8. The Confession
The Confession
Aleksander
Ihave been losing control for months.
Not in the ways that matter to the empire—the deals are still made, the shipments still move, the money still flows.
The machine grinds on, indifferent to the hands that feed it.
But the family—the family is splintering.
And I am the one holding the pieces together, my fingers bleeding from the effort.
I see it in Gabriel's eyes when he looks at me.
The disappointment. The quiet judgment. He's been retreating for years—into his research, his ideals, his desperate hope that he can still become something other than what I made him.
He spends his days in the greenhouse now, surrounded by his mother's orchids, pretending he can grow something beautiful in a house built on blood.
I see it in Nathan's smile when he thinks I'm not looking.
The hunger. The ambition. He's been pushing into territory I never wanted to touch—the trafficking routes, the children, the darkness that even I have lines I won't cross.
He thinks I don't know. He thinks I'm too distracted, too old, too weak to see what he's becoming.
He's wrong. I see everything. I just don't know how to stop it.
And Monika. Monika is in the middle of it all, the still point in the storm, the woman who has somehow become the axis around which my entire family revolves.
I didn't mean for this to happen. I didn't mean to fall in love with her. I didn't mean to make her mine. But I did, and now I can't unmake it. I can't let her go. I can't imagine my life without her steady hands and her steady eyes and the way she looks at me like I'm not a monster.
She's wrong. I am a monster. I've always been a monster.
But she makes me want to be something else.
I find her in the greenhouse at midnight.
It's not unusual—she's been spending more time there lately, seeking refuge among the orchids that belonged to my dead wife. I should be jealous. I should be angry. But all I feel is relief that she's found a place in this house that doesn't feel like a cage.
I'm walking the halls because I can't sleep. I've been walking them for hours, my footsteps silent on the marble, my mind racing with things I can't control. The empire. My sons. The cracks that are spreading through everything I've built.
I don't know what I'm looking for. But I find her anyway.
The greenhouse door is ajar, a sliver of light spilling into the dark corridor. I push it open and step inside, and the smell of earth and orchids washes over me—the same smell that used to cling to Elena's hair when she came in from the garden.
Monika is sitting on the bench in the corner. Her head is bowed, her hands clasped in her lap, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs.
She's crying.
I've seen her cry before—more times than I care to count. I've seen her cry in frustration, in anger, in grief. But this is different. This is the kind of crying that comes from somewhere deeper, somewhere I can't reach.
"Monika."
She looks up. Her eyes are red, her cheeks wet, her face a mask of raw anguish. She looks at me like she's seeing a stranger. Like she's seeing a monster.
"I helped him," she says. Her voice is broken. "I fixed her. And he sent her back."
I don't understand. "Who?"
"Nathan." Her voice cracks on his name. "The child. He brought me a child, and I fixed her, and he sent her back to whatever hell she came from."
I feel the blood drain from my face. "What child?"
"The one from the warehouse. The children. He's trading children, Aleksander."
She's shaking. Her whole body is trembling like she's freezing. I want to reach for her, to hold her, to tell her everything is going to be all right. But I can't. Because I don't know if it is.
"Tell me," I say. "Tell me everything."
She does.
She tells me about the middle of the night. The knocking. The black SUV with its engine still warm. The child curled up on the back seat—small, broken, covered in bruises. The broken arm. The cracked ribs. The burn on her shoulder.
She tells me about setting the bones. Cleaning the wounds. The way the child didn't cry. The way she just lay there, her eyes empty, her body still, like she'd already given up.
She tells me about the name. Tasha. The way she spoke it like a secret she'd forgotten she was allowed to keep.
And then she tells me about the morning. The empty bed. The open door. The child gone, vanished, returned to whatever darkness Nathan had pulled her from.
"Don't pretend you didn't know," she says. Her voice is sharp now, cutting. "Don't pretend you're innocent. You built this empire. You created this family. He learned from you."
I open my mouth to speak. To deny it. To defend myself. But the words don't come.
Because she's right.
I built this. I created this. I taught Nathan that power is the only thing that matters, that the world is divided into predators and prey, that the only way to survive is to take what you want and never look back.
I taught him to be a monster.
And now he's become one.
"I didn't know," I say. "Not about the children."
"Does it matter?" She stands, her eyes blazing. "You knew about the cages. You knew about the women. You knew about all of it."
"Monika—"
"Don't." She holds up a hand. "Don't tell me you're sorry. Don't tell me you didn't mean for this to happen. Don't tell me you're any different from him."
"I am different."
"No. You're not." She steps closer, her face inches from mine. "You're the same. You're all the same. Monsters wrapped in expensive suits, pretending to be human."
I feel something snap inside me.
I reach for her. Not gentle—I'm past gentle. I'm past soft. I'm past everything except the desperate need to feel something other than the guilt that's consuming me.
I fist my hand in her hair and yank her head back, exposing her throat. She gasps, that sharp little sound she makes when she's playing at resistance, and my cock twitches because I know what comes next.
"You want to call me a monster?" I drag my teeth along her jaw. "Fine. I'll be your monster."
She shoves at my chest and I spin her around, slamming her face-first against the glass wall of the greenhouse. Her palms flatten against the cold pane. Her breath fogs the glass.
"Don't," she says, but her ass presses back against me, grinding, and I can feel the heat of her through her dress.
"Don't what?" I yank up her skirt, exposing her thighs. "Don't stop?"
I see them then.
Marks. Bruises on her hips, fingerprint-shaped and dark. More on her inner thighs. A bite mark on her shoulder that was scared over.
Nathan.
Something black and violent unfurls in my chest.
"Did he do this to you?" My voice comes out wrong. Low. Dangerous.
She doesn't answer.
I slap her ass, hard enough to leave my own mark, and she cries out, arching against me.
"Did. He. Do. This."
"Yes," she chokes out.
I grab her throat from behind. Possessing. My thumb presses against her pulse point and I feel it hammering, fast and wild.
"He fucked you so hard that he covered you in bruises," I growl against her ear. "He put his hands on you. Left his marks on you."
"He—"
"I don't care." I tear at her underwear, rip the lace like it's nothing. "I don't care what he did. Because you're mine now."
I shove two fingers inside her and she's soaked. Dripping. Ready.
"You feel that?" I curl my fingers, finding that spot that makes her knees buckle. "This is mine. This has always been mine."
"Aleksander—"
"Say it." I add a third finger, stretching her, and she moans. "Say whose cunt this is."
"Yours."
I pull my fingers out and she whimpers at the loss. I undo my pants one-handed, freeing my cock, and I don't give her time to adjust. I slam into her in one brutal thrust.
She screams.
Not pain. Pleasure. That high, desperate sound I've been chasing since the moment I met her.
"That's it." I grip her hips, fingers digging into the bruises Nathan left, claiming them, covering them with mine. "Take it. Take all of it."
I set a punishing rhythm. Each thrust drives her harder against the glass. Her tits press against the cold pane, nipples pebbled and visible through her ruined dress.
"Harder," she gasps.
I yank her head back by her hair, arching her spine, and fuck her deeper.
"You want harder?" I slap her ass again, the crack echoing through the greenhouse. "You want me to fuck you like I hate you?"
"Yes—"
I wrap my hand around her throat again and this time I squeeze. Her pussy clenches around me like a fist.
"You're a monster," she gasps. "You're a monster, and I hate you."
"I know." I tighten my grip on her throat. "I know, baby. Keep talking. Tell me how much you hate me. Tell me how much you hate my cock thrusting into you."
She claws at the glass, leaving smears on the cold surface. Her hips rock back to meet every thrust, meeting me stroke for stroke.
"I hate you," she says again.
"Say it again."
"I hate you."
I pull out and spin her around, lifting her by the thighs, and she wraps her legs around my waist as I drive back into her. Face to face now. Eye to eye.
"Again," I demand.
"I hate you, Aleksander. I hate you, I hate you, I hate—"
I kiss her.
Not gentle. Teeth and tongue and desperation, swallowing her words. She bites my lip hard enough to draw blood and I groan, tasting copper.
"Fuck," I breathe against her mouth. "You're perfect."
She claws my back, nails raking lines of fire down my spine, and I feel the skin break. I don't care. I want her marks on me. I want to wear her violence like a brand.
"Call me a monster again," I growl.
"Monster—"
I fuck her harder, pinning her against the glass, my hand back on her throat.
"You're all monsters," she says, but her voice is breaking, her eyes rolling back.
"I know. I know, baby. And you love it."
I feel her start to tighten around me, that flutter that means she's close.
"Come for me," I command. "Come on my cock. Show me who you belong to."
"Aleksander—"
"Say it. Say my name when you come."
She shatters.
"ALEKSANDER—"