Chapter Twenty-Three - Vivienne
The upper floors of the estate turn into a fortress of paper and screens. What used to be Alexei’s private retreat—rooms set apart from the chaos of the lower halls—is now ours. We lock ourselves away for hours at a time, poring over files, maps, surveillance feeds until our eyes burn.
The air is thick with smoke and the scent of coffee gone cold, and the table between us is buried in names and strategies.
The network sprawls wider than I imagined when I first uncovered the truth. Judges, ministers, businessmen with clean smiles and dirty money—each one a piece in a machine that’s been grinding for decades.
Alexei outlines targets in sharp ink strokes, while I flip through ledgers, tracing patterns of payments and shell companies. Together, we build a plan not of brute force alone but of precision.
Some of these men will die. We know it without saying. The hits will be quick, decisive, surgical. No spectacle, no message, just bodies removed like tumors. Others we’ll break in different ways—blackmail, scandal, the kind of carefully planted leaks that topple reputations from the inside.
There’s a select few we’ll twist into allies, bribing them with enough leverage to make silence their only option.
It should feel heavy, monstrous. Instead, I meet each decision with cold focus. I don’t blink at the dirt on my hands. If anything, I lean closer, dissecting every move with the precision of a surgeon.
One afternoon, while Alexei speaks with one of his men, I slip away into another room and pick up the phone. The numberis one I swore I’d never dial again—an old journalist my father once trusted, a man who wrote fire into print until the fire got too close. When his tired voice answers, I almost hang up. Instead, I let the steel in my voice carry me forward.
“You know who I am,” I say.
Silence on the other end. Then a slow exhale. “You shouldn’t be calling me.”
“You’re right,” I reply. “I have something you’ll want to see. If you don’t help me access an encrypted server—one I know you’ve been sniffing around—I’ll see to it your editor gets the files in a package with your name on the return label.”
His voice sharpens. “Is that a threat?”
“It’s a promise.”
The line crackles with static, then his grudging answer: “Send me the details.”
When I hang up, my pulse is racing. Not from fear. From the rush of power. For years I thought of myself as a survivor, clawing through the wreckage left by men who thought they were untouchable. Now I’m not just surviving. I’m playing the same game they are. And I’m winning.
I sit with the feeling for a long time, staring at the scattered files around me. Justice was supposed to be my motive. My father’s ghost was supposed to be the compass. But as I press deeper, I wonder if that’s still true. Maybe justice is just the word I gave to the hunger. Maybe what I want is revenge, pure and sharp and intoxicating.
***
The shift comes the night one of our assassins reports a failure. The target slipped the noose, tipped off before the blade could fall. Alexei’s men bristle, muttering about bad luck and sloppy intel, but I see the truth instantly.
“Someone’s leaking information,” I say.
The room goes quiet. Alexei’s gaze meets mine, grim and steady. He knows I’m right.
We find the man within hours; a soldier too close to the operations, suddenly flush with money he shouldn’t have. He’s dragged into the basement, hands bound, face pale as chalk. Alexei moves to question him, but I step forward first.
“No,” I say. “Let me.”
The room stills. Alexei studies me for a long beat before stepping back, gesturing for me to continue.
I stand before the man, arms folded, my voice calm as I ask him who he’s been speaking to. He denies it at first, trembling, swearing on his family’s lives. But I’ve heard a thousand liars before. I press harder, peeling away excuses, cornering him with his own words until the truth spills out.
Names. Dates. Payments. The confirmation that everything I suspected was right.
I turn to Alexei, my decision already made. “He dies.”
The man screams, begging, promising to change, but the sound barely touches me. Alexei waits for me to take it back, to flinch, but I don’t. My voice doesn’t waver. “Execute him.”
The shot rings out. His body falls.
For a moment, the silence is deafening.
