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Chapter Four - Andrei

She screams like she means it. Not for attention. Not for theatrics. It’s the kind of scream that rips something loose from the inside, the sound of someone who just realized the world she knew is gone. I don’t turn around. I don’t need to.

The sound tells me everything.

She’s broken, not in the way that leaves visible cracks, but in the way that bends something deep and soft and irreplaceable.

That scream wasn’t for her father. It wasn’t even for me.

It was for the version of herself that still believed there were rules.

That someone would come running. That she was safe.

Now she knows better.

I stop in front of Richard Carter. He’s still on his knees, head tilted back, blood caked at the corner of his mouth.

He looks smaller than he did an hour ago.

Smaller than he’s ever looked. His suit hangs off his frame now, soaked through with sweat and defeat.

The silk tie, once knotted with precision, dangles loose at his chest like a noose someone forgot to tighten.

His pride is leaking out of him like blood.

His lips twitch, and for a second I think he might try to say something. But he doesn’t. Maybe he knows better now too. Maybe he understands that words won’t save him. Not from me.

Behind me, the guards shift slightly, adjusting their hold on her. One of them grunts. She must have tried to move again. I glance over my shoulder.

Alina is slumped against the wall, her eyes locked on mine.

She doesn’t speak. Her chest rises in sharp, uneven pulls, her arms still pinned by the guards, one shoulder slightly out of place.

I can see it in the angle. She fought hard.

Too hard for someone who’s never been told no.

Her dress—what’s left of it—clings to her like it’s just another trap, the shimmer of wealth wrapped around a girl who doesn’t know what safety is anymore.

I walk back toward her.

The guards tense when I approach, but I wave them off with a single flick of my hand.

They release her slowly, stepping back with the hesitation of men who have held a wild animal too long.

She sags to the floor, breath stuttering in her throat.

Her knees buckle beneath her as if her body has finally realized no one’s coming to save her.

Her hair falls into her face, damp with sweat and tears, and the diamonds at her throat still sparkle like they don’t know they’ve lost their meaning.

I crouch down to her level. My boots settle beside the torn hem of her gown. I tilt my head.

“You fought like someone who still thought she could win,” I murmur.

She glares at me. Her mouth trembles, but she says nothing. Her eyes burn with something close to hatred, but it’s not ready yet. It’s still raw. Still confused.

“Good,” I add, softer this time. “I like women with a little fight in them.”

Her lip curls, and for a second, I think she’ll spit at me. I wouldn’t stop her. I’d take it as a gift. Defiance always precedes submission. I’d rather see fire than silence. Silence is harder to shape.

She just whispers, “You won’t get away with this.”

I smile.

Not a smirk. Not a show of teeth. Just a slow, patient curve of the mouth. I want her to feel the inevitability in it.

“That line doesn’t work here,” I tell her. “You’re not in a courtroom. You’re not in a press release. There are no cameras. No statements. Just this house. Just me.”

She looks away. Her shoulders twitch like she’s about to turn her whole body with her. I grab her chin, gently but firmly, and turn her face back to mine.

“Look at me when I speak.”

She does. Green eyes glassy, defiant, cracked. There’s so much grief behind them she doesn’t even realize it’s leaking out of her.

“Everything your father built,” I say, “every deal, every lie, every piece of paper with his name on it—I will burn it. You’ll watch it happen. Inch by inch.”

She tries to pull away. I don’t let her. I want her to hear every syllable. To absorb them like bruises.

“You’ll watch until there’s nothing left of him but that blood on the floor. Even then, I’ll keep going.”

Finally, I release her. She slumps against the wall again, exhausted, trembling. Not from cold. From rage. From grief. From humiliation. All the things that crack people open. The things that hollow them out and leave them soft inside.

I rise to my feet and turn to the guards.

“Get her to the car.”

They nod, moving to lift her again.

“Don’t touch me,” she snarls. Her voice is hoarse, shredded from screaming, but it still has teeth.

“Then walk,” I say without looking back.

Outside, the car door clicks shut behind her, sealing her in like a secret.

I don’t look back right away. I listen to the rain sliding off the roof, the soft purr of the engine beneath the quiet, and the steady pulse of her breath behind the tinted glass.

Her body is folded into the corner of the seat, spine too stiff, chin lifted in practiced defiance—but her silence betrays her.

She’s rattled. Good.

I turn back to the house, stepping over the bloody drag marks where Richard had collapsed earlier.

He’s still slumped against the banister, one arm twisted unnaturally behind him, head drooping forward.

The guards haven’t moved him, not because they were told not to—but because there’s nowhere for him to go. No destination. No purpose left.

I stop a few feet from him and let the silence settle like dust.

He lifts his head slowly. One eye swollen shut. Lips split and blood-caked. “She’s not like me,” he rasps, barely audible. “She doesn’t deserve this.”

“No,” I agree. “But she’s yours. That’s enough.”

He breathes heavy through his nose, chest heaving like each breath costs him. “Don’t touch her.”

I crouch in front of him.

“I already did.”

His nostrils flare, but he doesn’t lunge. He can’t. He’s too broken. And that’s the point. I want him here—alive, humiliated, helpless. I want him to watch every trace of the world he built slip between his fingers, starting with the only thing he still thinks he has left.

“Let her go,” he breathes, wheezing through the words like they might be his last.

I reach forward and press two fingers against the split in his lip. He flinches. I drag my hand down the blood that’s crusted on his throat and smear it across the front of his ruined shirt.

“I’m not done yet,” I say.

He glares through the good eye, but it’s dimming. His will is fraying at the edges. Soon, even the rage will leave him, and all that will remain is regret.

I stand and nod toward the guards. “Patch him up. Leave him where he can rot quietly.”

Then I walk away.

I move through the house without looking at the portraits on the walls, without glancing at the rooms filled with curated perfection. All of it was arranged to impress—to project power, legacy, wealth. None of it means anything now. A hollow shell of empire. A cage built of its own illusion.

By the time I reach the car, the rain has slowed to a mist.

Dima is waiting by the passenger side, smoking lazily, his jacket soaked but his expression unreadable.

“You sure about this?” he asks.

“No.”

He doesn’t press. He opens the door for me, flicks the cigarette into a puddle, and gets in the front seat without another word.

I slide into the back beside her.

Alina doesn’t look at me. She stares out the window, jaw clenched, arms wrapped tight across her stomach like she’s trying to hold herself together. Her makeup is smeared. Her lip is trembling just enough to betray her.

“You can cry,” I say after a moment. “No one will think less of you.”

She turns her head slowly, green eyes sharp and bright and filled with disgust.

“Go to hell.”

I smile.

The driver starts the engine and pulls away from the estate. The house shrinks behind us in the rearview mirror, its lights glowing faintly through the fog like the dying embers of a fire too proud to admit it’s out.

Alina shifts slightly in her seat, angling away from me as much as the space allows. Her breathing is shallow. Controlled. But the tremor in her fingers betrays her.

“I’ll never be yours,” she says quietly.

I lean my head against the leather rest, watching her without blinking. “You already are.”

“I didn’t agree to anything.”

“You didn’t have to.”

She laughs—harsh, bitter, broken. “You think tying me up and dragging me out of my home makes you a man?”

“No,” I say calmly. “It makes me honest.”

She stares at me, furious and silent.

I let the quiet stretch.

“You were raised in a cage, Alina,” I murmur. “Polished, protected, taught to smile and obey and pretend the world was safe. That’s not the truth. Your father knew that. He just didn’t want you to.”

Her jaw tightens. She looks back at the window.

“I’m going to destroy him,” I say. “Not with bullets. Not with fire. With time. With rot. With silence. You’re going to watch every piece fall apart.”

“You’re sick.”

“No,” I correct her. “I’m focused.”

The car curves through the wet roads, deeper into the woods now, where the trees swallow light and the silence is heavier. We’re heading toward the safe house—one of several—but this one is mine. Isolated. Imposing. Hidden from the world that still thinks Alina Carter is missing, not taken.

She doesn’t speak again for the rest of the ride, but I can feel her thinking.

She’s planning something. A lie. An escape. A resistance. It won’t work—not now. But I like that she’s trying. It means the fire’s still there.

The gravel crunches beneath the tires as we pull up to the house. Not a mansion like hers—no chandeliers, no imported marble, no pointless elegance. This place is stone and steel and silence. Tucked deep into the woods, cut off from everything. Nothing gets in. Nothing gets out.

The guards open the door. Alina doesn’t move.

“Out,” I say.

She doesn’t look at me, doesn’t blink, just sits rigid and still, like she’s willing herself to disappear. The second one of the guards reaches for her, she bolts. Slams her shoulder into him, claws at the doorframe.

I’m out in a second.

She breaks free, stumbles barefoot onto the gravel, running for the tree line like she actually thinks she’ll make it.

She doesn’t.

I catch her halfway across the drive, one arm around her waist, the other gripping her wrist as she kicks and thrashes.

“Let me go!” she screams, voice raw again, nails digging into my forearm. “I’ll kill you, I swear to God—”

“You’re not going anywhere,” I growl, dragging her back toward the house.

She bites my shoulder, hard. I don’t flinch. I just shift my grip and slam her back against the side of the car. Her head snaps back once, breath knocked from her lungs.

Then I press two fingers to her neck.

One nerve. That’s all it takes.

She goes limp, and I catch her before she hits the ground.

“Bring her inside,” I say. My voice is calm. Quiet.

The guards move. The doors open, and I carry her in .