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I move through the wreckage—shattered glass, blood-slick tile, the stench of gunpowder clinging to the air—until I reach him.

Alex.

He’s holding Luca upright, one arm braced around him like its instinct. His chest rises and falls in steady, measured breaths, but his eyes...they’re darker than I remember. Distant.

He looks up when I stop in front of him. No smile. No relief. Just the quiet intensity that’s always surrounded him like a second skin. Only now, it feels heavier. Sharper. Like the edges inside him have finally cut through to the surface.

“You stayed alive,” I say softly. My voice cracks before I can stop it. “You kept him safe.”

Alex doesn’t flinch, doesn’t look away. “I did what I had to do.”

He transfers Luca into my arms, careful, efficient. But I feel it—something in him falter. Just for a second.

“I brought him back,” he says.

But he doesn’t finish the thought. He doesn’t need to.

At what cost?I see the rest of it in his eyes. The ghosts. The shift. Whatever lines he hadn’t crossed before, he’s crossed them now—and there’s no coming back from it. Not for him. Maybe not for any of us.

I study him in the silence that follows. He looks the same. Same scars. Same cold, steady calm. But the man I once knew—the one who watched the world from a distance, always holding something back—is gone.

What’s left is something colder. Quieter. And I don’t know if he even realizes it yet.

I press a kiss to Luca’s temple and look toward the bloodied figure crumpled at the edge of the altar.

“He’s ready for you,” I say, meaning Mikhail. But I’m not really looking at him. “He’s ready for The Butcher.”

I’m looking at Alex. At what he’s become.

And I wonder if this was always inevitable.

“As far as anyone needs to know, yes.”

Luca’s fingers tighten on my arm, sudden intensity flashing across his battered face. “I need to know he can’t hurt us anymore, Vesper. I need to be sure.”

I pull him closer, my lips brushing against his ear. "He'll wish he were dead by the time Alex is finished with him. He will extract every piece of information we need about his organization, every person still in captivity, every family waiting for justice."

A shudder runs through Luca's body, part relief and part horror at what I'm implying. "And then?"

“That’s for you to decide,” I remark. “You are the head of our family, Luca. It’s your call.”

Luca's hand tightens around mine. "No, Vesper. It's not my call." He shakes his head, a strange mix of relief and certainty washing over his features. “I was never meant to be the head of this family. You are.”

I stare at him. “They’ll never accept me. I’m just a woman.”

“The woman who orchestrated the downfall of two crime empires in a single day.” Luca gestures at the bullet-riddled chapel, at Victor's cooling body, at our sedated grandfather. “The woman who built an army from the broken pieces our grandfather left behind.”

My throat tightens as I struggle to find words. “But you?—”

“I never wanted this,” Luca admits. “I've spent years pretending to be something I'm not. You were born for this, Vesper. Not me. Our family will be in far better hands with you leading it than me.”

I search his face for any sign of doubt, but there's only steadfast certainty in his eyes. Something shifts in his expression, a vulnerability I've rarely seen in my brother.

"There's another reason," he admits quietly, glancing briefly at Alex. "Our world, this life...it's never had room for men like me. The families will accept you with your three men far more readily than they'll ever accept who I truly am.”

All these years, the pressure on him to conform, to be the heir our father wanted. The expectation to marry, produce children, and continue the bloodline, while hiding his true self.

"Luca..." I begin, but he shakes his head.