Chapter 265 Where Is Mark
Alexander's pupils contracted sharply.
Then he smiled.
The reaction was so completely wrong for the moment that Ralph went still. He stared at Alexander, unable to process how this man could smile right now.
Alexander held his gaze for two seconds. Then he let go.
Without support, Ralph dropped hard into the sofa, clutching his throat and dragging air into his lungs in desperate, ragged gulps.
Alexander stepped back and looked down at him with the cold, detached focus of a predator watching wounded prey.
"Mr. Cook, do you think I've completely lost my mind? That I'm weak? That you can do whatever you want to me today?"
He leaned in, both hands slamming down onto the armrests on either side of the sofa, caging Ralph entirely in his shadow.
"You're wrong."
"A lion that's lost its mind is still a lion."
Ralph tilted his head back and looked up at the man looming over him, radiating nothing but threat. Something cold and nameless seized his chest and twisted hard.
The fear didn't come from the words themselves—after all, who takes a madman seriously?
What made Ralph's skin crawl were Alexander's eyes. Completely flat. Empty.
Like staring into something frozen solid. And beneath that layer of absolute, razor-edged calm, there was nothing left but the raw, primal urge to kill.
Ralph had seen that look before. Years ago, at a business dinner, some idiot had been running his mouth in front of Alexander—even had the nerve to make a crack about his mother, who'd died when he was young.
Alexander had smiled just like this. He'd given the man one quiet, unhurried look, then turned and walked away.
The next day, the man's company went under.
The day after that, his entire family boarded a flight to Euravell and disappeared off the map. Word got around later that he'd been taken apart piece by piece somewhere in the underground markets.
Cold sweat soaked through the back of Ralph's shirt.
"Lock the doors," Alexander said without turning around.
The head of his security detail moved immediately, pulling the heavy double doors of the living room shut with a solid thud.
Ralph's eye twitched hard.
"Alexander, what the hell do you think you're doing?! This is my house!"
Alexander ignored him entirely and moved toward the center of the room.
"Where is Mark?"
Silence.
Ralph gripped the armrests so hard his knuckles went white. He forced the sneer to stay plastered on his face and kept his mouth shut.
His bodyguards exchanged uneasy glances, eyes darting between the two men. Someone had already quietly reached for the holster at their hip.
Alexander waited exactly three seconds.
Then, without warning, he moved.
He grabbed the nearest bodyguard by the collar—a man nearly six and a half feet tall, half a head taller than Alexander himself. But Alexander yanked hard, and the big man stumbled forward like he weighed nothing.
Alexander drove his knee up in one brutal strike, burying it deep in the man's gut.
The impact landed with a dull, sickening thud. The bodyguard doubled over, all the color draining from his face in an instant. Alexander let go, and the man collapsed to the floor like a bag of wet sand, curling in on himself, his breathing coming in broken, shallow gasps.
After a beat of stunned silence, Ralph's bodyguards snapped out of it and rushed in all at once.
Alexander's men met them head-on, and the living room exploded into chaos.
Alexander kept smiling. He walked toward Ralph at a steady, unhurried pace.
Anyone who stepped in his way took a single punch and went down. Anyone who came at him from the side got a slight sidestep—then Alexander caught their wrist, twisted, and snapped the bone with a sharp crack.
Ralph sat frozen on the sofa, the contempt in his eyes slowly drowning in a rising tide of fear.
The hired muscle he'd paid a fortune for was falling apart in front of him, dropping one by one. The sight filled him with something cold and hollow.
"I already told you," Alexander said, looking down at Ralph. "A lion that's lost its mind is still a lion."
Ralph's lips trembled as he tried to speak. But Alexander suddenly bent down, reached over the armrest, grabbed a bodyguard who'd been cowering behind Ralph by the hair, and hauled the trembling man out of the corner.
The bodyguard screamed, clawing desperately at Alexander's fingers, trying to break free.
Alexander dragged him forward and looked at him coldly. "Where is Mark?"
The man's face twisted completely with terror, drenched in sweat and tears. He shook his head frantically. "I don't know… I swear I don't know anything…"
Alexander stared at him in silence for two seconds.
The smile at the corner of his mouth didn't fade. But the light in his eyes went completely dark.
He let go and stepped back, then turned and held out his open hand toward one of his men.
The head of his security detail understood immediately and placed a tactical knife in his palm.
The bodyguard slumped on the floor had barely exhaled in relief—the feeling hadn't even had time to settle—when he looked up and saw Alexander walking back toward him, knife in hand.
His pupils blew wide. He scrambled backward on all fours as fast as he could.
"Please! Mr. Hamilton!"
Alexander dropped to one knee, pinned the man's shoulder with one hand, and pressed the cold flat of the blade lightly against his carotid artery with the other.
The bodyguard went completely rigid. Even his breathing stopped.
"Where is Mark?"
The man's lips shook violently. Tears streamed down his face. He couldn't get a single word out.
Not because he was holding back—he genuinely had no idea. Whatever Ralph had done, whoever he'd taken, someone at this man's level had no right to ask questions.
Alexander studied his eyes, reading the fear, judging whether it was real.
Three seconds passed. Then Alexander let out a quiet sigh.
"Then you're no use to me."
The blade moved. Clean. No hesitation.
Blood sprayed out and soaked into Alexander's white shirt. The bodyguard's eyes stayed wide open, his final cry trapped in his ruined throat, and then he hit the floor hard.
Alexander stood and wiped the blade on the expensive leather sofa without a second thought. He raised his head and swept his gaze across the few bodyguards still standing.
No one dared to move.
They huddled together, staring at Alexander like he was something that shouldn't exist. Not even a demon from hell—at least a demon would roar and rage, would use raw emotion to intimidate.
Alexander had none of that.
He'd been perfectly, suffocatingly calm from the very beginning. That stillness made him feel less like a person and more like a precision machine built for one purpose: execution.
Alexander's eyes locked onto his next target.
The biggest man in the group. Muscles so thick they strained the seams of his suit. But the moment his eyes met Alexander's, his legs gave out completely. He dropped to his knees and shook his head in despair.
"I don't know… I swear I don't know… please, just let me go…"
Alexander walked over, bent down, and grabbed him by the hair the same way he had the last one.
"You know what? The last person who told me they didn't know has been quiet ever since."
The man went ashen. Fear had stolen his voice entirely. His lips shook like a leaf in the wind.
Alexander waited patiently for a few seconds, then shook his head with what almost looked like regret.
The blade came down again.
The sickening smell of blood began to fill the room.
Ralph was pressed into the sofa, shaking so hard he could barely hold himself together.
All he could do was watch as Alexander moved through the room like he was picking items off a shelf—grabbing his men one by one, asking the same question, and slitting the throat of every single one who answered that they didn't know.
The seventh. The eleventh. The fifteenth.
Ralph's last wall of composure finally collapsed. He understood with total, hopeless clarity—Alexander had become something else entirely. Something driven by nothing but the act of killing itself.