Chapter 35
Keith
"Jesus. Fuck," Marcus wheezed, the bullet grazed the edge of his ear instead, shearing off a bloody crescent of flesh that bloomed red against the graying temple.
His bravado shattered like cheap glass, he was just a man now, sixty-five and bleeding, heart pounding a frantic tattoo against his ribs.
The air tasted of copper and fear, his own.
"You... you missed? Or was that mercy? Some last Krogen shred of it? "
From the shadows behind him, slow footsteps echoed.
Deliberate, mocking, slicing through the tension like a dull blade.
Anton stepped into the dim light, his tailored suit untouched by the carnage, hands still raised in mock applause.
"Whoa, easy there. That gunshot nearly gave me a heart attack.
Thought the old man's empire was finally getting its fireworks show.
" He dusted imaginary lint from his sleeve, casual as if he'd stumbled into a boardroom spat, not a slaughterhouse confessional.
Marcus whipped his head around, wincing as fresh blood trickled down his neck, soaking his collar.
"Anton? What the, get out of here, you idiot!
He's lost it. The Butcher, the one we've been chasing, the ghost tearing through my operations, it's him.
Keith. Our Keith." A hysterical bark of laughter bubbled up from his chest, wet and broken, as the irony hit like a gut punch.
He clutched at his grazed ear, smearing crimson across his cheek.
"God, the jokes write themselves. All those years, I had you running around, Keith, 'Find him.
Track the bastard down.' And there you were, right under my nose, sharpening your knives on my dime.
Poetic, isn't it? My own blood, playing the reaper. "
I didn’t say anything. Anton didn't flinch.
He sauntered forward a few steps, then leaned casually against a rusted support beam, crossing his arms like he was appraising a bad painting at auction.
"Knew it for a while, Dad. Keith's handiwork?
It's got that... precision. Clean cuts, no mess unless it's meant to send a message.
The port hits, the coded survivors, too elegant for some dockside thug. Too personal."
Marcus's laughter died in his throat, replaced by a gurgle of shock. He stared up at Anton, mouth agape, bloodied hand trembling as it dropped to his side. "You... knew? And you said nothing? When? How long have you been sitting on this, you spineless…"
"Not long," Anton cut in smoothly, his voice a velvet drawl, laced with the same effortless charisma that charmed club promoters and bottle girls alike.
He pushed off the beam, circling slowly to stand between father and brother, his eyes, glinting with cold amusement.
"Keith reached out to me. After he dug up the truth about Mom.
And Rowena. You remember Rowena, right? Our half-sister, the one you treated like a pretty accessory until she wasn't convenient anymore. "
Marcus's face drained of what little color remained, his breath hitching. "Valentina? This is about her? Ancient history, boy. Water under the bridge.."
"Ancient?" Anton's laugh was low, bitter, devoid of his usual playboy lilt. He crouched down to Marcus's level, close enough that their faces were inches apart, father and son reflected in the pooling blood like a funhouse mirror.
"I didn't give a damn about your 'business' for years, Dad. The shipments, the girls, the endless parade of rivals you wanted buried, I tuned it out. Clubs, parties, revenue streams that didn't involve human trafficking? That was my lane. Live and let live, right?”
“But when I found out it was that world that got Mom killed? Nah. That pulled me in. Keith showed me the ledgers, the real ones, not your sanitized bullshit. The bribes, the hits, the way you outsourced the ugly to keep your hands clean. And Rowena... Jesus! Selling off your daughter, even if she wasn’t your own, like she was surplus inventory?
That was the tipping point. You were the only dad she ever knew. "
Marcus's eyes darted between me and Anton, betrayal etching deeper lines into his face. He scrambled back on his elbows, leaving a smeared trail on the concrete. "You both... conspiring? My sons, turning on me like this? For her? Valentina was a liability from the start.."
"There was no Butcher sniffing around the port," Anton continued, ignoring him, his tone flat now, stripped of mockery.
He straightened up, adjusting his cufflinks with deliberate calm.
"That tip? I made it up. Lured you here like a rat to cheese.
Keith needed the stage set, I just provided the bait.
Family sticks together, right? Even when it's rotten to the core. "
I finally moved, holstering the pistol with a soft click that echoed like a death knell.
I stepped forward, my eyes fixed on Marcus, unblinking, the weight of five years' ghosts pressing down on my shoulders.
My voice was steady, a blade honed to lethality.
"You thought death would be that easy, Father?
A quick bullet to the brain, lights out, empire intact in some fever dream?
After what you've done to those girls, the ones you shipped like cargo, broken and discarded, did you really believe you'd get a pleasant end?
Mercy? No. The Butcher doesn't do mercy.
He carves slow, makes you feel every slice. "
Marcus pressed back against the crate, his breath coming in shallow gasps, the grazed ear throbbing in time with his pulse. "Keith... son... we can fix this. Anton, too. Walk away from this madness. You're my blood."
"Blood?" My laugh was a raw thing, scraped from the hollows of his chest. I knelt then, close enough to smell the scotch and fear on my father's breath, close enough to see the flicker of regret, or was it calculation in those faded eyes.
"I know about Mom. I know she didn't commit suicide.
Why, Father? Why did you kill her? And Rowena, our sister, barely eleven when you sold her off to that pig from the docks.
She was family. We were family. What the hell justified turning us into collateral? "
Enraged, Marcus surged forward, spittle flying from his lips, the old lion roaring one last time despite the blood loss sapping his strength.
He grabbed my lapel with a trembling hand, pulling me close, veins bulging like rivers on a map of rage.
"You want the truth, boy? Fine. That bitch, your precious Valentina, she lied to me from the altar.
Rowena? Not mine. Never was. It took me eleven years to find that out, some back-alley doctor, a blood test that didn't lie.
She was already knocked up when we said our vows, carrying that little bitch from some dockside lover she whored around with before I put a ring on it.
Thought she could pass it off as mine? Build her pretty family on deceit? "
I didn't pull away, but my jaw clenched, the muscles ticking like a bomb. Anton shifted uneasily behind me, but stayed silent, letting the venom spill.
"I sold Rowena off to teach her a lesson," Marcus snarled on, his voice rising, feverish now, the words tumbling out like an abscess lanced.
"Showed Valentina what happens when you cross a Krogen.
Thought it'd break her, make her heel, keep her mouth shut.
But the slut? She got clever. Snuck into my study one night while I was out closing a deal, rifled through the safe like she owned it.
Found the ledgers, the real ones, with every dirty secret inked in black and white.
Shipments, payoffs, the girls... all of it.
Next morning, she's waving them in my face, threatening to burn it all down. Call the feds, the press, anyone who’d listen.
'I'll drag you to hell with me,' she says.
Tears streaming, that fake saint's face twisted ugly. "
He released my lapel with a shove, slumping back, chest heaving.
"Couldn't risk it. The empire, our empire, built on those pages.
One leak, and it's ash. Prisons for life, or worse.
All because of her lies, her betrayal. She wasn't fit to raise my kids, real ones.
So yeah, I did it. Told you boys it was the stress, the 'family burdens.
' And it worked, didn't it? Until you two ungrateful shits started digging. "
The warehouse fell silent, save for the distant drip of water from a leaking pipe, a metronome to the unraveling.
I rose slowly, my face a mask of stone, boiled with a grief too vast for rage.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Aurelia — pale, shaken, eyes locked on me.
Even through the haze of fury and loss, that single look steadied something in me.
She was the reminder that I hadn’t become him.
Not yet. Anton placed a hand on my shoulder, a silent anchor, but I shrugged it off gently, stepping back to survey the man who'd sired him, broken, exposed, human at last.
"You built nothing worth saving," I said finally, his voice quiet, final, carrying the weight of Lila's ghost, Valentina's shadow, Rowena's absence, all the fractures Marcus had hammered into their bloodline.
"Empires on lies, lives on graves. You taught me to kill, Father.
To protect 'what's ours.' But this? This is mercy's opposite.
This is justice." I drew the pistol again, the barrel steady now, aimed true at the center of Marcus's chest. "And know, in whatever hell waits, that the Butcher was always your mirror. "
Marcus didn’t stay down. With a guttural roar, he launched himself forward. A last burst of animal strength. He slammed into me, knocking the gun from my hand as we hit the concrete. The impact jarred my shoulders, but I absorbed it, rolling with the momentum so he couldn’t pin me fully.