Chapter 289

ALEXANDER

The road felt endless. I sat in the passenger seat with my jaw locked so tight it ached, eyes fixed on the stretch of asphalt disappearing under our headlights.

Leo drove in silence, both hands on the wheel, the speedometer needle pushed far past the limit.

Behind us, ten black SUVs followed in perfect formation. My men. Every one of them armed. Every one of them ready.

Every mile felt like it took too long. Every second that passed was another second Alina was alone with that bastard.

My phone vibrated against my thigh. Unknown Number.

I almost declined the call without a second thought. Then something cold settled in my gut.

Instinct. The kind that had kept me alive for years. Without thinking, I unlocked the screen. An image began to load.

The moment it cleared, the air left my lungs. Alina. She was sitting on a cold stone floor, heavy steel restraints locked around her wrists, the chains disappearing out of frame.

Dried blood streaked one side of her face, caked against her temple and cheek, while fresh bruises bloomed across her skin.

Her body was tense, twisted awkwardly against the restraints, as though she'd been trying to pull away the instant the picture was taken.

And then I saw his fucking hand. It was clamped over the pussy, his fingers digging into the fabric of her underwear, right between her legs.

He wanted me to see it. He wanted me to know exactly what he was doing—exactly how powerless he thought I was.

My grip tightened around the phone until the casing groaned beneath my fingers, my knuckles bleaching white with the force.

Santos was sending a message, not with words, but with a photo of his hand on her fucking pussy, an obscene declaration of ownership.

Rage tightened my chest until I could barely breathe; every part of me wanted to make him pay. He'd just signed his own fucking death warrant.

The phone was shaking, and it took me a second to realize it wasn't the device — it was my own hand.

Anger had been sitting in my chest like a low fire ever since they'd taken her, constant, manageable, something I could work with.

But now, I was raging. There's a big fucking difference between anger and fury.

Anger is enough to make someone go insane. But fury, it makes people psychotic. And that was exactly how I felt.

I was past making sense. I no longer felt anything except deep loathing and fury. Nothing else mattered. The little humanity left inside of me was gone the instant I laid eyes on the photos in my hands.

“Boss?” Leo’s voice sounded distant, barely cutting through the roar of blood in my ears.

I didn’t answer. My eyes stayed locked on the screen, every detail of the photograph burning itself into my memory.

“Boss, what the fuck are you looking at?” he asked again, sharper this time.

“Santos…” The name came out rough, scraped raw from my throat.

“That sick bastard sent me a photo.”

I turned the phone toward him.

Leo’s eyes flicked to the screen. For a second he said nothing. Then his hands tightened so hard around the steering wheel his knuckles went white.

"That filthy fucking animal...I'm going to fucking cut his dick off and feed it to him,"

The engine roared as he buried his foot deeper into the accelerator, the speedometer climbing higher.

"NO. HE. IS. MINE. TO. KILL." Each word came out separate, deliberate, carved out through a jaw clenched so tight it ached.

"My hands are going to be the last fucking thing that bastard ever sees. Not a bullet from across a room. Not one of you doing me a favor. Mine."

I looked back down at her, at what he'd done, at the fear frozen on her face in that image, and something in my chest cracked open wide enough to swallow whatever humanity had been living there.

"No one touches my wife and lives to tell the story."

I threw the phone out the fucking window. I didn't care where it landed, didn't care if it broke into a thousand pieces. I just needed it out of my hands, out of my sight, before it burned the last of my restraint down to nothing.

"Hold on, wife," I whispered into the darkness, my voice raw with a promise I would die before breaking. "I'm coming."

Every muscle in my body was drawn taut with a single, lethal purpose. Find Santos. Find Alina. End this.

"When I find him..." My fingers flexed slowly against my thighs, already aching to close around the bastard's throat.

"There won't be enough left of Santos for anyone to bury. No grave. No body. No trace that he ever existed. I'll erase him so completely that the only thing people remember is the mistake he made when he laid a hand on my wife."

The silence that followed was broken by the shrill vibration of Leo's phone in the center console.

The screen lit up.

VASIL DIMITRI

I stared at my father's name for a long moment before reaching over and answering the call.

"What, Dad?"

His voice exploded through the speakers before I could say another word.

"Why the fuck aren't you answering your own phone?"

I looked out the window "I lost it"

"And why the fuck wasn't I informed that your wife had been kidnapped?"

I leaned back in my seat, my jaw tightening. "Because I've been a little busy trying to get her back."

A dangerous silence followed. "Where are you going?"

"To bring my wife home."

"Where?"

I didn't answer. His voice hardened.

"Alexander."

"I'm on my way to an abandoned warehouse where Santos has her."

"I heard Santini gave you this location

"That's right"

"Have you completely lost your fucking mind?" he barked.

"Arthur Santini is a fucking rat," he spat. "You really think a man like him suddenly grows a conscience and decides to help you? He's not giving you information out of loyalty, Alexander. He's giving you exactly what you want because he knows you're too desperate to question it."

His voice hardened. "He could be feeding you a lie. He could be sending you straight into a slaughterhouse with Santos sitting there, waiting for you to walk through the door."

I let out a quiet, humorless laugh. "Good."

"..Good?"

"If Santos is stupid enough to stay there and wait for me, it'll save me the trouble of hunting him down afterward."

"Stop talking like an angry husband for five bloody minutes and start thinking like the Mafia Don you are."

"I am."

"No, you're not." His voice turned colder. "You're acting on emotion. Charging in with a convoy and enough firepower to start a war. That's not strategy. That's desperation."

"I don't care."

"I know you don't." He exhaled sharply. "And that's the problem." His tone dropped, disappointment replacing anger.

"I warned you not to fall in love. I told you what it would do to you. Love creates weaknesses. It clouds judgment. It makes powerful men predictable."

A quiet laugh left me. Not because it was funny. Because it was the same tired belief I had heard my entire life.

"I thought you were stronger than I was," he continued, his voice edged with disappointment.

"Stronger than every Dimitri before you. Clearly, I was mistaken."

A slow smile touched my mouth.

"You know what's funny?"

"What?"

"You still don't understand the difference between weakness and strength."

I looked at the convoy reflected in the side mirror, the black vehicles moving behind us like a shadow that refused to let me go alone.

"You think having something to lose makes a man weaker. It doesn't."

My fingers tightened around the phone.

"Before Alina, I fought because I had to. I protected this empire because it was my duty. I destroyed enemies because it was expected of me."

My voice lowered. "But now?"

I glanced down at the ring on my finger.

"Now I fight because there is someone waiting for me to come home."

A bitter laugh left me. "You spent your entire life believing the strongest man is the one who feels nothing. The one who can't be hurt. The one who stands alone."

I shook my head. "That's not strength. That's just emptiness."

The silence on the other end grew heavier. "Love didn't make me weaker, Dad."

My voice hardened. "It gave me a reason to become something far more dangerous."

I looked ahead at the road stretching into the darkness. "Because a man with nothing to lose is reckless."

A brief silence followed. "But a man with something worth losing?"

My grip tightened. "He's unstoppable. I'm far more dangerous now, than I ever was.

Love didn't make me weak, Dad. It gave me a reason to survive. A reason to fight harder. A reason to become something far more terrifying than the man I was before."

My father didn't speak. I smiled without warmth.

"And if Santos thinks he's laid a trap..." I murmured, "...he's about to discover he built his own grave instead."

The line went quiet. Then my father sighed.

"You're an arrogant bastard."

A faint smile tugged at my mouth.

"That sounds like an insult."

"It is," he replied immediately. "But..." He paused.

"But it's also the first time I've heard you sound like a man who actually understands what real power is. You were always too focused on becoming untouchable," he continued.

"You thought being feared was the same as being respected."

His voice lowered. "I was wrong about one thing."

I frowned slightly. "What's that?"

"I thought love would make you hesitate."

A small, almost amused breath left him. "Instead, it gave you a reason to move faster."

The corner of my mouth lifted.

"Don't get sentimental on me, Dad. It's disturbing."

A low chuckle came through the phone.

"Don't ruin the moment."

The amusement faded, replaced by something more serious.

"You are still walking into danger. You are still putting yourself at risk. And I still think charging in without a plan is the most reckless thing you've ever done."

"Good to know you still have faith in me."

"I do." The words came without hesitation. And somehow, that meant more.

"Because the man who would burn the world for his wife is far more dangerous than the man who only protects his throne."

I stayed silent. Then he added, his voice carrying a rare note of pride.

"You are my son, Alexander. Not because you inherited my name or my empire."

A pause. "Because you became stronger than I ever was."

My grip loosened slightly around the phone.

"Bring her home son." His voice turned cold again—the voice of the man who built an empire.

"And when you find Santos..." A dangerous edge entered his words.

"Remind him why the Dimitri name is feared."

"I will."

I checked the tracker again.

The blinking dot hadn't moved.

My jaw tightened.

"Leo, stop driving like you're taking your grandmother to Sunday lunch. We're losing time."

Leo didn't even glance at me. His eyes stayed locked on the road.

"I'm going as fast as I fucking can."

"It isn't fast enough."

His hands tightened around the steering wheel. "We're already pushing the limit."

"I don't remember asking for the limit."

He didn't argue.

He just pressed harder on the accelerator, and the convoy surged forward into the darkness.

"Status."

"Eighteen minutes," Leo replied.

"Too long."

"It's the fastest route."

"Find a faster one."

"There isn't one."

I looked at him.

"Make one."

Before he could answer, the radio crackled.

"Dante here."

"Talk."

"Scouts are in position. Roads ahead are clear."

"Any movement near the compound?"

"Nothing yet."

I looked back at the tracker.

Still there.

Still waiting.

"Almost there," Leo said quietly.

I stared through the windshield at the darkness ahead.

Closer.

She was somewhere beyond it.

And whether Alina believed I would find her or not didn't matter.

I had promised her I would.

Alexander Dimitri had broken many things in his life.

Promises to his wife were not one of them.