Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Tolya
Alleyway near the docks
The alley smells of salt and oil, the pungent smells permeating from the nearby docks. Across the street, shadowed by cranes and container stacks, is the Don’s warehouse.
We’re early.
My anxiousness to get this done and over with rising with each passing moment. Yaro stands at my right, checking the earpiece looped over his ear. Behind us, my men fan out there are six of us in total, all in black, all armed. Ghosts in the shadows.
One watching the street. One on the roof. The rest, waiting for my signal.
Nico’s arrival is less subtle.
A black sedan pulls up to the mouth of the alley, followed by two more. All with tinted windows. Engines purr low, but every one of the doors opens fast and silent.
Nico steps out of the first car. Hands gloved. His expression is unreadable. But his eyes give him away. Sharp. Focused. Hungry. This isn’t about retribution, it's about power.
Each car is full of Italians. But these aren’t foot soldiers. These men carry themselves with rank despite their tactical clothing. Half of them I recognize from sit-downs and dinner parties.
“You brought half the fucking house,” I say as he approaches.
Nico shrugs, a smug smile tugging at the edge of his mouth. “They finally realized where their future lies.”
I glance past him at the others behind him, men who, only days ago, bowed to the Don. Now, they stand behind Nico like loyal dogs. Armed and ready.
“How did you convince them all?” I ask.
“Idly knowing that there are whispers is one thing, hearing the shouts is quite another.” He pulls a folder from inside his coat and hands it over. “Especially when most of these men have daughters or nieces of their own.”
I flip it open.
Photos. Surveillance stills. Shipping manifests. Wire transfers. Girls in cages. Dated. Traced. All pointing back to the Don.
Yaro exhales beside me, low and bitter. “Motherfucker. I didn’t know it was this bad.”
I close the file. “That was enough?”
Nico’s smile fades. “It was calculated. I released the documents in pieces. Leaked just enough to make them question their loyalty. Let them stew in doubt. Then I gave them the rest. They flipped instantly.”
“You planned this all along,” I accuse, both in admiration and in frustration at being left out of this part of the plan.
He meets my gaze squarely. “Of course I did.”
There’s no guilt in him. No hesitation. Not anymore.
“Eva marrying you was the match that lit the flame,” he adds, voice like a blade. “But this fire? I’ve been building it for years. I’m done pretending De Mello represents anything worth saving. The old man’s a relic. I’m the upgrade.”
“You want the chair.”
“I’m taking the chair.” His voice is low and vicious with those words. He says it like a vow.
I nod slowly. The ambition rolling off him is sharp enough to slice concrete. He is far more strategic than I ever gave him credit for. And he’s playing to win.
I glance across the street again. The gates shift. Lights flicker on. A black truck is backing into the main loading zone.
Right on schedule.
“Here we go,” I say, turning back to our gathered soldiers. “We catch him red-handed. No whispers, no cover stories. Witnesses carry the story back to the families. Truth becomes gospel.”
Nico motions to a tall man behind him who steps forward, camera already recording.
“I want every second of it,” he says. “From the first crate to the last breath he takes.”
There’s a finality in his voice. A promise of execution.
“This isn’t about symbolism anymore,” he adds. “This is the future of our house.”
Yaro watches him, brow furrowed—but even he doesn’t argue.
I nod once. “Then let’s put the past to rest shall we?”
The wind from the docks kicks up, cold and gritty. Somewhere inside those fences, girls wait to be dragged from metal boxes. Sold. Used. Forgotten.
Not tonight. I adjust my jacket, feel the weight of the pistol under my arm.
“Nico,” I say quietly.
He lifts his eyes to mine.
“You better be ready to lead when this is done. Because after tonight—there’s no going back.”
He smiles. Cold and sharp. “Wasn’t planning to.”
I nod, but something shifts. A flicker in my chest that wasn’t there a moment ago. I glance at Nico again and the thought hits me again hard and cold.
He had to have known De Mello was pursuing Eva. Maybe not the full extent. Maybe not the details. But enough. Enough to trade her to me in marriage. Not just for peace. Not just for alliance. But for protection.
Was that what she was to him? A queen placed on the opposite side of the board so the king wouldn’t fall? Did he know what that bastard was doing? The pressure, the threats, the eyes that followed her like a fucking predator?
“When this is over,” I say quietly, not looking at him, “you and I need to have a conversation.”
Nico’s head tilts curiously. “About?”
“Just a matter that needs to be brought to the table, brother to brother.”
There’s a flicker of recognition in his eyes. A beat of silence. But he doesn’t ask anything further. He just nods. “Alright.”
I looked around at the men gathered, raising my voice just so that everyone gathered could hear either through their ear pieces or directly.
“The Don is my life to take. No one is to touch him besides me,” I announce. Looking at Nico, my gaze bores into him. “Give me your word.”
One of the Italians steps forward immediately. Santino I think his name is, tall and arrogant, his hand on the butt of his pistol.
“With all due respect, Tolya,” he said, voice too loud, “you’re not one of us. This is our house, our matter to deal with. It should be Nico who ends him. Blood for blood.”
A few others murmured agreement. I counted seven who openly protested. Even Luca spoke up, his voice low but firm. “They’ll expect it. The men—if they see a Russian pull the trigger, they might not follow him afterward.”
I didn’t blink. I took one step forward, facing them all, ice in my veins. Growling. “He’s mine.”
Another murmur. Then Nico moved. He stepped between us, casual but commanding. “Enough.”
His eyes swept his crew, each one falling quiet beneath his gaze.
“You want to talk blood?” Nico said. “The Don’s not family. Not anymore. He sold that title when he refused to stop trading girls like cattle. When he took bribes from foreign crews and continued this work under the radar right beneath our noses.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. He looked at me, then back at them.
“We’re not just cutting out a traitor tonight. We’re making a statement. And the man who deserves to end this” nodding toward me “is the one who’s helped to build this alliance and end the sex trade in our city with his own hands.”
He stepped closer, placing a hand firmly on my shoulder.
“Don De Mello is Tolya’s to kill,” Nico said, voice ringing clear in the alley. “That’s not a request. That’s a fucking order.”
The silence that followed was deep and final.
Nico didn’t look at them again. He just looks at me with a grin. All teeth and trouble. “Let’s go get us a monster.”
We move in relative silence. The only sound is our boots crunching against gravel and wet concrete as we slip through a side door at the back of the building. Inside, cages line the aisles. Steel and wire. Each row seeming longer than the last.
All of them are empty. A few still carry the scent of piss, sweat, the sickly sweet tang of perfume in an attempt to mask the rest. Ghosts of girls already long gone.
Then I hear it. A soft whimper. Muffled. Then another. And another.
We’re getting close.
Voices drift through the space, low and confident. One of them I recognize as Don De Mello. Arrogant. Cold. Commanding.
“Put that one in six. The blonde in seven. She’ll fetch more upstate.”
My spine locks as another voice chimes in, fainter. Maybe a handler. “This batch is cleaner than the last. They’ll be easier to sell.”
A laugh follows the statement and something cold and sharp shoots through my chest. I force it down and keep moving forward. When I round the corner of the far aisle I can see them.
Nine girls—no, ten—lined up, wrists zip-tied, clothes torn or missing altogether.
Being herded like cattle toward the open cages nearest the front of the building.
One’s already inside, curled into a corner like she’s trying to disappear.
Another is fighting, her breath coming in heaves, eyes wide and wild until a guard backhands her hard enough to drop her to her knees.
A shudder moves through me. Not because of the girls. Because of the memory. This—this exact nightmare—is what my parents walked into eighteen years ago. Not as buyers, not as handlers. As a voice of diplomacy in a war that didn’t want peace.
Tonight isn’t about vengeance though, it’s about elimination. Because I learned from their mistakes.
You don’t walk into the lion’s den and try to make it purr. You feed it poison and watch it die. And you make damn sure when it dies, it dies with its mouth full of blood.
Nico moves in beside me, dark eyes scanning the scene laid out in front of us. He’s grinning like a man two steps from getting everything he’s ever wanted.
“Are you still sure about this?” he whispers, almost giddy.
“I was never unsure,” I murmur.
He nods once, then raises his hand—a silent signal to his men stationed on the opposite side of the warehouse. I glance back toward the cages. One girl catches my eye. Brunette. Young. She’s not crying—just staring.
Blank. Hollow.
I tighten my grip on the pistol holstered at my side.
“Let’s end this,” I whisper.
Men shift around me, silent shadows flanking my sides. We move like a single unit, in synchronized motions.
Behind us, Nico’s soldiers take the left. Mine take the right. All armed. All lethal. All waiting for my signal.
I lower my hand and the world erupts. Gunfire cracks through the warehouse like thunder. Screams follow. Not the girls we've swept past them, shielded them, but the Don’s men, scrambling in panic.
They weren’t ready for this.
We push forward fast, covering each other, moving with precision. I drop two near the cages, both headshots, quick and clean. One tries to flank from behind a stack of crates, but Nico puts him down with a double-tap to the chest before I even turn.
The girls are huddled together now, shielding their ears, eyes wide with terror. One of Nico’s men peels off to lead them to safety.
I don’t stop to help. I have one target. And he is in my sight. The Don tries to slip away through a side corridor.
Coward, always the rat scrambling for his hole when the fire gets too close.
I break into a sprint, dodging crates and cages, glass shattering at my back as a bullet flies past. He hears my footfalls closing in on him and glances over his shoulder—his eyes meet mine—and I see it.
The fear.
He recognizes me. That recognition turns into panic as he fumbles with the side door’s latch.
Not tonight.
I cut left, intercepting him before he can get through. He skids to a stop, breath ragged, suit soaked in sweat and blood that’s not his. A pistol in his hand.
He aims. But I shoot first. The bullet punches into his shoulder, spinning him around. He screams, dropping the gun.
“Going somewhere?” I snarl, advancing on him.
He stumbles back, using the wall for support, dragging himself toward another exit like some pathetic animal crawling for its den. I let him.
For a moment.
Then I shoot him again, this time in the knee.
He screams as the bullet tears through his kneecap. Going down hard, clawing at the concrete, cursing in thick rasp Italian. I stalk closer, boots crunching over broken glass and shell casings. My gun raises, but I don’t fire.
Not yet.
He collapses, blood spilling across the floor, his screams echoing off the metal beams above. I take my time walking to him. Every step calculated. He’s on his back, one leg useless, one arm trembling as he tries to lift himself.
“You really thought I wouldn’t come for you?” I ask, my voice low and vicious. “That you could keep selling these girls, keep hiding behind your seat, and the world would just keep looking away?”
With a pained voice he snarls back, eyes wild. “This is none of your business!”
I slam the butt of my pistol into his jaw. Hard. He chokes on his own spit, blood spilling to the floor beside him.
“It is absolutely my business,” I growl. “The sex trade is done in Chicago. And so are you.”
He back pedals again, dragging himself away from where I crouch over him, breath wheezing. There’s piss soaking into the concrete beneath him. His mouth works soundlessly.
I stand slowly, taking a step, my boot comes down slowly right on the ruined knee. He howls as I raise my gun again, aiming at his skull.
“Your mistake,” I say, “was thinking my wife was prey. My mistake was letting you live this long.”
His eyes widen. I don’t wait another second. The bullet hits him clean between the eyes and his body drops like a rag doll.