Chapter 52 The man
ALEXANDER POV
The basement of the abandoned distillery smelled of damp concrete and stagnant air.
Marcus stood across from me, his face a map of scars l'd seen a thousand times. He was my
most trusted asset, the only man in this world who knew where my loyalties truly lay.
I sat across from Marcus with a glass of whiskey and listened.
"The Council is suspicious, Alexander," Marcus murmured, his voice cutting through the hollow silence.
"That's not new," | replied, in my usual flat tone.
"They've been suspicious since the day I walked away."
Marcus nodded, but his eyes were serious. “This time it’s different. They’re watching every move you make. The shipment we sabotaged last week, they’re linking it to you. They lost millions.”
I let out a dry, dark chuckle. I'd personally seen to it that the Brotherhood's last three major deals went up in flames from the inside.
my mind briefly flickering back to the night I pulled Marcus’s sister out of that trafficking ring. That act of mercy had bought me a man who would pay with his life to keep my secrets, and right now, he was the only thing keeping the Brotherhood from finding out I was the one gutting them.
Sometimes, maybe it’s okay to do a little good.
My little good gave me Marcus.
"They're suspecting you specifically for the loss," he advised.”I’d suggest you slow down. “It’s getting louder,” he said. “They’re connecting dots. Kade has been pushing for a full internal investigation.”
Kade. Their current head. A man who had built his position on the foundation of other people’s fear and called it leadership.
“How did the sabotage land?” I asked.
“Three hundred million gone,” Marcus said.
“Weapons. Pharmaceutical compounds. Two shipping routes completely burned. Their eastern operation is running at forty percent.”
Good.
The brotherhood had existed longer than most governments. Presidents sat at their table. Generals took their calls. Judges owed them favors that never expired. They moved the world’s darkest cargo through its most protected channels and called themselves untouchable.
They had been untouchable.
My parents were born into it. Their parents before them. The association passed itself down through bloodlines like an inheritance nobody asked for. I had grown up understanding that my role was not to carry guns or guard shipments. That was for men they could replace. My role was to think.
I was their mind.
Every operation, every strategy, every move the brotherhood made for twelve years went through me first. I built their systems. I identified their enemies before their enemies knew they were enemies. I mapped the fault lines in every organization they touched and told them exactly where to press.
The world revolved around information and I controlled more of it than any intelligence agency on the planet. That was not arrogance. That was simply what I was.
And I had loved it once. The power of it. The specific satisfaction of holding powerful men’s fates in my hands and deciding quietly what to do with them. I had chosen to be fully in it not because I had to but because I wanted to.
Because nothing had ever made me feel more like myself than the architecture of consequence.
Until Anastasia happened.
”I won’t be slowing down. That won’t be happening.” I said coldly.
He exhaled slowly. He knew better than to push.
“What are they saying about my wife?” I asked. “Aurora. What do they know?”
Marcus shifted slightly.
“They ran a background check,” he said. “Came back clean. Nothing. Like she didn’t exist before she became Mrs Miller.”
Because she didn’t. Not on any record they could access. I had wiped Aurora’s history the week after we married. Her name, her parents, her address, her employment history — gone. The only thing that existed about her now was Mrs Miller. That was all they would ever find.
“Continue,” I said.
“Kade thinks it’s suspicious,” Marcus said. “A woman with no past marrying you. He had a meeting about her.” He paused. “And there’s a theory going around. Kade thinks maybe your wife never died. That this is her.”
I looked at him.
“Maybe Kade needs to put the fucking drugs down,” I said.
Marcus almost smiled.
“They’re desperate to bring you back,” he continued. “Your absence is costing them. Their rivals are gaining ground. Operations that used to run clean are falling apart. They need their strategist back and they know it.”
I leaned forward, voice dropping. “That’s fantastic. Maybe if they hadn’t killed my wife, I would have taught them one or two things from afar.”
Marcus nodded slowly. “They’re ready to do anything to bring you back. They’re planning to invite you to the next summit. I’m afraid they might take the old way if you refuse again, or if they find out you’re behind their lost shipment.”
Their old ways.
Taking the most precious thing.
The thought arrived before I could stop it — Aurora.
My brows pulled together slightly, I looked at my glass.
Unbelievable.
“They can try whatever they want,” I said. “Sabotage my business. Poison my deals. Send their invitations. I’m never going back. I made Anastasia a promise the night she asked me to leave and I don’t break my promises. Not for a gun to my head. Not for anything.”
Marcus nodded slowly.
“Is that everything?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. He stood. He looked at me for a moment with something in his eyes that went beyond the transaction between us. “I want you alive Alexander. More than anything. Please be careful.”
I said nothing. At this point, my life didn't matter. But as he reached the door, I called his name.
"Marcus.”
He turned.
"Thank you."
I sat with my whiskey and let the silence settle.
Aurora.
It was getting harder to stay away from her. My obsession for her had grown deeper than I expected and I had no clean explanation for it anymore. It had started as a face I recognized on a stranger’s body. That was supposed to be the whole of it. A face. A transaction. A way of surviving a world that didn’t have Anastasia in it.
But she kept doing things.
The way she pouted when I said something to annoy her. The way she fought me with that small soft voice trying to sound tougher than she was. The way she had looked at me when I cleaned her after, like nobody had ever done something that simple for her before and she didn’t know what to do with it.
She was like a cute little round baby that the world had been unkind to and somehow still hadn’t broken. She was innocent in a way that had no business existing in my world. She didn’t know what she had walked into. She didn’t know half of what I was or what surrounded her now.
She was becoming more than a face that belonged to Anastasia and it’s killing me because I had no idea how to stop it. Or should I say I don’t want to stop it? I felt a part of me slowly betraying Anastasia.
Aurora is imprinting herself in my head, and I’m afraid it will ruin a lot.
I pulled out my phone and opened the camera feeds for the penthouse. I’d been too busy to check on her today.
I scrolled through the feeds. Living room—empty. Kitchen — empty. Her room — empty. No sign of her anywhere.
I checked the timestamps. Nothing for the past three hours.
"What the fuck?"
I went back further, checking every camera since I left home that morning. Still nothing. No trace of her for over three hours.
My jaw tightened. I pulled up the last movement I could find, her in the bedroom, Jane helping her into a dress. A fucking strap tiger dress that barely hid her body. The guards had let her walk out without stopping her.
I called Rosemary immediately.
“Tell me Aurora is in the room taking a nap or binge-watching some movies. Tell me she didn’t leave the house.”
Rosemary’s voice was scared. “I was told you told her to leave.”
I hung up without another word.
Let her leave. Why the fuck would I ever let her leave?
I checked her card usage immediately.
The Neon Vault. A club.
“Aurora,” I whispered, the name a promise of carnage as I sprinted to my car. “You are so fucked.”