CHAPTER 317

CHAPTER 317
ALEXANDER

I walked downstairs to find Vincent, Dante, and Leo waiting for me at the landing. I nodded once and kept moving toward the basement door. They fell into step behind me without a word.

“He’s lost too much blood,” Vincent said, voice low.

“It doesn’t matter.” The words came out sharper than necessary. I didn’t bother softening them. Part of me still wanted to drag this out—wanted him to hurt longer, bleed longer. But somewhere in the last hour that need had burned down into something simpler.

Now I just wanted him dead.
“It’s not like he’ll be alive by the end of the day anyway,” I finished, and pushed the basement door open.

Leo shook his head, though a dark smile tugged at his mouth.

“Thank God,” Dante muttered, following me through. “I was starting to lose the will to live watching you two do this every single day. There’s only so many times I can watch the same guy get his teeth rearranged before it stops being interesting.”

“You could’ve stayed upstairs,” Vincent said.

“And miss the highlight of my week? No. I’m just saying even torture needs a season finale eventually.”

“This is the finale,” I said, not looking back.

“Finally,” Dante replied. “I was genuinely getting bored.”

Leo huffed something close to a laugh as the basement door swung shut behind us, cutting off the last of the light from the stairwell.

I walked closer to Santos.
He was on the floor, one arm twisted at an impossible angle, blood smeared across his face and the concrete beneath him. The sight was almost pathetic.

I let out a short, humourless laugh and drove my boot into his side. He groaned, low and broken, before slowly lifting his head.

Swollen eyes met mine. Hatred burned there—raw and completely useless.

It didn’t touch me. His hate didn’t even come close to what I felt for him.

I reached down, fisted a handful of his blood-matted hair, and smashed his head into the hard floor. The impact echoed. He yowled, the sound thin and weak, nothing like the man who had once thought himself untouchable.

I leaned in until my mouth was beside his ear.

“How does your body feel?” I asked quietly. “Doesn’t feel so good anymore, does it?”

A cold smile touched my mouth.
“Don’t worry. You won’t have to suffer much longer.”

I pulled back just enough to meet his eyes.
“Today, Santos, you get to rest.”

I let the words settle before adding quietly,
“A long rest.”

The color drained from his face.
He shook his head frantically. “I’m sorry… please—”

“Sorry?” The word left my mouth almost lazily.

I grabbed his chin and forced his face up until he had no choice but to meet my eyes.

“Too late.”

I held his terrified gaze for another beat, letting him see exactly how little his apology meant now.

“You should have thought about being sorry before you touched my wife.
You put your hands on my wife. You hunted her. You made her bleed. You made her afraid.” My grip tightened until he whimpered.

“And you thought you’d walk away from that?”

I drove his head into the floor once more, harder this time, then let go. He slumped, gasping, blood dripping from his temple.

I stared down at what was left of him.
“This is the part where you realise there is no way out,” I said quietly.

“No deals. No last-minute mercy. No one coming to save you.”

I tilted my head, watching the fear finally begin to replace the hatred in his eyes.

“You should have stayed away from her. That was your first mistake. You wanted her for your own filthy reasons.”

His jaw tightened. A humourless smile touched my mouth.

“But you made one very important miscalculation.”

I leaned closer. “You never counted on me falling in love with her. And you certainly never considered what a man becomes when you give him something worth losing.”

His breathing changed. I smiled.
“That was your second mistake.”

I straightened slowly. “Because this stopped being a war the moment you put your hands on my wife. Now it’s just a debt.” My eyes locked onto his. “And I’ve come to collect.”

Santos whimpered. I chuckled darkly.
“My wife is safe and alive. She is loved and still breathing.” I leaned closer. “My baby is safe.”

His swollen eyes widened. Shock flickered across his face, followed by a twisted kind of fury.

“B-baby?”

I smiled, slow and possessive.
“Yes. A baby. Mine.”

I tightened my grip on his hair until he hissed.

“And now you—” I slammed his head against the floor once more for emphasis, “—are. Dead. Meat.”

Leo stepped up beside me, wiping blood from his knuckles.

“I gave it to him plenty already,” he drawled. “Think I even heard him beg me to stop at one point.” He gave Santos another casual kick. “Can I have another go before you finish him?”

I shook my head. “No. It’s time to end this.”

Then I felt it—an intense stare prickling across the back of my neck. I knew exactly who it was before I even looked. My head snapped up toward the top of the stairs.

Alina stood there. Watching. My heart slammed against my ribs.

“What the fuck are you doing down here?” I was already moving, taking the stairs two at a time.

She didn’t flinch. Her eyes lingered on Santos’s broken form for a second longer before she finally turned to me.

“I missed you,” she said simply.

I stopped two steps below her, staring up at her like she’d lost her mind.

“Missed me?” I repeated, “Fuck, wife—do you have to keep giving me these heart attacks? Next time just shoot me in the head and save us both the trouble.”

Behind me came a suspicious cough that was definitely Leo trying not to laugh. Dante and Vincent weren’t doing much better.

Alina’s brows lifted, pure unimpressed sarcasm written across her face.

“Wow. So dramatic. I walk down a few stairs and suddenly you’re writing your will. Next time I’ll send a formal request. Maybe book an appointment. Wouldn’t want to inconvenience your delicate heart.”

I stared at her, torn between wanting to kiss her, strangle her, and lock her in a room with no stairs for the next year.

“You were supposed to be resting,” I said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “In bed. Upstairs. Somewhere that isn’t an active crime scene. You know—the kind with a half-dead man bleeding on the floor and three witnesses trying not to laugh.”

Alina completely ignored the crime-scene commentary.

“Alexis told me something,” she said instead, quieter now. “And I just… I wanted to see you.” Her eyes held mine. “And tell you I love you.”

Alexis. What the fuck did she tell her.

Behind me, Leo let out a long, suffering sigh.
“Truly beautiful,” he muttered. “Nothing says romance like a confession next to a half body. Perfect timing, really.”

I didn’t even turn around.
“Fuck off, Leo.”

Alina’s mouth twitched like she was fighting a smile, but her gaze stayed on me—steady, stubborn, and completely unapologetic for having come downstairs in the first place.

She stepped closer, voice dropping but still perfectly calm.

“After the story I just heard from Alexis, the only thing I want to do right now is drag you upstairs and obey every word that comes out of your mouth,” she said dryly.

“But first, I want to see you finish this.”
Her gaze shifted to Santos.

“I want to watch my nightmare end. This man has crawled under my skin for as long as I can remember. He scared me. He came after me. He tried to take everything from me.”

Her voice steadied. “So no. I’m not going anywhere.”

She looked back at me, one brow lifting.
“You’re just going to have to deal with me standing right here while you clean up the mess.”

A faint smile touched her lips.
“Consider it moral support.”

I stared at her. “Your version of moral support is deeply concerning, wife.”

“I know.”

She shrugged. “But you married me anyway. And before you start arguing, husband, save your breath. I’ve already decided.”

I stared at her. “What about the baby?”

“What about the baby?”

“You don’t think there’s something slightly concerning about my pregnant wife watching me kill a man in a bloody basement? It might traumatise the baby.”

Her mouth twitched. “Our child isn’t even born yet. It can’t see anything. It doesn’t have functioning eyes. It’s the size of a lime.”

“That’s not the point.”

“I promise it’s not in there taking prenatal notes on your little revenge plot, Alexander. It doesn’t even know what a plot is. Or a basement. Or you, for that matter.”

“That doesn’t make this better.”

“Alexander—”

I exhaled slowly through my nose, the fight already lost and both of us knowing it.

“You’re going to be the death of me,” I said under my breath.

Alina’s mouth curved, just slightly.
“Probably. But not today.”

The darker part of me wanted her to see it—the revenge. The blood, the ruin, exactly what I was willing to do for her.

The other side, the one that only existed because of her, wanted to shield her from every drop of it.

She started down the stairs anyway.
I followed immediately, pulling her back against my chest, arms wrapping around her from behind, careful of her still-recovering body. My mouth found her ear.

“You really shouldn’t be here.”

She tipped her head back just enough to look at me. Then she rose onto her toes and brushed a soft, deliberate kiss against my lips.

“But I want to be.” she whispered.

I almost smiled. Fuck. She really was my queen.

I kept her close as she carefully bent down to Santos’s level. My body stayed right behind hers, every muscle coiled, ready to drag her back if he so much as twitched. The possessive surge that hit me at seeing her this close to him was almost violent.

Alina grabbed his bloodied face and forced his head up so he had no choice but to look at her. He grimaced in pain but didn’t dare move.

She leaned in, voice calm, almost conversational—and dripping with the kind of sarcasm that could cut glass.

“You know,” she said softly, “for someone who spent so long trying to be the monster under my bed, you look surprisingly pathetic on the floor. All that obsession, all that planning… and this is what it got you. Broken. Bleeding. Completely irrelevant.”

She tilted her head, studying him like he was something unpleasant stuck to the bottom of her shoe.

“I used to have nightmares about you. Now I just feel sorry for whatever empty little life led you here.” Her grip on his face tightened slightly.

“You never stood a chance. Not against him.”

She released him with a quiet sound of disgust and straightened, stepping back into the solid wall of my chest.

I wrapped my arm around her waist and pulled her up against me. She turned in my arms and smiled—small, steady, completely unafraid.

“I need to see it for myself,” she said quietly. “I need to watch my nightmare end. Do what you have to do, Alexander. I’ll be right here.”

She stepped out of my embrace and took a measured step back, giving me space without leaving.

I looked at her for one long second, then turned toward Santos.

The warmth vanished.
The patience disappeared.
There was only one thing left to do.
End the fucking bastard.

And then get my wife back into bed before she gave me an actual aneurysm.