Page 183

I take it, pressing the cool fabric against my mouth, tasting copper and shame. The nightmares are getting worse, not better. It’s been months since we escaped, since Vesper reclaimed her son and brought down two empires in the process. I should be healing. Instead, I’m fracturing further with each passing night.

“Come with me.”

I nod, grateful for the distraction. Anything to escape this room with its phantom screams and memories. I swing my legs over the side of the bed, the wood floor cool against my bare feet. Alex turns his back, giving me privacy as I pull on a t-shirt and sweatpants. My fingers tremble slightly as I tie the drawstring.

We move silently through the shadowed corridors of the mansion. Alex walks slightly ahead, his massive frame somehow managing to avoid every creaking floorboard. I follow in his footsteps, trusting his path through the quiet house. Even thenight guards keep their distance when Alex moves through the halls.

Instead of heading to the kitchen where we usually sit after my nightmares, Alex leads me down a staircase I've never descended before. I hesitate at the top, my instincts flaring with warning.

"Alex, where are we going?"

He pauses, turning to face me. In the dim emergency lighting, his eyes look almost colorless. "There's something you need to see. Something I've been saving for you.”

My stomach tightens with apprehension, but I follow him down the concrete steps. The temperature drops with each step, the air growing cooler and slightly antiseptic. This isn't part of the main house, —it's something else entirely.

At the bottom of the stairs, he places his palm against what looks like a plain section of wall. A hidden scanner glows green beneath his hand, and a door slides open with a pneumatic hiss.

"What is this place?"

"A medical facility. State of the art."

We step into a sterile corridor, bright LED lights flickering on automatically as we move forward. The walls are pristine, the floor polished concrete. It reminds me of the facility where Mario kept me, and my heart rate spikes again.

"Alex, I don't like this." My voice sounds small, childlike, and fearful.

"I know." His massive hand closes gently around my wrist, his thumb finding my pulse point. "Trust me, Luca. Please."

His touch steadies the panic that threatens to consume me. I force myself to breathe as he guides me forward, past several closed doors with electronic locks, until we reach the end of the corridor. The final door is different, heavier, reinforced with what looks like blast-proof steel.

"Before we go in," Alex says, turning to face me fully, "you need to understand something. What's behind this door is my gift to you. For everything they took from you. For everything they did."

"What have you done, Alex?"

Instead of answering, he places his palm against another scanner. The heavy door unlocks with a series of clicks before sliding open.

The smell hits me first, sharp antiseptic layered with rotting flesh. My stomach clenches as Alex leads me inside.

The room is divided by a glass partition. On our side, medical monitors display vital signs—heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen levels. On the other side...

My grandfather.

Mikhail Vasilyev is strapped to a hospital bed, tubes and wires threading through his frail body, tethering him to machines that keep him hovering just above death. The man who once loomed like a shadow over my entire life is barely a shell now. sagging over sharp bones, his presence reduced to something sickly and fragile. His eyes are open, staring blankly at the ceiling with chilling awareness.

“He’s been waiting for you,” Alex says, his voice low and steady in the sterile quiet. “For three months, I’ve kept him alive. For you.”

I step closer to the glass, unable to look away from the wreckage of the man who orchestrated my torment. Mikhail’s head turns at the sound, slow and deliberate. His stare locks onto mine with unsettling clarity. Recognition flits across his sunken features, chased quickly by something that might actually be fear.

“Can he hear us?”

“Yes.” Alex moves to a control panel, pressing a button that casts sterile light across the observation room. “He can hear everything. Feel everything.”

A tremor runs through me as I press my palm to the cold surface of the glass. Mikhail’s eyes track the movement, his cracked lips parting in a soundless effort to speak. His throat moves, but nothing escapes.

“I’ve been careful,” Alex says, stepping in close enough that his presence warms my back. “Keeping him suspended right at the edge. The damage from your bullet…he would’ve bled out in minutes without intervention. I didn’t let that happen. I made sure he stayed.”

“Why?” The question tears from me, raw and aching.

“Because some debts can’t be settled with a clean death,” Alex replies. His reflection in the glass is unreadable, but there’s something alive and burning just beneath the surface. “He needed to suffer. The way he made you suffer. The way he made all of us suffer.”