Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Alexei
Ifollowed Alessio and tracked his movements and routines for the next couple of days, watching him long enough to learn every mistake he made.
He didn’t vary his routes, didn’t change his habits, and didn’t question the faces around him.
He moved like he thought no one was watching him, like the name he carried was enough to keep him safe.
I saw where he went when he needed product, where he went when he collected money, and how often he got high. Everything he touched was destroyed along the way.
By the end of it, I knew exactly where he was at every hour he ran the streets. He wasn’t careful, he wasn’t disciplined, and he wasn’t untouchable. He was sloppy, reckless, and already losing control of something he never should have had in the first place.
I was done watching. Tonight I ended this.
I didn’t leave the house right away. I gave it just enough time for everything to settle into place and Lucia to be asleep.
Vissarion had already done his part. I knew where Alessio was and who he was with.
There wasn’t anything left to figure out, and at that point, it wasn’t about information anymore. It was about ending it.
I changed, cleaned up, and walked out without saying anything to anyone. The drive was quiet. By the time I pulled up to the building again, it was already late. The street was empty in that deliberate way that came from people knowing better than to be around places like this after dark.
Nothing about the exterior had changed since the last time I watched it. There were no extra men, no added security, and no sign that anyone inside understood what kind of problem they had created for themselves.
I stayed in the car for a moment, watching the entrance and letting my eyes adjust to the darkness and any movement.
Two men stood outside instead, but that didn’t improve anything.
One leaned against the wall smoking while the other paced with his phone in his hand, more focused on the screen than the street.
Neither of them checked the road, neither of them watched the door, and neither of them had any idea how exposed they were.
That made this easy.
I stepped out of the car and crossed the street at a steady pace, not rushing and not drawing attention.
Places like this didn’t expect trouble to walk in through the front, and men like Alessio relied on that kind of stupidity to keep them breathing.
They didn’t see me get close, and they didn’t hear me when I stepped in behind them.
Years of training as The Butcher had made this second nature. Silent footwork drilled into me since I was a boy, breath control that let me move without being heard, and the muscle memory of killing without a sound. These men never stood a chance.
The first one dropped before he could react, the blade going in clean and fast under his jaw.
I let him fall and turned to the second before he understood what had happened, slamming him into the wall and cutting his throat deep enough that he wouldn’t make a sound before he slid down beside the other one.
I stepped over them and pushed the door open.
Inside, the air was thick with smoke and something sour underneath it.
It was the kind of smell that came from too many people and not enough control.
Product sat out in the open, not even covered, and the men inside were talking instead of paying attention to anything that mattered.
A couple of the men looked up when I walked in, confusion hitting before anything else, but they didn’t recognize me and they didn’t react fast enough to make a difference.
I crossed the space between us before the first one could speak, grabbed him by the front of his shirt, and drove him into the table hard enough to break it. The blade followed through his ribs before he could draw breath to scream, and I was already moving when his body hit the floor.
The next one reached for a gun, but he was too slow. I stepped inside his reach, snapped his wrist before he could bring it up, and drove the blade into his stomach, pushing it up until his body folded in on itself.
I preferred a blade to a gun. It was more personal, more intimate.
The room didn’t stay quiet after that. Voices started rising and men moved without direction, grabbing at whatever they could find, but there was no structure behind it.
They reacted. I didn’t. The next one came at me wide and sloppy, and I stepped inside, caught him at the throat, and put the blade under his ribs before he knew what was happening.
Another tried to run, and I didn’t let him get far before dragging him back and cutting across his throat in one clean motion.
Blood covered my hands, dripping down my forearms and soaking through my shirt. I felt the hot, wet sprays land on my neck, and I resisted the urge to rub it in, marking my kills in a primal, savage way.
The room was turning into a slaughterhouse. Blood painted the walls in arterial sprays, pooled thick on the floor, and the copper stench mixed with piss and shit from men who died terrified. They had dared to reach for what was owned and controlled by the Drakovichs. Now they were paying in pieces.
It didn’t take long to take them all out.
By the time the room went quiet again, the only one left standing was Alessio.
He hadn’t moved, not at first. He stood near the back of the room, staring at what was left of his crew like he couldn’t process it.
The confidence he’d been carrying before was gone, stripped clean off him, and what was left wasn’t control or anger. It was fear.
When he finally looked at me, it was worse up close.
His eyes were unfocused, his breathing uneven, and the edge of whatever he’d taken still sat in his system.
He tried to straighten like it would give him something back, but it didn’t land the way he thought it would.
He opened his mouth to speak, but I didn’t let him finish.
I crossed the space between us and hit him hard enough to drop him, watching the way he struggled to get back up, slower than he should have been, weaker than he thought he was.
I grabbed him by the front of his shirt and hauled him up just enough to keep him on his knees. He struggled, but there was nothing behind it. No control or strength. Just panic and whatever was left in his system.
“You think that name gives you something?” I said, keeping my voice low and steady. “You think having Rossi blood makes you untouchable?”
“I’m his son,” he choked out, blood already at the corner of his mouth.
“Francesco’s blood runs through me. He threw me away like I was nothing.
Like I didn’t matter.” His voice got louder the longer he spoke, more desperate and unhinged.
“I had to build something for myself. I had to take what was mine. That’s how this works. ”
I didn’t respond.
“Bastards don’t get handed anything,” he went on, his words starting to slip together. “Not like you did. Or maybe not you. You take it. That’s what men in this world do, right?”
I tightened my grip and forced his head back so he had to look at me.
“You don’t know anything about what I was handed or what I take,” I said.
“But I know exactly what you did. You hit my routes. You took product that wasn’t yours, burned through money that didn’t belong to you, and made noise where there shouldn’t have been any.
You didn’t build anything. You fucked shit up. ”
“It’s my name too,” he snapped. “I’m Rossi blood. I deserve a seat at that table.”
“You don’t deserve anything,” I said flatly. “You don’t have the control to hold it.”
“Fuck you,” he spat. “You think you’re better than me? You’re just another trained dog doing what you were told. That’s all you are.”
I let him talk, because men like him always said more when they thought they were about to die.
Alessio let out a rough laugh, the sound breaking at the edges like he didn’t have full control of it anymore. Blood streaked his mouth when he spoke, but he didn’t seem to care, his eyes locked on mine like he still thought there was a way out of this.
“You think this ends here?” he said, his voice uneven but pushing through it anyway. “You think I’m the only one making moves like this? There’s plenty of others just like me doing the same thing in the shadows. The Rossi name carries more than guns and cash. You know that.”
I didn’t respond, and he took that as room to keep talking.
“There are routes already in place,” he went on, faster now. “People moving through ports, across borders, city to city. It’s already happening. I tapped into it. Built on what’s already there.”
His chest rose hard as he sucked in a breath, trying to steady himself when I kept him in a viselike lock.
“We could run it right,” he said, his voice dropping lower. “You and me. You’ve got control and connections, I’ve got plans. Big plans and plenty of low-level help who don’t care about dying to make shit happen. We take it coast to coast, lock it down, make it ours before anyone else gets close.”
I stayed silent, watching him. He wasn’t wrong about one thing. The routes existed. The Rossi name sat behind it in ways most people never saw, buried through layers of men and operations that kept it far enough removed to deny. It had grown too big to cut out in one move.
Taking something like that down would take time, planning, and the kind of reach that didn’t leave anything behind. That didn’t mean I would ever touch it.
“You know what you are,” he pushed, something desperate creeping into his expression. “I can see it in your eyes. They made you the same way they threw me away. We’re the same kind of men. The ones they use when they need something.”
His mouth twisted into something that almost looked like a smile.
“Two sons they didn’t want standing on their own,” he said. “We build something bigger than them. Take what they tried to keep out of reach.”
The mention of building something bigger made my blood run colder.
He thought he could stand next to me. He thought he could reach for what I was connected to.
Did he not know the Rossi name was tied to shit that should have been buried?
Things involving trafficking and flesh. Is that what he wanted control over?
I smiled, something violent uncoiling in my chest.
There was nothing lower than selling humans. And the Rossi dynasty had their hands in that for a long time. But over the years, they’d removed themselves far enough with shell companies and middle men that no one would ever be able to solidly link them to it.
My grip tightened on him just enough that he felt it.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I said, my voice even.
He stilled for a second, like he wasn’t sure he’d heard me right.
“I take what belongs to me,” I continued. “I run what I build. I don’t take what’s not mine.”
His expression shifted, confusion cutting through the panic. “It’s money,” he said, sharper now.
“That’s all it is. It moves the same as anything else. You’re already in this world. Don’t act like you’re above it.”
It was then I knew for a fact he was talking about the trafficking. “That isn’t business,” I said. “That’s rot. I don’t let it near what’s mine.”
Especially not near her. Lucia was the only clean thing I had left. The only thing worth protecting from the filth I lived in.
Something in his face broke then, whatever confidence he had left cracking under it. “You’re lying to yourself,” he snapped, anger pushing through now that the bargain wasn’t working. “You think you’re different? You think killing men makes you better than me?”
“No,” I said. “But I’m the one still standing.”
He tried to pull against my hold, but there was nothing behind it. “You could have had everything,” he said, his voice turning raw. “We could have owned it all.”
I leaned in just enough that he had no choice but to hold my gaze. “You were never going to build anything,” I said. “You were never going to own anything. You don’t have the control for it.”
His panic gave way to hysteria and a burst of rage.
“You don’t scare me,” he pushed, even as his voice shook.
“You think killing me fixes anything? There’s always someone else.
” He coughed, wheezed, and gagged for air.
“I know you. I know who you are. The Butcher. The killer of the Drakovichs.” The fucker smiled, a grotesque one that was full of arrogance.
“You think I'm stupid. But I did my fucking research on all of you.”
I tightened my hand around his throat now, cutting off more of his air, but not enough that he didn’t run his mouth.
“And that pretty little wife of yours?” he sneered, blood flecking his lips.
“Half-sister or not, I’ll use her to get my way.
One phone call and I can have her dragged back where she belongs.
She’ll scream your name while my men take turns breaking her in.
She’ll beg for death before I’m done with her. ”
That was the line. Something inside me snapped clean in two.
The Butcher took over completely. I didn’t let him finish.
The blade went in slow this time, deep enough that he felt it before anything else.
His body went rigid, his breath catching in a broken sound as it sank in, and I held him there long enough to make sure he understood exactly what was happening.
“You don’t speak about her,” I snarled, twisting the knife deeper, carving through organs and feeling hot blood pour over my hand. “This is what happens when you reach for what’s mine.”
His body started to give under my hand, the fight leaving him piece by piece.
“You don’t get a second chance to learn that.” I twisted the knife and felt everything inside him give way. His eyes went wide for a second longer before the last of it left him completely, and I held him there until I knew it was done before letting him drop.
The room stayed quiet after that, as I just stared down at Alessio’s corpse.
I wiped the blade clean on his shirt, and stepped back, taking in what was left for another moment.
This wasn’t a war and it wasn’t a message.
He had stepped into something he didn’t understand and taken from the wrong man, and now there was nothing left of him to make that mistake again.
I turned and walked out without looking back, because this was what I had been made for, and this was what I did best.