Chapter Forty
Rodion
Alessia dozed off in the car, and I took her to bed.
She always had a way of keeping me off balance.
I bent business plans around the chaos she dumped on my plate.
With her, the world outside dissolved to nothing but us.
But once I stepped back into my office, the stress of the untouched business came crashing in.
I dropped into my chair with a sigh. The work was stacked.
A flight to Florida was waiting, along with the task of driving Dmitri out of the business there.
Shipments piled up, one already rerouted in New York.
Matvet used to cover the cracks, but now he was laid up in a clinic, caught between painkillers and rehab.
We never spoke about his accident. He tried to mention Dmitri, and I shut down the topic.
Earlier, Pavel had emailed the files of the last man on the list of seven men that Dmitri had been after.
He was the only survivor of Luigi’s cleaning spree.
We kept him hidden, bait for Dmitri to emerge from the shadows.
But the deeper we dug about the man, the more he stank.
He wasn’t just a survivor; he had ties to my father’s old rival, a man the Bratva had marked for death years ago.
That meant he wasn’t just a witness. He was an enemy.
I left the office and headed for the clinic. The hallway was silent, stripped bare after the murder earlier. Most of the relatives had left. There would be war brewing from this, but I didn’t give a damn.
When I stepped inside the clinic, the bed where I last left Matvet was empty. My jaw locked tight. I pulled out my phone and dialed the doctor.
“Did you discharge Matvet?”
“No, boss. We moved him to his quarters,” she replied.
“Why the fuck wasn’t I informed?”
“You weren’t around. He requested it himself, saying we needed to keep beds open in case your relatives came in for treatment.”
I hung up and headed for Matvet’s quarters. The two guards at the door stepped aside on my arrival. It was dead hush inside. At this hour, he should be asleep.
As I turned to leave, a door creaked and Matvet hobbled out, leaning on two walking sticks. He still had a thick white bandage around his leg.
“Boss,” he said.
I stared at him, one brow lifted. “You look like standing another second would snap you in half.”
He chuckled and eased into the sofa. I waited till he settled, then dropped onto the seat across from him.
“Is this some kind of dramatized retirement I wasn’t made aware of?” I asked.
He pointed at the cast on his leg. “Tell the doctor to take this shit off. She doesn’t believe me when I say I’m fine.”
I stared at the leg longer. The bone was clearly broken, and he still needed time to heal. If he pushed it now, he would make things worse, and I wasn’t about to deal with that kind of setback.
“How’s the catch?” he asked.
“Haven’t caught him yet.” He nodded once, knowing the answer. I leaned forward. “So, how did you get that clip?”
“Dmitri gave it.”
That name scraped against my skull every time I heard it. “How?”
“That night I was attacked,” he said. “Renat’s men outnumbered me. Some were ours, while others were purchased from outside. Before I blacked out, a man on a bike appeared. He fought them off until they scattered.”
All this didn’t add up. If it had been Dmitri, he wouldn’t have saved Matvet. He would have turned the knife deeper because Matvet was my right-hand man, the one I trusted. Losing him would’ve sent me a message clearer than words.
Matvet continued. “He gave me an old phone with the recording.”
I shifted. “And how did you know it was Dmitri?”
He let out a quick chuckle. “Dmitri was the only one who ever called me Matteo.” He wasn’t wrong. Back when I trained with Dmitri, Matvet was always lurking around, never on good terms with Dmitri. “He wanted you to have it.”
He wanted Matvet alive. Dmitri knew exactly what he was doing. “He’s still Luigi,” I muttered. “And Luigi is the enemy.”
Matvet nodded. “Yes, boss.”
I rose to my feet. “Drink?” I didn’t bother waiting for an answer. At the mini-bar, I pulled down a bottle, grabbed two glasses from the counter, and carried them back.
We sat across from each other, the silence broken only by the soft clink of glass as I poured us a drink. I knocked back the first sip, the burn sliding down my throat. The plans in my head kept hammering against my skull.
“He’s a coward.” I set the glass down. “I’ll burn down everything he thinks he built. If he is half the man he pretends to be, he’ll come face me himself.”
Matvet took a sip and asked, “Do you need help?”
I scoffed. “You sure your brain wasn’t knocked into another decade?”
He shrugged. “I got skills. Computers.”
“Leave that to Pavel,” I said.
The room sank back into silence, the kind that only drinking could fill. One bottle bled into the next until Matvet finally spoke. “Alessia was right about Renat. She has instincts,” he said. “I will do better to listen to her.”
We both chuckled, like old soldiers amused by the ruins they’d left behind. I drained my glass, set it down, and leaned back. “She might be becoming dangerous.”
He arched a brow. “Did she stab someone else?” My glare cut across the table, but it only widened his grin as he lifted his glass. “I heard there was a mess on the dining table. Vadik followed Renat.”
“He talked too much.”
Matvet swirled his drink. “Or he might have irritated Alessia.”
I could see exactly what he was trying to dig at. I stood before the conversation went too far. “You’re taking too long to recover. It’s starting to irritate me.”
He didn’t get the chance to answer. I was already at the door. The two guards stood where I’d left them. I paused, letting my eyes cut through them. “Watch him. Or I’ll bury your whole fucking bloodline.”
Back in my office, my eyes drifted to the envelope a guard had dropped off earlier. I hadn’t touched it then. Now, it demanded my attention. I slit it open and tipped the contents onto the desk. A flash drive slid out, followed by a scatter of photographs.
I picked up one photo. The face was familiar, and so were the others scattered across the table. Each one was marked, except the man I locked away from Dmitri. On the back, there was a message: Kill him, or I’ll do it myself. I didn’t need anyone to explain it to me. This envelope was from Dmitri.
My grip on the photo tightened. Dmitri was playing games at my table. I picked the flash drive, pulled the laptop closer, and shoved it into the port.
A knock came on the door. I closed the file with a tap and looked up as it swung open. Alessia walked in, a can of ice cream in her hand and a wooden spoon between her lips. My brow drew together.
“Everything alright?”
She came closer, bare legs showing beneath thin shorts. Her T-shirt clung enough to leave little to the imagination. “I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep.” She dug the spoon in for another bite. I glanced at the clock. It was four in the morning.
“Are you working?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She nodded toward the sofa. “I’ll sit there and browse.”
I stared at her for a second and focused on the laptop.
I clicked on the folder, and there was one file, a video.
Playing it, the footage loaded. It had no sound, just a slow reveal of an old warehouse.
Shadows moved until Dmitri appeared, dragging a man into view.
He dropped him onto the ground and turned to face the camera.
Blood soaked his shirt. His smirk boiled my blood.
He crouched, searched the man’s pocket, and pulled out a wallet. He flipped it open, blood dripping from his fingers, and held it close to the camera. I leaned closer to look, and the name on an identification card caught my attention. Luigi Dominico.
Heat surged up my neck, and I unbuttoned my sleeve buttons, eyes locked on the screen.
Dmitri tossed the wallet aside and went back to the man. Without hesitation, he rammed the rod through the man’s chest. The man’s body jolted, then went limp. Dmitri lit a cigarette and sat next to the corpse, smoke curling lazily from his lips as if he were posing for a portrait.
I snapped the laptop shut, shoved the chair back, and rose to my feet. My gaze swept the room for a drink, anything to dull the fire tearing through me, but there was no drink on the table.
That bastard. Dmitri had killed someone who was already Luigi. Why? When? He stole the man’s identity and carved it into himself. To hide? To kill our mother? None of it made sense.
“Are you okay?” Alessia’s voice cut through the haze.
I looked up.
She had left the sofa and was standing near the table, eyes searching mine.
I couldn’t think through the questions crowding my mind.
She set the ice cream in front of me. Everything was meaningless, the same as the ice cream smeared on her lip.
She tried to offer comfort, but nothing about this mattered.
“You can have some,” she whispered.
“I need to be alone.”
She took a step back, nodding. “Okay.”
She turned toward the door, and something inside me rebelled. “Alessia.”
She stopped, shoulders tensing, though she didn’t turn. Somehow, she always quieted the storm in me. I didn’t know how, but I needed it now. I circled the table and came to her side, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“I’ll go back to bed,” she whispered.
I turned her until her eyes met mine. She blinked, as if she understood without words. The space I once needed had lost its use. Her presence worked better than silence.
“Stay.”
She shook her head. “You look like you need to be alone.”
My gaze fell to her mouth, that stubborn smear of ice cream clinging to her lip, daring me. Before I could move, she leaned in and pressed her lips against mine. The storm tearing through me went still. I seized control and sabotaged her lips.