Chapter Twenty-Two
Alexei’s POV
The room was a wreck. A Louis XIV chair lay splintered near the mahogany desk. Books—centuries of history and philosophy—were scattered like fallen soldiers, their spines cracked, pages fluttering in the draft from a shattered window.
But I didn’t care about the room.
I followed the trail. I stopped where the struggle had occurred. There, near the base of the oak shelves, a dark, viscous smear marred the polished wood. It wasn’t a puddle; it was a frantic map of a fight. Fingertips had dragged through it, leaving desperate, uneven furrows.
I knelt. My knees crunched on glass, but I didn’t feel it.
I reached out, my hand steady despite the tectonic plates of fury shifting beneath my skin.
I pressed my fingers into the crimson stain.
It was still tacky. Tepid. I rubbed the blood between my thumb and forefinger, feeling the grit of the floor and the silkiness of her life force.
I closed my eyes, inhaling the scent of her fear and her defiance.
My wife’s blood.
I wasn’t just looking at evidence. I was memorizing it. I was braiding it into my DNA so that when I found the men who did this, my body would recognize the debt it was owed.
My rage wasn’t a scream. It wasn’t red-veined madness or explosive temper. Mine was a cold thing. It was a liquid nitrogen freeze that turned my heart into a precision instrument. Surgical. Absolute. Every breath I pulled into my lungs was a silent vow, a rhythmic promise of the slaughter to come.
“Alexei.”
I didn’t turn. I knew Viktor’s voice.
Behind him, the room was buzzing. Roman and Damian were already on their comms, their voices harsh and jagged as they barked orders to the outer perimeter.
“I want every exit from Manhattan corked!” Roman shouted into his headset, his pacing agitated, like a wolf in a cage too small for his ego. “Check the tunnels. Check the marinas. If a rat breathes in the Bronx, I want to know about it!”
“He’s right,” Damian added, his voice a low growl. “We sweep block by block. We burn the city down if we have to.”
Viktor stepped closer to me, his footsteps heavy. “Alexei, we need to be smart. We don’t know the players yet. If we move too fast, we might push them to do something… irreversible. We wait for the tech teams to pull the street feeds. We wait for intel.”
I stood up slowly. I didn’t wipe the blood from my fingers. I wanted it there. I wanted the weight of it.
“I’m not waiting,” I said. My voice was quiet, but the room went dead silent. Even Roman stopped mid-sentence. I looked at Viktor, “Every second she is with them is a second I’m failing to be the man I promised her I would be. We move now.”
“Move where, Alexei?” Viktor asked. “We have no direction.”
The door to the library creaked open, and Sylvester, my head of security and technical assets, walked in. His face was pale, his tablet clutched tight in his hand. He looked at the blood on the floor, then at me.
“I have the forensic sweep from the gate cameras,” Sylvester said. “And the casings found in the driveway.”
“And?” I demanded.
“The Italians were the primary shooters. Moretti’s men. We recognized the tactical formation,” Sylvester informed, hesitating. “But they weren’t alone. One of the vehicles—the lead SUV—had a modification on the bumper. And we found a discarded sigil near the fountain. It’s the Volkov crest.”
A silence heavier than the snow outside descended on the room.
Volkov.
Mila’s own blood. Her brother, the one she never knew about. The one we’d discovered had disappeared long before their father did.
I felt a twitch at the corner of my mouth. A laugh, low and dark, bubbled up in my chest.
“He’s signing his death warrant. He thinks the family will protect him from what I’m going to do? He thinks he can use her as a pawn in a game of territories?”
“He’s ambitious, Alexei,” Viktor warned. “Ambitious men are dangerous when they’re desperate.”
My phone vibrated in my pocket. It was a private line—one very few people had. I pulled it out. The number was blocked, encrypted through a dozen proxy servers. I answered it, my grip nearly cracking the glass.
“Speak,” I commanded.
“She’s at the old foundry in Red Hook,” a voice rasped.
It was a voice I hadn’t heard in person for years, but one that was etched into the darker parts of my memory. It was rough, weathered by Scotch and a lifetime of regrets.
“Petrov?” I uttered.
Mila’s father. The man who had vanished into the shadows when the heat from the Italians became too much to bear.
“They have her at the old warehouse there,” Lev Petrov continued, his voice shaking slightly. “The Italians are there to ensure you don’t make it through the door.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, my eyes narrowing. “You’ve spent your life looking out for no one but yourself.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. I could hear the wind howling wherever he was.
“I’ve been watching,” he disclosed. “From the shadows. I didn’t want to come anywhere near the Italians or even you, the Lobanovs. But now that her life is on the line, I can’t do nothing. She’s still my daughter, Alexei.”
I didn’t believe in his regret. Men like Petrov didn’t change; they just looked for the life boat when the ship started to sink.
“I’ll meet you there,” Petrov added. “I have the codes for the secondary gate. I’ll show you the way in.”
Then the line went dead.
I looked at Viktor and Roman. They were watching me, waiting for the spark that would set the world on fire.
“Red Hook,” I told them. “The foundry. Petrov is meeting us there.”
“You trust him?” Roman asked, his hand drifting to the holster at his hip.
“No,” I said, heading for the door. “But I don’t care. If he’s lying, he dies. If he’s telling the truth and he wants to die in the same place as his son, that’s his choice.”
Roman looked to Viktor, and I took an impatient breath.
“Okay,” Viktor breathed.
Show time.
I moved through the room with practiced efficiency. This was the ritual. The preparation for the hunt.
I stripped off my blood-stained suit jacket and tossed it aside.
I pulled on a tactical vest, cinching the straps until they bit into my ribs.
I checked my primary sidearm—a custom Heckler & Koch—sliding the magazine in with a satisfying clack.
I holstered it at my hip. A second, smaller backup went into the shoulder holster.
Next came the blade. A matte-black combat knife, balanced perfectly. I slid it into the sheath at the small of my back.
I was pulling on my leather gloves, tightening the Velcro at the wrists, when Anya appeared in the doorway.
“Alexei,” she said, her voice tight. “You’re going in blind. Petrov could be leading you into a kill zone. Let the strike teams go first. Stay back.”
I stopped and looked at her. I saw the worry in her eyes, but she saw something else in mine. She saw that there was no “staying back.” Not for this.
“Mila is my best friend. I want her safe, too. But I also know she wouldn’t want you putting yourself and her in greater danger by not preparing properly.”
Something about the thought of Mila not wanting me in danger made something soften inside me. It made me hunger for her touch. But this wasn’t the time for softness. It was time to make the people who dared to touch my queen beg for their end.
I walked over to Anya and gripped her shoulders. I leaned down and pressed a firm, brief kiss to her forehead. I turned and walked out, the heavy boots of my men echoing behind me.
Outside, the world was turning white. A late-winter blizzard had descended, the snow falling in thick, heavy flakes that muffled the sound of the city.
The convoy was waiting in the courtyard.
Five blacked-out SUVs, their engines idling with a low, predatory growl.
Exhaust plumes rose into the freezing air like the breath of dragons.
I climbed into the lead vehicle. Roman was in the driver’s seat, Damian in the passenger.
“Everyone’s ready,” Roman said, his eyes reflecting the dashboard lights. “The second team is already moving to flank the foundry from the water side.”
“Okay.”
I leaned my head back against the seat and watched the snow hit the windshield. The growl of the engines intensified as we moved out, the tires crunching over the fresh powder. We moved through the streets like a funeral procession for the men who hadn’t died yet.
Every muscle in my body was coiled, a spring compressed to its limit. My mind was no longer in the SUV. It was already in that foundry. It was already around Enzo’s throat. It was already reaching for Mila.
They had made a mistake. They thought they were taking a hostage. They thought they were taking a bargaining chip.
They didn’t realize they had simply invited their own extinction.
They touched what’s mine.
And now, they pay.
“Faster, Roman,” I said softly. The SUV surged forward into the white abyss of the night.