Chapter 296

ALEXANDER

“There is no version of tonight where you leave here on two legs — or at all. The only choice you still have is how long I stretch it out. But if that knife draws even one more drop of her blood, I will take my time with you. I will peel you apart piece by piece while you beg, and I will make sure the last thing you ever understand is that touching her was the worst mistake of your worthless life.”

Santos let out a short, shaky breath that was almost a laugh.

"You talk a big game for a man whose wife's life is currently sitting in my hands," he said, voice rough, almost amused by his own leverage.

"You want her alive more than you want me dead. We both know it. So here's what's going to happen."

His eyes flicked toward the ruined doorway, then back to me.

"You're going to lower that gun. Slowly. And then you're going to watch me walk out of here with her, and you're going to smile while you do it, because every single thing that happens to her after that depends entirely on how well you behave in the next thirty seconds."

His mouth curled, savoring it. "I could open her throat right now and be done with it. But where's the fun in that? I think I'd rather take my time with her somewhere quiet. Somewhere you'll never find. Let you spend the rest of your miserable life wondering what I did, and when, and how long she screamed before she stopped."

He tilted his head...

"So go ahead, Dimitri. Keep talking. Keep pointing that gun at me like it means something. Every second you waste posturing is a second closer to me deciding I've had enough patience for one night." His eyes glittered, cruel and pleased with himself.

"You should be begging right now. Not threatening. Begging."

"You think this is leverage." My voice came out quiet.

"You think holding a blade to her throat buys you a conversation. It doesn't. It buys you thirty more seconds of breathing, and I'm already starting to resent giving you that much."

His arm tightened around her, and I forced myself not to react to it, forced every muscle in my body still even as everything in me was screaming to close the distance.

“Shut the fuck up, and listen carefully. You’re going to get me a car. Clear path out of here. No one follows. I take her with me, and once I’m far enough away that I know you’re not on my tail, I let her go."

Sweat ran down his temple. His breathing was shallow and fast.

“That’s the deal. Anything else, and she dies in this room while you watch.”

“Let you go? So you can run off and come after her again the second you think I’m not looking? So you can keep breathing the same air as my wife after everything you’ve already done to her?”

I took one slow step closer, eyes locked on his.

“No. You don’t get a car. You don’t get a head start. You don’t get to leave this room with her, or without her. The only thing you’re walking out of here as is a body — and every second you keep that knife on her is another second I spend deciding how much of you is still going to be in one piece when I’m finished.”

"You should really listen to my husband," Alina rasped, voice wrecked but somehow still carrying that same dry edge I'd fallen for in the first place.

"He's never been great at sharing. You'd think, after the trail of bodies he left tonight, someone might've taken the hint before deciding to put their hands on me. But here we are. Guess logic isn't really your strong suit."

She held my gaze a second longer, drawing something steady out of it, then flicked a tired, almost pitying look toward Santos.

"Honestly, at this point I'm a little embarrassed for you." A weak, rasping laugh escaped her despite everything.

"You had the knife, the whole dramatic hostage moment — really committed to the bit. And you're still going to die exactly like the rest of them did tonight. Mid-sentence. Confused. Wondering where it all went wrong, right up until it's over."

“Shut up,” Santos hissed, but there was something rattled in it now, something that hadn’t been there thirty seconds ago.

“See, that’s the thing.” Her eyes returned to me, warm despite everything, despite the blade still resting against her pulse.

“He hates being told to shut up almost as much as he hates people touching me. You’ve managed to hit both in one night. Impressive, really. Terrible life choice… but impressive.”

“You think I’m bluffing?” he snarled. “I’ll do it. I’ll cut her throat right in front of you.”

“I think you’re scared,” I answered.

I took one slow step forward.

Santos jerked Alina tighter against him, the blade digging harder into her throat. A fresh bead of blood welled under the edge.

Fuck.

My hands clenched at my sides.

“Don’t move, Dimitri—”

““Let my wife go. Now.”

His eyes flicked past me to Leo, then to Dante and Vincent in the doorway.

The smirk he tried to hold onto was cracking at the edges. I could see the nervous sweat on his temple, the fine tremor in the hand that held the knife. He was scared. He was cornered. And he knew it.

“All of you,” he snapped.

“Guns. Throw them toward the entrance. Then face down on the floor. Do it, or I open her throat right here. I won’t say it again.”

For a long second I didn’t move. Every instinct screamed against it. Then I forced the words out through gritted teeth.

“Do it.”

Leo, Dante, and Vincent slowly tossed their weapons toward the ruined doorway.

The guns hit the concrete with dull, heavy sounds. I followed last, lowering my own and letting it drop a few feet away, never taking my eyes off Santos.

His shoulders dropped. The tension in his arm loosened just enough. The blade eased a hair away from Alina’s skin.

A thin, ugly smile spread across his face as he registered the empty hands and decided, for one fatal moment, that he had finally won.

That was all I needed.

I ran.

The distance between us vanished. I closed it in two hard strides, ignoring the scream of pain from my thigh, and slammed my free hand into his wrist with everything I had.

Bone cracked under my grip. The knife jerked upward and away from Alina’s throat.

She twisted hard at the same instant, driving her elbow back into his ribs the way I’d taught her months ago. Santos grunted, the blade still in his hand but no longer at her neck.

That was enough. I tore her free of his hold and shoved her behind me in one motion, putting my body between them as I drove my shoulder into his chest. We hit the concrete wall hard. The knife scraped across my forearm, opening a shallow line of fire, but I didn’t feel it. I had both hands on him now — one locked around the wrist that still held the blade, the other closed around his throat.

Santos’s eyes were wide, furious, terrified. He tried to bring the knife around again. I slammed his wrist against the wall once, twice, until the blade clattered to the floor.

Then I drove my knee up into his gut and followed it with a short, brutal punch to the side of his head. He staggered. I didn’t let him fall. I kept him pinned and hit him again.

And again. My fist connected with his jaw hard enough to snap his head sideways. Blood sprayed across the concrete. I drove another punch into his ribs, feeling something crack under my knuckles.

He tried to cover up. I tore his arms down and kept going — face, stomach, the side of his head — every strike fueled by the handprint on Alina’s cheek, the raw circles around her wrists, the hours she had spent chained in this fucking hole.

Santos slumped against the wall, gasping, blood running from his mouth and nose. I grabbed a fistful of his hair and forced his head up so he had no choice but to look at me.

“Killing you fast is too easy,” I said, voice low and almost calm. “You don’t get that mercy.”

I hit him again, hard enough that his knees buckled. I held him up by the throat.

“I’m going to do this slowly. I’m going to make you suffer until you beg me to kill you. And even then, I might not.”

He tried to speak. Only a wet, broken sound came out.

I shoved him back against the wall one last time and stepped away, breathing hard.

“Dante. Vincent. Take him,” I ordered. “Keep him breathing. I want him alive and conscious when I come for him.”

They hauled Santos up between them. He sagged, barely able to stand, blood dripping onto the concrete as they dragged him out of the room.

I turned. Alina was on her knees where Leo had finally gotten the cuffs off her. Her wrists were raw, red, and bleeding in places, her ankles no better. Leo had one arm braced around her shoulders to keep her upright.

Then she looked at me.

I crossed the room in two strides and dropped to my knees in front of her, barely registering the sharp flare of pain shooting through my injured leg.

I pulled her into my arms, holding her against my chest, like letting go for even a second, she'd disappear again.

"Fuck."

She was here. She was actually, impossibly here.

I felt her heartbeat against my chest and it was the single most important thing I had ever felt in my entire life — more than any deal I'd closed, any war I'd won, any moment that had ever made me feel more alive.

I buried my face against her hair and just breathed her in, shaking, her scent tangled underneath dirt and sweat and something metallic that made my stomach turn, but underneath all of it, still unmistakably her.

My hands were fisted so tight in the back of her shirt I was probably hurting her, and I couldn't make myself loosen them. Not yet. Not for a few more seconds.

"I've got you," I said against her hair, voice wrecked, barely holding together. "I swear to God you're safe now."

I don't know how long I held her like that — seconds, minutes I had no fucking clue.

Eventually I made myself ease back, just enough to frame her face between my palms, needing to actually see her.

The handprint on her cheek was darker up close than it had looked across the room, and something violent moved through my chest at the sight of it.

A thin cut at her throat still carried a slow, steady line of blood. Dirt streaked her skin in long smears, and bruising shadowed the bone beneath one eye, dark enough that my jaw locked just looking at it.

I brushed my thumb over her cheekbone, careful, like she might come apart under too much pressure, my eyes moving over every mark on her face like I was committing each one to memory — not because I wanted to remember them, but because I needed to know exactly what I owed Santos for.

"You're okay," I whispered, half to her, half to myself, still not fully convinced either of us believed it yet.

"You're okay. I'm never letting you out of my sight again, do you understand me Wife? Never." The word cracked somewhere in my throat.

“I missed you calling me Wife.”

“And I fucking missed you.”

Her fingers lifted weakly and curled around my wrist.

“You came.”

“Always.” I pressed my forehead against hers, closing my eyes for one brief second as I breathed her in. “I will always come for you. Every single time. Do you hear me?”

“I hear you.”

Her voice was barely there. Then I noticed her eyes. They were drifting.

“Wife?”

She blinked slowly.

“Alexander, I'm so tired…”

Her body suddenly went limp.

“WIFE!!”