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To be totally honest, I could not do this all night. I had to get back to my wife. I knew that once I got back, she was going to give me an earful.
I didn’t care.
At least I knew that she was safe in my care. I trusted my men, unlike her useless excuse of a protector. But I was surprised he had given up his role so easily. Men like Dimitri were not quick to admit their faults. I knew this because I was the same. I would much rather chew on rusted nails than to admit that I had made a mistake.
Valerio walked up to the guy with his bloodied pliers which he had used to ‘manicure’ Alexander’s hands.
“This could all end, Alexander. Just give us the name and we may let you live.”
Alexander gasped for air, the breath in his lungs not enough for his system. “I am not foolish enough to think that you will let me live. Whether I speak or not doesn’t change my fate.”
He was annoyingly smart. Unfortunately for him, death would only come to relieve him of his pain once he gave me what I wanted.
“Speak.” I jostled his head about a little. “It disgusts me how you Russians have no respect for the code. Your boss disrespected the order of things and he paid with his empire. Have you people got no shame?”
I released his head from my grasp and stepped back. I walked over to the table of tools and searched for my desired weapon of choice. My eyes skimmed over the various daggers, pliers and… a spoon? I lifted it and looked over my shoulder at where my brother stood.
“The spoon?”
“You said you wanted to make it hurt. Nothing hurts more than being stabbed with a spoon,” he answered like it was obvious. To this day, it astounded me how my brother’s mind worked. He was a man of few words, but when he did speak it was always with intention.
I opted for the dagger that resembled the one my wife always carried around. Seeing as she could not be here, I would deliver the kill with a weapon similar to hers.
“Alexander, I don’t have all day. You can either speak, or you will lose some more fingers. Or maybe my brother could pull out your teeth, this time?” I walked back to where I had been standing, and Valerio gave me the space I needed. “Tell me where Vladimir is.”
Alexander held my gaze, the stubborn resolve in them still holding strong. “It wasn’t Vladimir who came after your wife. And it wasn’t him who killed your in-laws.”
“I hate liars, you know?” I knocked his exposed thigh with the point of the knife. “Why don’t we try this again, shall we? Where is Vladimir.”
Alexander let out a low, pained, and humorless laugh. His face dripped with blood and sweat. He was teetering on the edge of death, but I held him on the other side just enough to keep him present.
“Don't make me ask again, Alexander,” I sighed. I pressed the knife just above his spleen in the small gap between his stomach. “Where is your boss?”
“The person you’re looking for isn’t a man of different blood, Andres. In fact, the man you seek runs through your very DNA.” His eyes cut to me with a dead stare. “The snake never entered your garden; it had always been there.”
No. This couldn’t be.
“It’s ironic, Andres.” He spat the blood from his lips and looked up at me with stained teeth. “Your father was the one who gave the order for their kill. He… he was the one who initiated all of it. The takeover, the downfall of Antonio. It was all part of the plan. Even your marriage.”
“What?” Valerio made himself known in the corner of the room. “What bullshit are you spewing, old man?”
Alexander threw his head back and laughed maniacally. He settled and the blood in his mouth mixed with his saliva as it trailed down the corners of his lips. “Your father planned all of this. Vladimir simply took the backseat. The executions, the wedding, even the explosion. It’s all a part of his big plan to become King.”
My blood turned to ice in my veins. The sharp crystals pierced my arteries, letting the blood run loose from my system.
Surely, I had heard him wrong.
I drove the knife deeper into his abdomen, the blood sputtering from his mouth. But even on the brink of death, the man still smiled maniacally at me, like a deranged human. His eyes grew wider as the knife dug in deeper. With each breath he took, the blade sliced through his organs millimeter by millimeter.
“You cannot protect her…” he wheezed out. His last breaths escaped his lips roughly. “She will pay… for… for… the sins of her father.”
“Shut the fuck up.” I withdrew the knife in fluid motion and then sliced his throat clean. I watched as blood gushed from his artery. His eyes went wide as I watched him take his final breaths.
Valerio’s steps echoed against the concrete walls of the building, until he came to stand beside me. My eyes were still trained on Alexander, his chest rising and falling one last time before all the life drained from his eyes.
Blood pooled under our shoes. The confession still hung in the air like a pungent odor. The dots had finally been connected, and yet I still could not fully comprehend what I had just been told. Surely there had to have been a mistake. He was lying, he had to have been. There was no way that my father… the man who had drilled that very code this man has said he’d gone against into my mind would… no.
“It makes sense, Andres.” The graveness in my brother’s tone told me that he too was struggling to come to terms with the news. “Lucky was at the compound.”
