Page 138 of Fallen Empire

“When I get past the wall Westbrook built around her bank accounts, I still want his head. Because he took something from me. Stripped me of everything I was building. I was on the rise. And he made sure I fell.”

He was unraveling. A man who once held power—hell, probably still did—but it wasn’t enough. For someone like Aleksei, it never would be. Even if he owned every bankaccount, every property, every piece of paper soaked in ink and signatures… he wouldn’t stop.

I knew what was happening to him. I saw it for what it was. Saw it at face value.

I’d spent my entire life learning to read between the lines, trained to catch what people weren’t saying out loud. It’s what made me good at my job. They’d promise me they wouldn’t make a situation worse—the clients, the CEOs, the political figures I’d cleaned up after—and I’d know, without question, that they would. So I’d adjust the strategy. Rework the timeline. Get ahead of the explosion before the first match ever struck.

And Aleksei? I didn’t need to see him to know someone had their hand pressed firmly against his throat.

But whoever it was, they weren’t letting go. I was certain now that this went beyond Jaxson. And whoever was still out there, they wouldn’t stop, even if Aleksei took us all out of the game.

Aleksei didn’t just want control. He wanted ownership. Of people. Of lives. Of choices. Like we were all just puppets in his theater of chaos.

But in reality, he was nothing more than a marionette now. Strings tied to his hands and feet, dangling at the mercy of whoever held the wood above him and decided which way he moved.

And somehow, though I still didn’t fully understand how, Jaxson had taken that from him.

We thought Savannah was the target. But after today, after hearing his fury slip past the polished mask twice, I knew better.

When the speaker finally cut out, the silence that followed felt deafening. But my thoughts didn’t stop. They pressed in, tighter than ever, filling every inch of my brain with a single truth:

He was worse than we thought.

Not just a criminal. Not just some shadowy figure tied to Bruce’s empire.

Aleksei Koslov was sick. Strategic. The kind of man who didn’t just crave control, he took pleasure in watching people break.

And Savannah had survived a man just like him.

The man who once vowed to love her was one ofthem.

One of these monsters.

And suddenly, I wondered just how bad it had really been.

What parts she’d left out.

What details she’d buried to protect me—from him, from her memories, from the truth.

She shouldn’t have had to carry that alone.

None of us should.

For now, I was still breathing. Still in one piece.

But the damage had already started.

I glanced at the woman that was laying in the middle of the floor once again and swallowed hard. If I didn’t get out soon, I wasn’t sure how much of me would be left to save.

Chapter 28

Savannah

I felt the pain medication already kicking in, but it didn’t even begin to dull the agony coursing through my body. Every step was a reminder I wasn’t ready for this. My ribs ached with each breath, my legs burned, and my stitches pulled under the thin fabric of my shirt.

I was already regretting not telling Jaxson my plan, but I knew he’d never let me be part of this. And I’d be damned if I was going to sit back when I was the reason she’d been taken.

The building loomed ahead of me, a decaying skeleton against the night sky. 45 Park Place. The windows were black, many shattered, like the place itself had been watching horrors for years and finally gone blind. Crumbling brick bled into stained concrete, the air around it thick with the stench of mildew, rust, and something older… something rotting deep inside. Even from here, it felt like the building was breathing. Exhaling the kind of silence that swallows screams whole.