Chapter 24 Dimitri
DIMITRI
The factory erupts into chaos around me, but all I can focus on is reaching Alina. My men move with practiced efficiency, taking down Viktor's soldiers with controlled bursts of gunfire. Bodies fall. Blood sprays across concrete. The acrid smell of gunpowder fills my lungs with every breath.
But none of it matters. Only her.
I fight my way through the main floor, my weapon an extension of my arm.
A Popov soldier appears from behind a stack of crates, and I put two rounds in his chest before he can raise his gun.
Another comes at me from the left, and I drop him with a headshot.
The eight-pointed star tattoo on my chest feels like it's burning through my tactical vest, a reminder of who I am, what I've become. Maybe what I’ve always been.
A monster.
Through the smoke and chaos, I hear it—a gunshot from the back of the building. Different from the automatic weapons fire. Singular. Deliberate.
My heart stops.
"Alina!" Her name tears from my throat as I sprint toward the sound, leaving my men to handle the remaining guards.
My boots pound against concrete, and every second feels like an eternity.
Images flash through my mind of her red hair spread across my pillow, her green eyes blazing with defiance, and the way she felt in my arms just hours ago.
I hurdle over a body, barely registering the Kozlov colors on his jacket. An office door blocks my path and I kick it open, the frame splintering under the impact. The corridor beyond is narrow, lit by flickering fluorescent lights that cast everything in sickly yellow.
My pulse hammers so hard I can feel it in my temples. I've faced death more times than I can count, walked into ambushes knowing I might not walk out. But this terror is different—sharper, more visceral. It's not my life on the line.
It's hers.
And if Viktor has hurt her, if I'm too late—
No. I can't think like that. Won't think like that.
I round a corner and nearly collide with one of Viktor's men. He's young, barely twenty, with panic written across his face. He tries to bring his weapon up but his hands are shaking too badly. I could shoot him, should shoot him.
Instead, I slam the butt of my gun into his temple and keep moving, leaving him unconscious on the floor. I don't have time for this. Don't have time for anything except getting to her.
The corridor opens into a junction, three paths splitting off in different directions. I pause for half a heartbeat, listening, calculating. The smell of gunpowder is stronger here, mixing with something else—fear, sweat, and blood.
Left. The shot came from the left.
If she's hurt, if Viktor has touched her, I'll make what I did to Pyotr look merciful.
I burst through a doorway into a narrow corridor, and the scene before me freezes me in place.
Alina stands five feet away, her back to me, a gun gripped in both hands. Her arms are extended, steady despite the trembling I can see in her shoulders. Her red hair is wild around her face, and even from behind, I can see the tension radiating through her body.
Viktor Popov leans against the far wall, one hand pressed to his shoulder where blood seeps through his fingers, staining his expensive shirt.
His silver hair is disheveled, his face pale with pain and rage.
But his eyes—those cold, calculating eyes—are fixed on his daughter with something that looks almost like pride.
Or perhaps satisfaction. Even now, even bleeding and in pain, facing his daughter who’s holding a gun on him, he's found a way to manipulate the situation, to turn this moment into a lesson, a test, a final act of control.
"Alina." I keep my voice soft, controlled, as I take a slow step forward. "Put the gun down."
She doesn't move, doesn't acknowledge that she's heard me. Did she even hear me, or is she so lost in revenge that she's solely focused on her father? The gun remains pointed at his chest, unwavering. Her stance is good—feet planted, weight distributed properly.
I move closer, careful not to startle her. One wrong move and that trigger finger could twitch. "It's over. My men have secured the building. Viktor's soldiers are dead or surrendered. You don't have to do this."
"Don't I?" Her voice is steady, cold in a way I've never heard before. It reminds me of winter ice cracking over deep water. "He killed my sister, Dimitri. He deserves to die."
I can't argue with that logic. I've killed for less—for insults, for territory disputes, or just for looking at me the wrong way. Viktor Popov has committed crimes that demand blood payment in our world. If Alina lowers that gun, I'll put a bullet in him myself without hesitation.
But I also know what pulling that trigger will cost her.
I've lived with the weight of every life I've taken for decades.
Some nights, I still see their faces—the first man I killed, the one who looked surprised that a seventeen-year-old boy could be so ruthless.
The soldier who begged. The traitor who died cursing my name.
Some mornings, I wake with blood on my hands that isn't really there, phantom stains that no amount of washing can remove.
I've made peace with what I am, with the monster I've become.
I don't want that for her.
She's already been forced into this world, forced to marry me, forced to navigate the brutal politics of the Bratva. But this—taking a life with her own hands, her father’s life—this is a line that once crossed, changes everything.
I take another step, close enough now to see the tears streaming down her face, to see the way her finger hovers over the trigger. Her hands are rock-steady, but her chest is heaving with barely controlled emotion.
"Let me do it," I say quietly. "Let me take this burden. You don't need to carry it."
Viktor laughs a wet, bubbling sound that makes my jaw clench.
Blood trickles from the corner of his mouth, mixing with the crimson spreading across his shoulder.
The shoulder wound is worse than it looks.
He's losing too much blood, and from the sound of his breathing, the bullet might have nicked a lung.
If he doesn’t get medical help soon, he will die.
"How touching," Viktor rasps, his accent thicker with pain. "The great Dimitri Morozov, trying to save his little bride's soul." He coughs, more blood spattering his lips. "But we both know she's already damned. She married you, didn't she?"
"Shut up." My hand moves to my weapon, ready to end this myself. To spare Alina this choice. This moment. This memory that will haunt her.
But Alina speaks first, her voice cutting through the tension like a blade. "You don't get to talk about damnation. Not after what you've done."
"What I've done?" Viktor's laugh turns into a wet cough. "Everything I did, I did for our family. For our legacy. To keep us strong in a world that devours the weak."
"You killed your own daughter." Alina's voice cracks on the words, but the gun doesn't waver.
"I made strategic decisions." Viktor's eyes flash with the old arrogance, even now.
Viktor's expression twists into something ugly and he fixes his gaze on Alina.
"Your precious little sister. So weak. So pathetic.
Do you want to know how she died, Alina?
Do you want to know what her last words were? "
I see Alina flinch, see the gun dip slightly. "Don't listen to him," I say urgently. "He's trying to manipulate you. It's what he does."
"Papa, please." Alina's voice breaks, and I see her arms start to shake. "Don't do this."
But Viktor has always been a man who can't resist twisting the knife. Who sees vulnerability as an opportunity, love as a weakness to exploit.
"She begged," he says, his voice gaining strength from cruelty.
"Cried for you. Called your name as I wrapped my hands around her throat.
" He demonstrates with his free hand, fingers curling into a strangling grip, his face contorting with the memory.
"She couldn't understand why I would do it.
Kept asking 'why, Papa, why?' Like a child.
" His smile is horrible. "She was too weak to fight.
Just like you're too weak to pull that trigger. "
The words hang in the air like poison.
I watch Alina's face. Watch the tears stop. Watch something behind her eyes shift and crystallize into something harder, colder.
"Alina," I say carefully, recognizing the change. "Whatever you decide, I'm with you. But make sure it's your choice. Not his."
She doesn't respond, doesn't acknowledge me at all. Her entire being is focused on the man who gave her life, who shaped her childhood, who destroyed everything she loved.
The man who's about to learn that he's always underestimated his eldest daughter.
I watch Alina's shoulders straighten. Watch the trembling stop. Watch something fundamental shift in her posture.
"You're wrong," she says, her voice steady as stone. "I'm not weak. Not anymore."
"Alina—" I start, but she's already moving.
Three shots ring out in rapid succession, the sound deafening in the narrow corridor, each one precise, controlled, placed exactly where Sergei took his fatal wounds. Center mass. Right over the heart.