Alexei moves like lightning. His fist connects with Kaz's jaw in a sickening crack that makes my chest flinch despite everything I've seen. Blood sprays across the floor as his cousin's head snaps back, the copper scent immediate and familiar. Kaz spits blood, laughing through red teeth. "She's turned you into a fool. Just like Mikhail."
"Mikhail wasn't a fool. He was the best of us. And our father murdered him."
The captains study the documents, passing them hand to hand, and I watch their faces change. Horror dawning, loyalty recalibrating. One captain—older, gray at the temples—crosses himself. Another curses in Russian. Nico would be tracking every reaction, every shift in allegiance. The thought of mybrother makes my chest ache even as I stand here choosing someone else.
Alexei descends from the platform and walks the line of bound traitors. "You chose Kazimir over your pakhan. That's treason. The punishment for treason is death."
His gun appears in his hand. No ceremony, no speeches. Just efficiency. The first shot echoes off the stone walls, making my ears ring. The gun's report is followed by the wet sound of a body hitting ancient floorboards. Then another. And another. Gunpowder burns in my nostrils, mixing with the copper scent of blood that's becoming too familiar. The third man whimpers before the shot, a sound that will follow me into my dreams.
Each gunshot makes something in my chest flinch, even as I force myself to watch. This is different from my own kills. Public, ritualized. I've taken numerous lives with calculation and purpose, but always in shadows. This open display of justice is something else. One by one, six men fall, their bodies creating a rhythm of judgment. I watch without looking away as he executes them, blood pooling in patterns I'll see when I close my eyes tonight.
This is who he is. This is the man I chose. The man who burns down legacies but still carries death in his hands when needed.
Two men remain standing when the gun finally lowers, and I can smell their fear-sweat from here. "You two followed orders, thinking they originated from me," Alexei says, studying them. "Kaz gave them, you obeyed. That's not treason, that's loyalty misplaced." The spared men tremble with relief as he continues. "You have one chance. Swear to me, only me, or join the others."
They swear with desperate gratitude, these two who will now be his most loyal soldiers, bound by the debt of their spared lives. I see the strategy even through the blood. Mercy as calculation. Dante would appreciate the psychological precision of it.
As I stand here watching executions and feeling not horror but pride, safety, love, I think of my brothers. Marco's fury when I confessed. Nico's protective rage. Dante's silent understanding. Alex unable to meet my eyes. Luca with his knife in the wall. I chose this man over them. I'm still choosing him, even as their absence aches.
When Alexei returns from the executions, there's a spatter of blood on his collar. My fingers itch to wipe it away, this intimacy of tending to him after violence.
"You should be dead," Alexei tells Kaz, returning to stand before his bound cousin. "By every law of our family, you've earned it."
Kaz laughs, broken and bitter. "Then do it. Finish what you've started."
"No." The word surprises everyone, including me. "You loved Mikhail. Everything you did, the hatred, the betrayal, came from that love."
"Then you know I was RIGHT."
"I know you were wrong. Just like I was." Alexei's voice carries through the hall. "I won't kill you for loving our brother. But I won't let you stay either. Exile. You have forty-eight hours to leave the country. If I see your face again, anywhere, ever, I'll put a bullet in it myself."
They cut Kaz's bonds and he stands slowly, staring at me with pure hatred. "She'll destroy you, just like she destroyed Mikhail. It's what Rosetti women do. They make us love them, then watch us die for it."
I speak for the first time since entering the hall: "The only one destroying Volkovs was Viktor. You're just too blind with grief to see it."
He walks out, carrying his defeat into exile, but something in his eyes promises this isn't truly over.
The hall doesn't empty quickly. Alexei's men move with practiced efficiency, but six bodies take time. I watch from my place beside the platform as they're wrapped in canvas, carried out through the side entrance where a truck waits. The oldest captain—the one who crossed himself—oversees the cleanup, his face carved from the same stone as these walls.
I should help. Should do something other than stand here cataloging details like Nico taught me. But Alexei's hand finds the small of my back, warm and steady, and I understand: my job right now is to be seen. To stand beside him while his men process what just happened. The pakhan's woman, unmoved by necessary violence.
It's not a lie. I've killed more quietly than this, in shadows where no one witnessed. This public display is different—almost ceremonial—but the blood smells the same. The bodies fall the same way. I'm not horrified. I'm… recalibrating. Learning the shape of this new life I've chosen.
When the hall empties and the blood is cleaned away, Alexei stands at the window looking out at his compound. Truly his now. The afternoon light catches the planes of his face, softening nothing. He looks exhausted in a way I've never seen—not physically, but somewhere deeper. The cost of killing men who served his father, even traitors, even for the right reasons.
I slide my hand into his, and he covers it immediately, his thumb stroking over my knuckles.
My hands are shaking. Not from fear but from the weight of it all. "Too much?" he asks quietly, feeling the tremor.
"No," I tell him, and mean it. "Just…processing who I've become."
"And who is that?"
I consider the question. The Sofia who sat at her father's table eleven years ago, innocent and in love, is gone. So is the Weapon who killed in shadows and pretended to be normalat Sunday dinners. The woman standing here is someone new—someone who watched executions and felt not horror but recognition. Who chose a man over her blood and would do it again.
"Someone who watched you execute six men and thought about how Dante would have appreciated your efficiency." I turn our hands so our fingers interlock. "That's who I've become."
His laugh is quiet, surprised. "Your brother would critique my form?"
