the room, a gun in one hand and a phone pressed to his ear with the other.
“Renat jumped through the window. North wing. He is injured. You better get him,” he thundered.
The place was in disarray. Blood stained the walls, and everything was scattered across the floor. Elena lay on the floor, her head split open. The sight of her exposed brain made bile rise in my throat, and when Rodion reached to untie my hands, I pushed and threw on the floor.
I gagged, my stomach twisting as I threw up everything inside me. My body trembled violently. Rodion didn’t say a word. He untied my legs, and adjusted my dress to cover my thighs.
The moment I was free, I slipped off the bed, ready to run from everything. I wanted to disappear, to forget, to go far away. But Rodion pulled me back, pressing my back against his chest as his arms wrapped tightly around me.
As I struggled to break free, I saw Marco wedged in the narrow space between a cabinet and the wall. His eyes were dull and unfocused. He wasn’t dead, but he looked close. My gaze dropped to his thigh, where a syringe was buried deep in the flesh, the same one Elena had threatened to use on me.
For the first time, I didn’t feel pity for a dying man. I wanted him to suffer slowly and feel every ounce of the pain he had put me through.
Rodion pulled a gun and brought it to my hand, forcing me to grip it. Something snapped inside me, and I snatched the gun before he could say a word. My hands trembled as I aimed it at Marco.
Screaming, I pulled the trigger. The first bullet missed, shattering the window above him. But I didn’t stop. I kept firing, driven by rage and exhaustion. I emptied the magazine, each shot echoing through the room but none got him.
When I realized there were no more bullets, I dropped the gun, my breath coming in ragged sobs.
“I hate you,” I whispered.
I covered my face with my hands and cried. But Rodion pulled them away, forcing another gun back into my grip. This time, his finger guided mine to the trigger and pulled it. The gun fired. Marco’s body jolted as the bullet tore into his stomach. He let out a strangled groan, his fingers twitching.
Rodion pressed his finger again, and another shot struck Marco’s shoulder. He let go of me, but I didn’t stop. I aimed at Marco’s chest and fired until his body slumped.
My legs gave out beneath me the moment I realized Marco was dead and I had been the one to pull the trigger. I nearly collapsed, but Rodion caught me before I hit the ground. He lifted me into his arms, and my head lolled against his shoulder as he carried me out of the room.
Sirens wailed urgently in the distance, but Rodion didn’t rush. He took the back exit, where a black car waited. He opened the door, placed me in the passenger seat, and buckled the seatbelt over me.
He lingered for a moment, staring down at me. I met his eyes, torn between hatred and the desperate need to be taken far away from everything. I curled into myself, arms wrapped around my shoulders as if I could shield what was left of me. My life no longer felt like it belonged to me.
In the silence, Rodion’s voice broke low and firm, “I promise you his death,” he said. “I will kill Renat for you.”
The drive was quiet. I didn’t speak to Rodion, and neither did he.
I rested my head against the seat, letting my body slump under its own weight.
The incident replayed in my mind, but all I could think about was the trigger I pulled on Marco.
The way his eyes dimmed as he faded. That should have terrified me, but it didn’t.
It felt like something long overdue. I had become like them, violent and heartless, but I felt no regret.
It was the only positive outcome of this mess.
I didn’t know when I lost the version of myself that would’ve screamed at the thought of killing someone.
Maybe that version died when I lay in that hospital bed with my hands tied.
Or when Marco touched my face and whispered threats and the bitter truth in my ear.
Or maybe when Renat climbed over me and hit me.
That innocent girl was gone.
What would have happened if Rodion hadn’t come? My stomach twisted. Renat wouldn’t have stopped. I hated Rodion, but deep down, I knew he saved me from his half-brother.
Was I safe now? I wrapped my arms around myself. A strange calmness crept in, not soft or comforting, but heavy, like a curtain drawn over everything. Maybe it was just exhaustion. Either way, my eyes closed, and sleep took me without warning.
A roar jerked me awake. My heart pounded as I shot up in my seat. My pulse quickened as I scanned the area.
The car wasn’t moving, and Rodion wasn’t in the driver’s seat. He had parked at an old gas station, the kind that looked like it belonged in another decade. A light flickered above the convenience store’s door.