Chapter 33
Chapter
Thirty-Three
Alexei
“What the fuck was that about, brother?" Victor snarls at me as he flops onto the couch.
"Let's get you some aid for that stab wound," I say, ignoring his question and going to the bookcases to find the medical supplies that we keep there.
"Don't avoid the question, what the fuck?"
I take the supplies out and sit in front of him to put pressure on his wound with the gauze. "She sure stabbed you good."
"You were going to let her go," he shoves at me. I might have gone a little rogue and have a lot to answer for. But so does Victor.
"Don't fucking test me!" I yell. "Don't act like I'm the one that's keeping something from you. What the actual fuck was that? You've been after her all this time? You? "
Victor sits back and scrubs a hand over his face. "I couldn't tell you my plans."
"You couldn't trust me."
"Must you make me say it," he says.
I shove the medical supplies on the floor and in my rage sweep all the bottles of alcohol off the bar, leaving a mess of raining glass. "I will ask you this only one time. And you will not lie to me!"
I take a heaving breath and my brother finally looks at me like he's starting to take me seriously.
I cannot believe he kept this from me. I'm meant to be his right-hand man.
Not only did he fucking kill Dimitri DeMarco, but he led a plot against our enemy's daughter, bringing us right to their doorstep in pursuit of a plot he never told me about.
I think back on Sage's wounds, trying to tamp down on my rage as I face my brother and ask a question that could destroy us. "Is this about Chet?"
Victor sighs and holds his head in his hands. The heart that I thought had long frozen over drops through the floor. "What have you done?" I scream at him. "What have you fucking done?"
"Calm the fuck down and sit!"
"We agreed we would let that vendetta go after Dad died. We don't fucking need Chet!"
He levels me with a glare and I sit as his stare commands me, even as our world turns on its axis.
"The DeMarcos are everything that is wrong with the world, brother. You've said it yourself many times. What Dimitri took from Chet... he wants retribution. Retribution that we can deliver to our best benefit. That's what family does."
"Chet stopped being our fucking family the day he hurt a nine-year-old girl!"
"Dimitri drove him to that point! Do you not see that?
!" Victor shouts. He curses and then drops his head.
"It was a mistake to bring you there. First you couldn't shut up about Sage being the enemy, and now she goes and proves it by fucking stabbing me and you still can't see further than your cock. "
He may not be wrong, but I'm beyond caring at this point.
"She's a threat, brother. She's the same threat that you thought she was all along," Victor says. "She's the danger here. See? She said it herself. She set up the marriage contract. She put this entire plan in motion just so she could bring us to her."
He's grasping at straws. Sure, Sage has proved herself to be a bigger threat that even I anticipated when I first saw her stomp her dainty little foot, but Chet? There are some lines I don't think I can cross.
"She's been the real threat all along. That's why we need to be rid of them. Don't you see? It's us or them," Victor says, his eyes wilder than I've ever seen them. Is this the hidden side to my brother that Isla has been warning me about all these years?
I shake my head. "I won't stomach working with Chet, Vic."
"It's a necessary evil brother. To rid the world of unnecessary evil."
"Please don't pretend to care about that shit with me."
Victor rolls his eyes. "Chet's powerful, Alexei. He's built his own army. He's got men that we never could. Once we give him Sage, we join our forces with his, and raze the DeMarco empire to the ground to have this city for our own."
The only thought that runs through my head right now is that I should've known. I've known my brother my whole life, and I should've known he was never really intent on marrying that girl.
"Look at them, brother. They're the enemy. We have to stop them."
To prove his point, he pushes his hand against his shoulder so the blood flows out of it from where Sage stabbed him.
I feel the aching from his wound like it's my own.
I love my brother more than anything on the planet.
In a childhood constant with abuse and danger, my brother has always shielded me from it.
He's been the one to get me this far in life. My only reason for living.
I cannot and will not live without him.
"I've always got your back, Vic," I sigh. "But this? Seriously? You want me to agree to hand her over to Chet as leverage so we can what? Kill them all? Anton? Freddie?"
Vic bares his teeth. "Do not tell me you have gone soft for them. She's shown her true colors. Look at what she's done to me. She wants to kill me. And if you let her, then she will do just that."
I hang my head.
"She will kill me, brother. That's been her plan all along. You want to watch me die?"
I shake my head.
And then punch my fist right though the wall.
Trapped and caught between two impossible places that I never wanted any part in.
Sage, who I hate with every fiery passion in my bones, and want more than I could ever describe.
Then my brother, my only family. The only person in the world I'd gladly die for.
I look back at my brother. Victor smiles.
"Chet wants her alive. I'm going to call him to come and take that bitch off our hands."