Page 2

The rain hasn’t stopped in hours. It cuts sideways across the windshield, thin and sharp, washing the world in silver and shadow. The road below is slick with oil and mud, the curves carved into the mountain like they were designed to punish cowards.

Richard Carter is not a coward, but he is desperate.

The taillights of his car vanished minutes ago, swallowed by the fog, but I don’t need to see them to know where he’s going.

I know every turn. Every bluff. He’s trying to get to the helipad near the cliffs, the one his people keep off the books.

As if escape is still an option. As if there’s any world left where he gets to walk away.

I’ve waited ten years for this. Ten years of digging, bleeding, killing, enduring, building myself into something hard enough, cold enough, patient enough to reach this moment.

Carter thought he could erase what he did.

The black muscle car hugs the road as I take the next bend, tires spitting up water, engine growling low. The headlights sweep across twisted trees and guardrails until—there. Just ahead. A burst of red. The gleam of wreckage.

His car is upside down, glass shattered across the pavement, smoke leaking from the hood in thick gray tendrils. Steam hisses as I pull up beside it, engine idling. The scene is quiet—no sirens, no movement, just the rain and the ticking metal of something freshly broken.

He didn’t make it.

Not to the chopper. Not out of the state. Not away from me.

I kill the engine, step out. The storm wraps around me like a second skin, soaking my coat in seconds. I walk slowly. No rush now.

Carter’s slumped behind the wheel—what’s left of it. His head is bleeding. A long gash runs from his temple to his jaw, and one leg is pinned beneath the mangled steel. His breathing is shallow, lips parted, eyes fluttering. Still alive, for now.

He doesn’t see me until I’m standing beside the wreck, gun already drawn.

When his gaze finally lifts and meets mine, something flickers across his face—not shock, not anger. Recognition.

Then fear.

“You….” His voice is a rasp, wet and weak. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

I crouch beside the wreck, tilt my head. “That makes two of us.”

He tries to push himself upright but only groans, the weight of the crushed frame pressing down on his leg.

I watch him struggle. I want him to feel it.

I want the realization to crawl through him bone by bone—that I have taken everything from him, that every second he’s breathing now is a mercy I can revoke.

“I warned you,” I say, calm. Cold. “Ten years ago. I told you if anything happened to him—if you so much as touched my brother—I’d come for you.”

Carter’s eyes narrow, a smear of blood running into one. “Maxim was reckless. He knew the risks.”

“No,” I say, leaning closer. “He knew you were a liar.”

The barrel of the gun rests against his forehead now. He doesn’t move. He knows I won’t miss.

I could do it. Right here. One pull of the trigger, and it’s over. I’d be done. Free.

Death is too easy. It’s an exit. An ending. Richard Carter does not deserve endings.

He deserves to live knowing the power he once clutched is gone. That his name means nothing. That his empire is dust and his bloodline—

The phone buzzes.

It’s lying just a few feet from the wreck, screen cracked but still working. I glance at it.

Incoming Call: Alina.

My eyes don’t move for a long moment. The name pulses once, then again.

Alina Carter.

I remember her. Not the girl in designer gowns and perfect makeup. The girl behind the glass. The one who always stood just outside the world she was born into, watching it with quiet defiance and too much loneliness in her eyes.

She was barely eighteen then. All sharp green stares and soft silences. Her father’s shadow. Untouchable.

Now she’s calling. Again. Five missed calls light the cracked screen as the ringing dies and starts again.

I pick it up. Watch it ring, then let it stop.

She tries again. Persistent.

My thumb hovers over the screen. I could answer. Speak her name. Let her know everything’s changed. Let her hear what her father sounds like at the end.

But I don’t.

Instead, I tuck the phone into my coat. She doesn’t need to hear this. Not yet.

Carter groans beside me. “Don’t touch her,” he rasps.

I look down at him, brows raised. “You think you get to tell me what to do now?”

His fingers curl into the gravel. “She’s not part of this. She doesn’t know anything.”

“That’s the problem,” I murmur. “She should, but you’re good at keeping secrets, aren’t you?”

His chest rises sharply, pain flashing across his face. “She’s just a girl—”

“No,” I cut in. “She’s your legacy. Your last move. Your last lie.”

I rise slowly, leaving him where he lies—broken, half buried in the wreckage of the future he tried to steal.

He watches me like he knows it’s the end.

Not because he’s bleeding out, or because I’ve got a gun in my hand. No. He knows it because I’m not in a hurry. I’m not breathing hard, not flinching, not shaking. That’s what breaks men like him—not the moment the bullet comes, but the moment they realize it might never come.

When they realize you’re going to keep them.

I step back from the wreck, eyes still locked on his. Then I nod once toward the shadows behind me.

“Get him in the car.”

The Bratva doesn’t travel light. Two men emerge from the dark, faceless beneath rain-soaked hoods, moving in perfect sync.

They don’t speak. They don’t need to. They drag Carter out with practiced hands, not careful, not quick, just efficient.

One yanks his arm, the other pulls his leg free from the wreckage with a sickening crack. He screams. Good.

He’s alive.

They haul him into the back of my vehicle—reinforced doors, blacked-out windows, the kind of car that disappears even when people see it. His body hits the floor with a heavy thud. His breath comes in short, wet gasps. One of the men looks at me.

“Still breathing.”

“Make sure he stays that way.”

The drive back to Carter’s estate is long and quiet. No one speaks. I keep my eyes on the road, hands steady on the wheel. Every turn is deliberate. Every mile a countdown.

Carter groans in the backseat, drifting in and out of consciousness. I don’t bother looking at him. He’s not worth watching yet.

His estate rises from the forest like something out of myth—gated, secluded, surrounded by tall trees and silence. The guards open the wrought-iron gates without hesitation. The car slips through like a whisper.

Inside, the lights are low and warm, golden against the polished stone. Not welcoming. Just theatrical.

I park beside the front entrance. The men drag Carter out, his head lolling, shirt soaked through with rain and blood. His shoes are gone, one foot twisted unnaturally. He’s shivering.

Good. Let him feel small here. Let him see what power really looks like.

They haul him through the grand foyer, all marble and chandeliers, and throw him to his knees at the center of the room.

The doors shut behind us with a heavy, echoing thud.

Carter groans again, head bobbing forward.

I walk slowly toward him, my coat dripping water across the polished floor. One of the guards steps forward, offers a towel. I ignore it.

Let the rain cling to me. Let it feel like a funeral.

Carter lifts his head. There’s blood in his eye. A tooth missing. His breathing is uneven, face pale.

“You think this makes you a man?” he rasps.

“No,” I say, unbuttoning my coat.

He tries to speak again, but I grab him by the jaw and pull him upright. His neck strains, muscles twitching under my grip.

“This is the part where you beg,” I tell him.

“I’ll never beg for you.”

“So you claim.”

I let go, and his head drops again.

Then I take the knife from my belt. Not fast. Not theatrical. Just slow and quiet, like I’ve done it before. Because I have.

The blade glints under the chandelier’s low light. Thin. Precise.

“This isn’t for answers,” I say, crouching beside him. “I don’t need them.”

He grits his teeth. “Then what the fuck is it for?”

“For Maxim.”

His face shifts. Something in his jaw locks. I press the knife into his thigh, just beneath the muscle. Deep. A twist.

Carter screams, but I don’t stop.

I lean close, speaking softly, intimately—just for him. “This is how Maxim felt before he died.”

Another slice, this one across the ribs, under the line of his suit jacket. Not fatal. Not even deep, but it makes him writhe.

“He was so young,” I murmur. “Smart. Loyal. Stronger than you ever gave him credit for.”

Blood seeps down Carter’s side, staining the floor beneath him.

“He trusted you. That was his mistake.”

Carter gasps, sagging forward. I grab a fistful of his hair and yank him upright again.

“You made him suffer. Alone. In the dark.”

“I didn’t—”

I strike him across the face with the butt of the knife. The crack of bone echoes through the foyer.

“Don’t lie to me now. Not when we both know what you did.”

He’s crying now. Not sobs, not pleading—just tears. Silent and pathetic.

I release him, let him slump to the floor like discarded trash. Blood pools beneath him, but it isn’t enough. Not yet.

I want him to live with it. I want him to wake up tomorrow and every day after that with this pain in his body and my face in his memory.

I want him to see everything he built crumble brick by brick while he’s too broken to stop it.

I stand, wiping the blade clean on his jacket. My guards say nothing. They know better.

There’s blood in the grooves of the marble, dark and thick, soaking into the cracks like it belongs there. I stare at it for a long moment, then nod toward the stairs. “Bind him to the banister.”

One of them hesitates. “Downstairs?”

“No,” I say. “Here. Let him freeze. Let him listen to this house breathe while he falls apart.”

They drag him toward the foot of the staircase—carved oak banisters and iron rails, the kind of old-world craftsmanship his kind never respected. He moans as they move him, too weak to fight, one leg twisted, one arm dangling uselessly at his side.

He tries to lift his head again, but it hangs heavy, chin smeared with blood. His suit is shredded now, soaked through, rain and sweat and red blooming together like rot.

The guards bind his wrists behind the banister with coarse rope—not zip ties, not cuffs. Rope. The kind that burns as it tightens. One loop, then another. They secure his ankles next, wrenching them back until his spine arches.

“Too tight?” one of them murmurs mockingly.

Carter doesn’t answer. He’s shaking.

The lights in the foyer are dimmed now, throwing long shadows across the floor. The fire in the hearth has gone out. No warmth. No sound except the quiet rasp of his breath.

I step back and look at him—really look. The powerful Richard Carter, stripped of everything but pain. He’s not even pleading. Just existing. Barely.

“Leave one man with him,” I say without taking my eyes off him. “He makes a noise, you make him regret it.”

“Yes, sir.”

The guard closest to the wall steps forward, nods once, and takes position near the banister, leaning against the post with his arms crossed. He’s a quiet one—Yakov. Doesn’t speak unless spoken to. Perfect for this.

The others disappear down the hallway. I turn and head into a little side room where Dima waits.

He glances up when I enter. “That was quick.”

“Wasn’t meant to be slow.”

“He looks worse than I remember,” he says, setting the glass aside. “Didn’t think age would chew through him so fast.” Dima hums. “So now what?”

That’s the question.

He pours a second drink and offers it to me. At the very least, Carter has good taste in spirits.

I take it, the burn welcome, sharp enough to draw me back into focus.

“Do we kill him?” Dima asks after a beat. “Make it clean. Or at least final.”

I stare into the glass. The answer should be easy. Kill him. Dispose of the body. Bury the last loose end.

Something itches beneath my skin. “He dies,” I say slowly, “and it’s over.”

“That’s the point, isn’t it?”

“No.” I take another sip. “The point is suffering.”

Dima leans back, eyes narrowing. “He’s already broken.”

“Not enough.”

He waits, watching me. The silence stretches. He doesn’t push. He knows better too.

“I want him to see it unravel,” I say. “Everything he built—his businesses, his name, the people who called him friend. I want him to watch it all fall. Piece by piece. While he rots in a chair somewhere with nothing left but the sound of his own breath and the weight of what he did.”

Dima nods slowly. “Base, then?”

I pause. Consider it.

The base is further inland, deeper in the woods, fortified, hidden. There’s a room there—concrete walls, no windows, a drain in the center of the floor. It’s built for ghosts.

“No,” I say. “Not yet. We’ll keep him here tonight. I’ll decide what to do in the morning.”

Dima smirks. “You always did have a taste for theater.”

“He deserves it.”

“He deserves worse.”

I finish the drink and set the glass down. “Keep the security locked tight. No movement. No calls out. If his people come sniffing—cut them down.”

“What about the girl?”

That pulls something sharp through my chest.

“She called during the drive,” I say quietly.

“Did you answer?”

“No.”

Dima’s eyes sharpen. “She’s going to find out.”

“She already knows something’s wrong.”

He tilts his head. “You want her to come here.”

I don’t respond, because I don’t know what I want.

I remember her face the night Maxim disappeared. I remember the way she stood in the corner of that gala, alone despite being surrounded, green eyes fierce under layers of silk and civility. She didn’t belong to this world, not fully. Not yet.

“She’ll come,” I say finally. “When she does… she’ll see who he really is.”

Dima grunts in agreement. “Let’s hope she’s ready.”

I leave the room before I say something I shouldn’t.

Back in the foyer, Yakov hasn’t moved. Carter hasn’t either. His head lolls forward, blood drying at the corner of his mouth. His knuckles are white where the rope bites into his wrists.

The floor beneath him is wet. From blood or piss, I don’t care.

I walk up slowly, crouch beside him again. His breath rattles. One eye opens.

“This is your legacy now,” I murmur. “Tied up. Forgotten. Weak.”

He tries to say something. His lips move, but no sound comes out.

“I want you to remember this moment. When you hear your daughter’s voice. When she looks at you and sees what’s left.”

I stand.

“You made a ghost out of my brother.” I turn toward the stairs. “Now I’m going to make one out of you.”