Chapter 70 Omg
Aleksander’s POV
The second the door shut upstairs, the silence hit different.
Not quiet.
Heavy.
Like everything in the room was waiting to see if I was about to lose my fucking mind.
I stood there, chest rising too fast, hands already throbbing from where I’d slammed them into the wall. Blood slicked across my knuckles, dripping slowly onto the floor, but I barely felt it.
All I could hear was her voice in my head.
“Stop it right now, Aleksander…”
My jaw clenched.
She saw it.
Even if it was just for a second—
She saw me like that.
Fuck.
“Say it again.”
My voice came out low. Controlled.
Too controlled.
Dimitri shifted on the step, his breathing uneven, like every inhale hurt. He looked like hell—face swollen, lip split, one eye barely open—but he didn’t look away from me.
“The mole,” he said, quieter this time, “is Adam.”
Something in me snapped tight.
Not outward.
Inward.
Like a wire being pulled too far.
I took a step toward him before I even realized I’d moved.
“Watch your mouth,” I said. Henry shifted behind me. “Alek—”
“Stay out of it,” I snapped without looking at him.
My eyes stayed locked on Dimitri.
“You don’t just throw that name around like it doesn’t mean something,” I continued,
voice dropping lower. “You understand me?”
Dimitri didn’t back down.
“I wouldn’t say it if I wasn’t sure.”
That pissed me off more than if he had hesitated.
Because Dimitri doesn’t guess.
He knows.
Still—
“No,” I said, shaking my head once. “No, you don’t get to do that. Not with him.”
I took another step closer.
Too close.
I could feel Henry tense behind me.
Good.
He should.
“Tell me exactly what you saw,” I said.
Dimitri exhaled slowly, steadying himself.
“I couldn’t move much,” he admitted. “So I pulled everything I could from my phone.
Remote access, logs, transactions—anything tied to the system.”
I said nothing.
Let him talk.
“At first, I thought it was just system lag,” he went on. “But the camera feeds… they didn’t match the timestamps. Not exactly. They were off by seconds.”
My brow furrowed slightly.“Seconds?” I repeated.
“Yeah,” he said. “Not enough for anyone to notice unless they were looking for it. But enough to delay movement… to hide it.”
A slow, cold feeling crept into my chest.
“Go on.”
Dimitri swallowed.
“I checked who had access to adjust feed timing remotely.”
I already knew the answer.
Didn’t want to hear it.
“Adam,” he said.
The name hit harder this time.
Because now there was something behind it.
Still—“That’s access,” I said. “Not proof.”
Dimitri nodded like he expected that.
“So I kept digging.”
My hands flexed at my sides, blood smearing across my palms.
“What did you find?”
He hesitated for half a second.
Too long.
“Dimitri.”
“I traced outgoing data from the system,” he said quickly. “Encrypted packets. Small. Frequent.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“And?”
“They were being routed through an external server,” he said. “One that shouldn’t exist in our network.” My chest tightened.
“Whose?”
Dimitri’s voice dropped.
“Adam’s.”
Silence.
Thick.
Ugly.
I let out a slow breath through my nose, pacing once, twice, trying to shake the pressure building in my chest.
“That still doesn’t mean he’s the mole,” I muttered. “Could be compromised.”
“I thought that too,” Dimitri said.
I stopped.
“What do you mean by ‘thought’?” His gaze lifted back to mine.
“I tracked where the data was going.”
My jaw clenched.
“Where?”
Dimitri swallowed.
“To a private account.”
A pause.
Then—
“One that’s been receiving money from him.”
That made me turn fully.
“Say that again.”
“Adam’s been moving money,” Dimitri said, slower now. “Small amounts at first. Then larger. All going to the same account.” My stomach dropped.
“Whose account?”
Dimitri hesitated.
And for the first time—
He looked unsure.
“Dimitri.”
“…Nina’s.”
The room shifted.
Not violently.
Just enough.
Because that didn’t sit right.
Not fully.“She hates him,” I said immediately. “You know that.”
“I know,” Dimitri replied. “That’s what makes it worse.”
“That makes it wrong,” I snapped.
Dimitri shook his head. “I don’t think she knows.”
That—
That landed.
Different.
Slower.
“You’re saying he’s been sending her money without her knowing?” I asked.
“I’m saying the account is in her name,” Dimitri said. “But the pattern… it doesn’t look like coordination. It looks like—”
“Like he’s using her,” I finished.
Dimitri nodded once. Silence fell again.
My chest rose, heavy.
Because now this wasn’t just betrayal.
It was calculated.
Messy.
Personal.
I dragged a hand down my face again, then let it fall, my fingers curling into a fist.
“He reached for his gun?” I asked.
Dimitri nodded.
“Yeah.”
“And you’re telling me you still think this is a misunderstanding?”
His tone had a bite to it now. That did it.
I moved before I could stop myself.
Closing the distance between us in two steps, I grabbed the front of his shirt and hauled him up just enough to make him feel it.
“Be very fucking careful how you talk to me right now,” I growled.
Henry moved. “Alek—”
“Don’t,” I snapped.
My grip tightened.
For a split second—I thought about it.
Hitting him.
Letting all of this out on the closest target.
Dimitri didn’t even flinch. Just stared at me.
That—
That stopped me.
Because he wasn’t afraid.
He was right.
And he knew it.
I let go of his shirt like it burned me, shoving him back down onto the step.
“Fuck,” I muttered, dragging my hands through my hair.
My knuckles throbbed harder now, blood dripping faster.
I paced once, twice—
Then slammed my fist into the wall again.
The crack echoed. Maxim’s voice cut through it, sharp.
“Enough.”
I froze.
Not because I wanted to.
Because that tone—
That was Pakhan.
I turned slowly.
Maxim stepped forward, his expression calm but his eyes hard.
“You are not a boy throwing a tantrum,” he said. “Control yourself.”
My chest heaved.
“You want me to be calm right now?” I shot back.
“I want you to think,” he replied. “I am thinking,” I snapped. “I’m thinking about the man who just betrayed me and how I’m going to rip him apart.”
Maxim didn’t react.
“Then you are already failing,” he said.
That pissed me off.
“Don’t—”
“I will handle Adam,” Maxim cut in, his voice colder now. “If he has betrayed this family, he will answer for it.”
I stared at him.
“You think I’m going to sit this out?”
“I think,” Maxim said evenly, “that you are not in a state to make decisions.”
A humorless laugh slipped out of me.
“No,” I said. “I’m exactly in the right state.”
Because this—This wasn’t confusion.
This wasn’t doubt.
This was clarity.
My gaze drifted—just for a second—toward the ceiling.
Toward her.
Maria.
The way she looked at me.
Not scared.
Not even close.
Just—
Worried.
For me.
That hit harder than anything Dimitri said.
I swallowed once, my jaw tightening.
“She saw it,” I muttered.
Maxim frowned slightly. “Saw what?”
“This,” I said, gesturing vaguely to the room, to my hands, to the broken wall. “That side of me.”
No one answered.
Because there was nothing to say.
I let out a slow breath, forcing control back into my body piece by piece.
“She shouldn’t have seen that,” I said quietly.
“She’s in this world now,” Maxim replied.
My eyes snapped back to his.
“No,” I said, sharper than I meant to. “She’s with me. That doesn’t mean she gets all of this.”Maxim held my gaze.
“This is who you are.”
I didn’t respond.
Because yeah—I knew that.
Didn’t mean I had to like it.
I turned away, rolling my shoulders, forcing the tension down.
“Lock everything down,” I said. “No one in or out.”
Henry nodded. “Already done.”
“Good,” I muttered.
I grabbed a clean gun off the table, checking it without really seeing it.
Because my mind was already somewhere else.
On him.
On Adam.
On what I was going to do when I found him.
And I would.
That wasn’t a question.
I slid the gun into place and adjusted my grip.
Maxim watched me carefully.
“You will not act alone,” he said.
I didn’t look at him.
“We’ll see.”
“Aleksander.”
I paused.
Then glanced back just enough to meet his eyes.
“If you lose control,” he said, “you lose everything.”
A beat.
Then I gave a small, cold smile.
“I already lost something,” I said.
And without another word—
I walked out.
Because there was nothing left to say.
Only one thing left to do.
And when I found Adam—
I wasn’t going to ask him anything.
I wasn’t going to give him a chance to explain. I was going to make sure—
He understood exactly what it cost to betray me.