Chapter Twenty-Six - Emil
The room stinks of blood, sweat, and old cigarette smoke.
My hands are tied behind a splintered chair, ankles lashed to the legs with wire that’s already cutting into my skin. I’ve been here for hours. Maybe longer; it’s hard to tell. The world shrinks to pain and waiting.
Blood crusts my face, sticky at the edge of my mouth. My right eye is nearly swollen shut, but I keep my head up, jaw locked, breath slow and measured. I know how this goes. Pain is just another kind of silence.
The door opens with a rasp of hinges. Vittorio enters, savoring every step.
He wears a suit the color of a funeral, a ring glinting on each finger.
His shoes are polished, but there’s blood on the soles.
Mine, or someone else’s, I don’t care. He stands a few feet away, hands clasped, letting the weight of the moment press down.
“You took my niece,” he says, voice like ice over gravel. “You thought you could take what belonged to me and get away with it?”
I don’t answer. I just look at him, steady, unblinking, even as blood drips down my chin. He wants me to beg or bargain or break. He’ll get none of it.
He circles me, slow and deliberate, enjoying his power. “She was all I had left. Now she’s nothing—an enemy’s whore. You did that to her. I will make sure she dies knowing what you cost her.”
I let the words hang in the stale air, eyes locked on his. A predator’s patience. He leans in, close enough that I smell the scotch on his breath. He spits at my feet, then straightens, signaling the men by the door.
One comes forward and cracks me across the cheek with his pistol. My head snaps sideways, but I refuse to grunt. Refuse to give them the satisfaction.
“Nothing to say?” Vittorio sneers. He nods, and the man strikes me again, this time in the gut.
My ribs blaze. I grit my teeth, counting every blow, every insult, every drop of blood. I ignore the taunts, the threats. I wait.
Vittorio steps forward, crouching so we’re eye to eye. “You know what I’ll enjoy most? Watching her die. She is not my niece anymore. She is nothing to me but a stain to be wiped away. A reminder that Russians don’t win here.”
That’s what I’ve been waiting for. The guard behind me relaxes, assuming I’m finished. Vittorio’s face is close, too close, and I feel the shift in the air, the arrogance of a man who thinks the world is already his.
I move fast.
The blade I’d palmed hours ago—a sliver of sharpened metal, lifted from a careless guard’s pocket—slides into my palm. I twist, slicing through the last of the wire at my wrists.
My arms scream in protest, numb and bloody, but I don’t hesitate. I surge upward, ramming the blade into Vittorio’s side. He gasps, eyes wide, hands clutching at his ribs as blood spreads dark and hot across his shirt.
Chaos explodes. The guard lurches forward, but I’m already moving, chair splintering as I wrench free.
I drive my shoulder into his gut, sending him sprawling.
The second guard shouts, fumbling for his gun, but I grab the first weapon I see—a battered Glock, still warm from someone’s hand—and level it at the room.
Vittorio stumbles, clutching his wound, eyes wild with shock. I stare at him, breathing hard, rage and triumph burning through every bruise.
“You should’ve killed me when you had the chance,” I growl.
Gunfire explodes in the corridor, sharp and deafening, echoing off the stained concrete. Vittorio sags to the floor, blood gushing through his trembling fingers, his face already ashen. I barely have time to wipe his blood from my blade before the next threat bursts through the door.
Matteo storms in, gun drawn, his face twisted with grief and rage. He stares at his father’s dying body, eyes wild, teeth bared.
Behind him, a handful of Bruno men fan out, weapons raised. The second Matteo registers the scene—the blood, Vittorio slumped over, me standing with a gun in my hand—something primal flashes across his features.
“Bastard!” Matteo spits, raising his weapon at me, finger white on the trigger. “You killed him!”
My own gun comes up, and for a moment, we’re locked in a stand-off, both of us trembling, half dead, neither of us willing to blink first. My body aches with every heartbeat. I’m bleeding, dizzy, skin slick with sweat and old pain, but adrenaline surges through me, sharper than the fear.
Matteo advances, jaw clenched, knuckles pale around the grip of his pistol. “I should have shot you when I had the chance,” he snarls, voice shaking. “He was my father. You took everything from us.”
“Your father took plenty from me,” I manage, voice raw, breath ragged. “He made this choice.”
Before he can answer, shouts erupt outside—a different language, rougher, urgent. I recognize the cadence, the unmistakable accent of home. Russian.
Gunfire rips through the hall. The first Bruno man drops before he can turn, bullets tearing through his chest. Glass shatters, boots hammer against the tile, and suddenly the room fills with chaos.
Lukyan and Dimitri burst in, faces grim and guns blazing. Behind them, more of my men pour through the door, mowing down the Italians with merciless efficiency.
“Down!” Lukyan bellows, voice hoarse and commanding.
He shoulders his rifle, mowing down another guard who tries to rush him. Blood splatters the wall, painting arcs of red across the faded wallpaper.
Dimitri moves with surgical precision, head low, firing short, controlled bursts. Two more Italians fall, screaming as they clutch uselessly at their wounds. The air stinks of gunpowder and burning fabric.
Matteo spins, returning fire. The boom of his pistol is deafening, but he’s already outnumbered, outgunned.
Lukyan’s men fan out, corralling the survivors into the corners, rifles leveled. The last Bruno guard tries to crawl behind a desk, but a Russian stomps on his hand and rips the weapon away.
The screams, the thunder of bullets, the crackle of glass and wood—chaos swallows the room. I keep my back to the wall, fighting to stay upright.
Blood trickles down my wrist, cut by the wire that had bound me, every muscle shaking with exhaustion.
Lukyan shouts something in Russian, ordering the last men to surrender. The Bruno survivors drop their weapons, hands raised, eyes wide and terrified.
It’s over in seconds, though it feels like a year. Silence slams down. Smoke drifts in curling threads, painting the carnage in ghostly wisps. The bodies of the Italian guards litter the ground, blood pooling on the floorboards.
Only Matteo is left standing, gun wavering, chest heaving. He glances at his father’s corpse, and I see the devastation crumple his features. For a heartbeat, he looks young, lost—just a boy who’s watched his world die in a hail of bullets.
He drops his weapon. It clatters to the floor and skids beneath a fallen chair. He drops to his knees beside Vittorio, hands shaking as he touches his father’s shoulder, as if the weight of his grief might raise the dead.
Lukyan stalks across the room, boots sticky with blood. He levels his rifle at Matteo’s head.
“This one’s for the grave too, Boss,” he says, teeth bared in a cold smile.
Dimitri appears at my side, steadying me with a hand under my elbow. “You all right?” he asks, eyes flicking over my wounds.
“I’ve been worse,” I rasp, though I can hardly feel my hands.
My gaze locks on Matteo. I remember the look in his eyes as he pushed Isabella toward freedom, the split second of mercy that bought her escape. The world narrows to the boy on his knees, the stench of blood and betrayal clinging to us both.
“He let Isabella go,” I say, voice rough with something I don’t want to name.
Lukyan scowls. “So what? He’ll come after us the first chance he gets. This is a mistake, Emil.”
“Maybe,” I say, swallowing back the taste of bile. “It’s my mistake to make.”
Dimitri doesn’t argue, just watches me with that same unreadable calm. Lukyan grunts, clearly unhappy, but lowers his rifle.
I step forward, wincing as every bruise makes itself known. Matteo looks up at me, red-eyed, face streaked with tears and blood. I stare down at him, gun heavy in my hand.
“You saved her,” I say, each word deliberate. “That’s the only reason you get to walk away.”
He stares at me, disbelief and hatred warring on his face. For a long moment, no one moves. My men tense, waiting for a command, a sign.
I nod to Dimitri. “Take the rest. Leave him here.”
Lukyan curses under his breath but obeys, waving the Russians toward the trembling Italian survivors. They herd them out at gunpoint, leaving Matteo kneeling beside his dead father, shoulders heaving.
I holster my gun, turning to go. Matteo’s voice stops me in a raw, broken whisper. “You think this makes us even? You think I’ll ever forget what you did?”
I look back, letting him see every ounce of cold truth I have left. “No, but you get to live with it. That’s more than most men get.”
The room is a ruin of blood, bodies, and broken glass. I step over the debris, my boots slipping on the slick floor. My men close ranks around me, Lukyan’s hand firm on my shoulder, guiding me toward the exit.
Outside, the night is thick with smoke and the tang of cordite.
Sirens wail in the distance, but the street is already ours—our cars, our men, our city.
Dimitri helps me into the backseat of an armored SUV.
As the engine roars to life, I glance once more at the house, the light spilling through the shattered windows, Matteo still kneeling in the wreckage of everything he thought he could hold.
I press a hand to my aching ribs, letting the pain anchor me. I survived. Isabella survived. Vittorio is gone, and the old world is burning.
Lukyan slams the door and slides into the front seat. “You sure about letting that kid live?” he asks, voice skeptical, eyes sharp in the rearview mirror.
“I’m sure,” I say, voice barely above a whisper. “He did the right thing. Once.”
Dimitri drives, his focus absolute, already barking orders into his phone for medics, for cleanup, for extraction.
I close my eyes for a moment, exhaustion washing over me in a wave.
My mind races not with the violence behind us, but with the thought of her.
Isabella. The only thing left that matters.
For years, I believed revenge was the only currency worth fighting for.
Now, as we drive away from the ruin and the blood, I realize what I want most is to get back to her. To hold her again, to tell her it’s over. That she’s safe. That I am, against all odds, still hers.
My hand aches where the wire cut deep, my face throbs with every heartbeat, but I am alive. More than that, I am free—free of Vittorio, of the old debts and grudges, of the history that kept us chained.
Tomorrow, there will be new wars, new dangers. Tonight, as the city passes in a blur, I let myself hope for something else.
A future. A chance to start again.
Behind us, Matteo kneels beside his father’s corpse, a boy orphaned by his own blood, spared by the man he tried to kill. I know what it means to live with ghosts. I know the price of mercy. Maybe, someday, he will too.
For now, I lean my head against the cool window and watch the city lights flicker by, each one a promise that Isabella is waiting, and that for the first time, I have something to lose worth living for.