Chapter 13 - Alexei
By the time our so-called lesson finally wound down, Marco looked like he had been dragged through hell and back.
His cheeks were still flushed a deep pink, his dark curls were slightly mussed from how many times he had run his hands through them in frustration, and his shoulders sagged with exhaustion.
The poor little thing had spent the better part of an hour trying to teach me Italian while I systematically dismantled every attempt at professionalism. He was utterly drained, and I had enjoyed every second of it.
I leaned back in my chair, watching him closely. Every time I glanced away, pretending to look at the window or the clock, I caught him glaring at me from beneath those long lashes. The glare was adorable. But the moment my eyes returned to his face, that defiance melted away.
He softened instantly, shoulders hunching, gaze dropping to the desk like a startled rabbit. It was fascinating. And incredibly satisfying.
He started gathering his things, shoving notebooks into his backpack with clumsy movements.
“You know,” I said calmly, “you can glare at me if you want.”
Marco froze mid-zip, one hand still gripping the strap of his backpack. He swallowed, his eyes flicking up to meet mine for a second before darting away again.
I tilted my head. “I won’t kill you if you do.”
His head snapped up fully this time, eyes wide with genuine surprise. “Really?” He searched my face like he was waiting for the punchline, or the threat. It was painfully obvious he thought I might actually end him for something as simple as a glare.
“Yes, really,” I replied. “Glare all you want, Malyshka.”
“I don’t… want to glare,” he mumbled.
I chuckled softly. “What a liar you are.”
He shifted his weight from foot to foot, looking everywhere but directly at me again. “I have to go now. Class is about to start and I… I can’t be late.”
“I’ll drop you home after.”
“No, that isn’t really necessary. I can take the bus like always. Please, Alexei—”
“I’m not asking,” I cut in and closed the distance between us. My hand slid to the back of his neck. I pulled him forward and kissed him. He made a startled sound against my mouth.
When I finally pulled back, his lips were swollen.
I brushed my thumb across his bottom lip once, tenderly.
Then I released him, turned toward the door, and left the classroom without looking back.
I turned the corner at the end of the hallway.
My phone vibrated in my pocket before I could take more than a few steps. I pulled it out without slowing down. Dimitri.
I answered on the second ring. “What.”
“We’ve got a situation,” my cousin said.
I recognized that dangerous edge he got when violence was on the horizon.
“Some low-level shitheads tried to move product through one of our warehouses last night. Ilya grabbed one of them. We need to handle the rest before they get any ideas. Meet us at the old slaughterhouse in twenty.”
I ended the call and headed straight for my car instead of back to class. I parked beside Dimitri’s car and stepped out, rolling my shoulders as I approached the crumbling entrance.
Dimitri and Ilya were already waiting. Ilya was practically bouncing on his heels like a kid on Christmas morning, his tools already laid out on a dirty workbench. Dimitri leaned against the wall, arms crossed, looking impatient as always.
“I hope this time you won’t ditch again,” Dimitri said the moment I walked up, raising one dark eyebrow.
Ah yes. A while ago we were in the middle of something when I saw that post.
Marco tagged in some pathetic party photo with that girl pressing her lips right to his neck.
That was the night I spanked him over the hood of my car until he was sobbing and leaking all over the metal.
Priorities. I had more important things to handle, so I would gladly ditch them again if I had a choice.
I shrugged, slipping my hands into my pockets. “I heard you ditched too, didn’t you?”
Dimitri didn’t even try to deny it. A feral smile spread across his face.
“Of course I did. If I hadn’t gotten there in time, my fairy would have gotten touched by those dead cunts.
” He was talking about Rei, who was at the same party as Marco.
He also got into a little trouble, to say the least. That trouble was also why Dimitri had been keeping him in his mansion like Rapunzel in a tower.
Ilya snorted loudly from where he was already dragging a bound and gagged man out from the shadows of the building. “You both ditched me! I was stuck handling the initial cleanup alone while you two were off playing! It isn’t fair. I want emotional compensation.”
Dimitri didn’t look remotely apologetic. He actually looked pleased with himself. “Worth it.”
Ilya rolled his eyes dramatically as he shoved the struggling man into a rusted metal chair in the center of the open floor space.
He grinned wickedly while pulling out his favorite set of tools - pliers, scalpels, a small blowtorch, and several lengths of wire.
He poked the prisoner’s broken nose with one finger, earning a muffled scream through the gag.
“But seriously, Dima. You used to be fun before he showed up. Aren’t you bored of him? ”
Dimitri flipped him off. “Say that again and I’ll let you be the next one in that chair, Ilya.”
Ilya just cackled and began unrolling his tools. “However,” Dimitri continued, turning his gaze on me, “I did happen to stumble onto something interesting recently. You and a little guy with ribbons in his hair. Mind explaining?”
I deadpanned, leaning against a nearby pillar as Ilya started his work. The first real scream tore through the air as Ilya pressed the heated tip of the blowtorch against the man’s forearm. “None of your business.”
Dimitri’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t look away from me. “It’s my business if you try to hurt him.”
I tilted my head slightly, my face completely blank, showing no emotion whatsoever. “What is it to you if I hurt him?”
“Marco is important to Rei,” Dimitri said flatly, arms still crossed over his chest. “If he gets hurt, Rei will suffer. And if Rei suffers… I’ll cut you into pieces.”
I studied him for a long moment, then tilted my head the other way, keeping my expression perfectly neutral. “How romantic.”
Ilya let out a high-pitched, dramatic whine from his spot beside the prisoner, pausing mid-cut as blood dripped from the knife in his hand. The man in the chair was already sobbing through the gag. “Wait a minute!!! Does this mean we can’t hurt people close to Rai?? CAN I NOT KILL KENTO?”
Kento, Rei’s older brother and Ilya’s self-declared enemy number one.
The two had been locked in a stupid, petty feud ever since Kento had publicly called Ilya a deranged gremlin in front of half the academy and apparently had fucked his sister too.
Ilya had been fantasizing about carving him up ever since, and the mention of the name made him light up with vicious excitement.
“It’s Rei, not Rai! And no. You can’t.”
Ilya’s mouth fell open in exaggerated horror.
He gestured wildly with the bloody knife, nearly nicking the prisoner again and making the man flinch hard enough that the chair scraped against the concrete.
“What?! But I’ve been dreaming about peeling his skin off like an orange for weeks. This is abuse of the highest order!”
Dimitri sighed, rubbing his temples. “You’ll survive, Ilya.”
“Survive?” Ilya wailed, stomping his foot dramatically.
The prisoner flinched again at the sound.
“First you two abandon me for your new fuckholes and now I can’t even have my arch-nemesis?
What kind of friendship is this? I demand reparations.
At least let me break his legs. Or one leg.
Half a leg? A pinky toe? I’ll take a pinky toe! ”
“No,” Dimitri repeated firmly.
Ilya turned back to the prisoner with renewed frustration, stabbing him viciously in the thigh. “Can I at least dismember him? Come on, Dima, I’m begging here. I’ll be good for a whole month.”
Dimitri shook his head again, though there was clear amusement in his eyes now. “Still no. Leave Kento alone. That’s final.”
Ilya let out another theatrical wail, dramatically draping himself over the back of the prisoner’s chair while the man whimpered beneath him.
“This is the worst day of my life. You’re both boring now.
Romance has ruined you. Next thing you know you’ll be holding hands and writing poetry about your pretty little boys while I’m left behind! !!”
Dimitri chuckled despite himself. “Focus on the guy in the chair, Ilya. He’s still breathing.”
I remained leaning against the pillar, watching everything with mild interest while my mind stayed fixed on Marco, who was quickly becoming far more entertaining than anything happening here.
The prisoner’s screams blended into the background like white noise as Ilya continued his enthusiastic work.
Blood splattered across the floor, but none of it touched me.
This was going to be a very long, very interesting week. And if Dimitri thought he could keep me away from my little star just because of Rei, he was going to be very disappointed.
***
One moment later, something loud reached my ears.
It came from the broken windows on the upper level, a bang that made all three of us move at once. “Ambush!”
More gunfire erupted. Bullets tore through the air, sparking off metal beams and punching into concrete.
Shouts echoed from outside - at least six, maybe eight men, voices rough and foreign.
Rivals. The same ones who had tried to move on the warehouse last night, apparently deciding to finish the job here.
Dimitri was grabbing Ilya by the back of his jacket and yanking him down hard behind the rusted metal chair. “Get down!”
“I can fight!” Ilya snapped, but Dimitri shoved him lower anyway, using his own body as a shield while bullets whizzed overhead.
I was already on the move, drawing the pistol from my waistband. I fired twice toward the upper windows. One scream told me I had hit something. Blood sprayed from the broken glass above.
“Six, maybe seven,” I called out, voice calm even as I ducked behind a pillar. “They came in through the back loading doors.”
Dimitri shoved Ilya behind a stack of old crates, his broad frame completely covering him. “Stay down until we clear the first wave.”
“I throw knives better than both of you shoot!” Ilya protested, already pulling a set of throwing knives from his belt with blood-slick fingers. But Dimitri didn’t move, one arm braced across Ilya’s chest like a living wall. “Dima, I’m not a baby—”
“Shut up and throw from behind me if you’re going to throw,” Dimitri growled, firing his own pistol in bursts toward the approaching shadows. Two more men dropped at the entrance, blood blooming across their chests.
I moved fast, using the pillars and old machinery as cover. A man rushed me from the side swinging a crowbar. I sidestepped, caught his wrist, and slammed my elbow into his throat. He gagged. I drove my knee into his stomach, then slammed his head against the concrete pillar.
Another came from behind. I spun, pistol raised, and fired point-blank into his chest. The bullet tore through him. He staggered, blood bubbling from his mouth, and I finished him with a second shot to the head.
“Ilya, left side!” Dimitri barked.
Ilya didn’t need telling twice. Even while shielded, he moved like thunder. Three throwing knives left his fingers in rapid succession. Each one found its mark perfectly. One buried itself in a man’s eye, another in his throat, the third in the center of his chest.
“See?” Ilya yelled, already pulling more knives. “I’m fine!”
“Stay behind us,” I said as I fired again. Another man went down screaming, clutching a hole in his gut. Blood poured between his fingers as he crawled, until I put a bullet in the back of his skull.
The fight was brutal and close now. Bodies littered the floor.
Silence fell.
I stood in the middle of the carnage, chest heaving, blood dripping from my hands and the graze on my shoulder. Dimitri wiped blood from his face with the back of his hand, breathing hard. Ilya was still crouched behind the crates, knives gone but eyes bright with adrenaline.
“You good?” Dimitri asked Ilya first.
“I’m fine,” Ilya said, though his hands were shaking slightly from the rush. “You don’t have to be so protective.”
Dimitri pulled him up anyway, checking him quickly for injuries even though Ilya was clearly untouched.
It wasn’t that Ilya couldn’t fight. He could.
But Dimitri and I had always been protective over him.
If there was ever an attack he was never to be put at the front.
It was just a rule we had. I scanned Ilya too, just to double-check, but he really was okay.
I, however, had blood dripping down my arm. Not that I cared.
I checked my watch.
Fucking hell.
If I was late to pick up Marco, I was going to murder everyone.
I holstered my pistol, already moving toward the exit. Blood squelched under my boots.
“Clean this up,” I told Dimitri and Ilya without looking back. “I have somewhere to be.”
Dimitri raised an eyebrow but didn’t argue. He knew that look on my face.
Ilya called after me, voice still high with leftover adrenaline. “Wait! You’re hurt! Lex!”
I didn’t answer. I was already in my car.