Page 32 of Crystal Veil (Rostov Bratva #2)
“Don't insult me,” I reply, my voice cold as arctic wind. “You tried to kill her and my child. The same way you killed all the mudaks you’ve ever caught in your web and discarded without a second thought.”
The words echo with the chill of absolute judgment.
Her eyes glint with something that might be surprise, or perhaps calculation about how much I know.
There can be no negotiation, no plea bargaining, no appeals to mercy.
Some lines cannot be crossed without consequences, and Celine crossed that line the moment she decided to add Elena to her list of victims.
“Please, Renat, please,” she begs, but even now, even facing death, I can see her mind working, searching for the angle that might save her. “I didn't mean to hurt anyone. I swear. I never wanted Elena harmed. I just...”
“Just wanted to be important,” Bennato snarls from where he's kneeling, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. “She sold you out for a taste of power. And now she begs like a bitch.”
His words are cruel but incomplete. Bennato doesn't know the full truth about what Celine is, doesn't understand that he's nothing more than her latest mark.
She chose him not for love or even attraction, but for his connections, his power, and his usefulness in expanding her network of potential victims. Celine's betrayal wasn't born of loyalty to him or hatred of me, but from a calculated decision that Elena posed a threat to her carefully constructed empire of seduction and murder.
Celine turns on him, her eyes blazing with sudden fury that reveals the predator beneath the mask. “You bastard! I should have killed you when I had the chance!”
The words hang in the air like a confession.
She's revealed more than she intended and confirmed what I already suspected about the true nature of their relationship.
She's been planning Bennato’s death from the moment she entered his bed, just as she planned the deaths of all the others. The only question was timing.
Bennato laughs, a sound devoid of humor or warmth, still oblivious to how close he came to joining her list of victims. Celine’s expression hardens with cool deliberation, gauging whether vulnerability or rebellion will buy her more time.
She drops to her knees, crawling to me across the plastic sheeting, grasping at my leg with fingers that have mixed poison into wine glasses and signed death certificates with false names.
“Please, Renat,” she sobs, but there's still something too controlled about her desperation. “I'll disappear. You won't ever see me again. Just don't kill me.”
I stare down at her, remembering the way Elena looked after being poisoned.
Pale as death, her skin clammy with sweat, fear dancing in her eyes as the toxin worked its way through her system.
The doctor claimed she would survive, but I watched machines monitor her vital signs for seventy-two hours, waiting to see if the woman I love would be taken from me by this creature's cruelty.
She chose to put Elena at risk as part of a larger pattern that has left six wealthy men dead, and their fortunes mysteriously transferred to accounts she controls.
She doesn't deserve mercy or the quick release of death.
She deserves something far more appropriate to her crimes.
I give a silent nod to Roman, and he steps forward, eyes like stone. “Put her on the jet to Nizhny Tagil.”
Roman's eyebrows lift slightly, but he doesn't question the order.
He knows what Nizhny Tagil represents and what fate awaits Celine in that forgotten corner of the Russian Urals.
The workhouse in the mountains where women with no names and no futures spend their days stitching uniforms for the Russian military.
No phone calls, no visitors, no hope of escape.
Just gray concrete and endless labor until death provides the only release.
“Renat,” she sobs, but even now I can see her mind working, wondering if this is truly the end or just another game to be played. “No! Please!”
I don't allow emotion to soften my resolve. “You want obscurity? You've earned it. No more wealthy marks. No more poison. No more death, except your own…eventually.”
She screams as Roman and Viktor drag her out, her voice echoing off the walls as she kicks and claws and cries for mercy that will never come.
Her designer heels scrape against the concrete, leaving marks that will soon be cleaned away along with every other trace of her presence.
Bennato watches without sympathy, still unaware how close he came to becoming another one of her victims.
“Weakness always cries,” he observes, his voice steady despite the blood that continues to seep from his split lip.
“So does pain,” I reply, turning my full attention to him.
He smirks, blood-stained teeth gleaming in the fluorescent light. “You think you're better than me? You think you can clean the streets with blood and call yourself a savior? We're the same, Rostov. Just different accents.”
His words are designed to wound, make me doubt myself, and suggest that there's no moral distinction between his actions and mine.
It's a common tactic among men facing death, this attempt to drag their executioner down to their level, to suggest that we're all equally guilty of the sins that brought us to this moment.
“No,” I hiss. “You use people. I protect mine.”
The distinction is important, as it is fundamental to how I understand myself and my role in this world.
Bennato builds his empire through exploitation and betrayal, using people until they're no longer useful and then discarding them like broken tools.
I build loyalty through protection, through showing my people that their well-being matters more than profit, that their lives have value beyond their utility to the organization.
I roll up my sleeves, the movement familiar and ritualistic.
The tools await on the steel table, arranged with precision.
Pliers for gripping and pulling. A blowtorch for cauterizing and burning.
Steel rods of various sizes for purposes I prefer not to contemplate in advance.
Nikolai steps forward, handing me a pair of heavy leather gloves designed to protect my hands from the heat and blood that will soon flow.
“This is justice,” I declare quietly. “For Elena. For my child. For every life you tried to destroy.”
The words are more than explanation, more than justification.
They're an acknowledgment that what I'm about to do transcends mere revenge. Bennato’s actions have consequences that ripple outward, affecting innocent people who never chose to be part of this world.
Elena didn't ask to be targeted, didn't deserve to be poisoned, didn't merit the terror she experienced.
Someone must answer for that suffering and pay the price for the chaos that was unleashed.
Then I get to work. Bennato is a hard man, accustomed to violence, experienced in both giving and receiving pain.
He doesn't break easily or beg immediately.
It takes an hour before he begs when the pain becomes unbearable, then screams when begging fails to provide relief, then goes silent when even screaming becomes too much effort.
Bone cracks under pressure. Flesh tears under heat.
Blood pools on the plastic sheeting, dark and thick.
I work methodically and professionally, taking no pleasure in the task but recognizing its necessity. This is not sadism but surgery, the careful excision of a cancer that threatened to destroy everything I hold dear. Bennato chose his path long ago. Now he faces the consequences of those choices.
When I finally sink the blade into his throat, it's with the knowledge that he'll never threaten another person I love.
The light fades from his eyes slowly, reluctantly, as if he's unwilling to release his grip on life even at the end.
His blood stains the plastic, a crimson testament of his crimes.
Roman and Artur move in to clean the mess. They know how to dispose of bodies, eliminate evidence, and ensure that Francesco Bennato simply disappears from the world without a trace. By morning, the warehouse will be empty and clean, ready for whatever legitimate business purposes it might serve.
I walk outside into the humid night, the breeze off the water brushing against my sweat-slick skin.
The air tastes of salt and possibilities that didn't exist an hour ago.
The stars glimmer above the port, indifferent and distant, bearing witness to the violence below without judgment or condemnation.
Nikolai joins me a moment later, his movements quiet and respectful. He lights a cigarette with steady hands, inhales deeply, and exhales slowly into the night air. The smoke drifts upward, dissipating in the darkness like the soul of the man we've just executed.
“It's done,” he observes, his voice carrying satisfaction and finality.
“Not yet. There's one more loose end,” I reply.
His hand freezes halfway to his mouth. I pluck the cigarette from his fingers, take a slow, deliberate drag, then flick it into the water. The embers hiss and vanish beneath the surface, swallowed whole by the dark.
Tomorrow, I deal with the last betrayal, the one that cuts closest to my heart. Sergey. The reckoning is coming, and when it arrives, it will be swift and absolute.