My brain didn't process what I had done at first. It was clean, clinical, an execution. I didn't even blink.

I mechanically switched the safety back on and handed it back to Alessio gingerly so that neither of us touched the burning metal. There was a shocked silence in the room as I rubbed the sleeve of my shirt over my face, trying to remove the blowback that had hit me.

I frowned at the even more bloody mess in front of us, only held up by ropes still binding him to the chair. "A better death than he deserved."

Time suddenly felt a little sluggish, and I knew that everyone's eyes were still glued to me. Alessio's words next to me sounded muddled, like I was hearing them underwater through a deep ringing. "I want his body dumped where the Russians will find it. It can be on their front step for all I care, but let them know that what they did isn't going unchecked."

My feet took me to the stairs without much of my consent. I hurried up them, hearing someone not far behind me. From the footfalls, I knew that it was Alessio.

Opening the door to the main floor was like walking outside on a cool night, like I could breathe again. What terrified me about my actions was that I felt the rush of emotions and anxiety that comes with killing someone, but I didn't feel guilt. Remorse wasn't even a thought in my mind when I did it, but shouldn't it have been? It wasn't normal.

Lucia running down the steps with a blanket around her shoulders was what eventually caused me to stop walking. Alessio may have been saying my name, but I didn't hear it until Lucia came down the stairs. She seemed excited about something, but a slight look of confusion crossed her face when she saw the blood on me.

Lucia didn't question it, instead holding her laptop out, "I may have found something."

"I had complete faith," I grinned back, feeling a shake in my throat but knowing my voice would be stable.

Alessio stepped forward, casting a quick look at me before the computer, "What did you find?"

"Don't ask me how I did it, since it's not entirely legal-"

A man walked by with a cup of coffee, wearing a policeman's uniform and looking exhausted, "Because none of you ever have ever broken the law."

Alessio nodded, "Luca."

"Sir. You said something about an interrogation?"

"We got what we needed, but I wanted to make sure there would be no missing person report filed, or if a body turns up that no one can explain, you can make sure it's taken care of."

The man named Luca ran his hand through his hair and mumbled something that sounded oddly like 'I'm going to lose my job one of these days', but then nodded. "Just please don't tell me that you used a cop piece to end it."

"No," I offered. "I don't think it'll be traced back to you."

The man named Luca stared at me oddly and I shrugged, "It was a Sig, and don't cops in this town use Glocks?"

I saw Alessio try to hold in a smirk before nodding to the man, "If you would like to check the situation yourself, he's still in the basement."

Something seemed off to me, like I was supposed to recognize this man but I couldn't. Not until he rested his hand on his belt and took a casual stance. It was him, that police officer that was at the coffee shop after the Russians attacked us and shot Ezrah.

"I shouldn't be surprised," I muttered as he begrudgingly made his way past us towards the basement. "You literally don't leave anything to chance, do you?"

Alessio wrapped his arm around me and quickly pecked my cheek with a kiss, "No, I don't. Everyone has a price and a loyalty- doctors, policemen, lawyers. It's all a game, really."

Lucia cleared her throat, pulling us back to reality here her eyebrow was raised and she was trying to conceal a grin. "If this is a game, get ready to level up. I can get you in touch with Dimitri."

Alessio was suddenly very serious, he was like that. It would give anyone whiplash, but he could go from an assassin about to kill a hostage, to a caring boyfriend, to a total businessman in a matter of minutes. "How?"

"So I was hunting through anything I could find about these men, pulled a few strings with some questionable ethics, and I found something like an old fashioned chat room, a direct message between two people, it deletes all of the previous messages as soon as the members close the windows. As long as I stay on, their most recent communications stay there."

I wasn't very tech savvy so most of what she was explaining was going straight over my head, but Alessio seemed to be following what she was saying as she pointed to things on her screen, "And it gets better. I found a way to be able to message them back."

"If these people are human traffickers from that list Allegra found, why would you want to contact them?"

"Are you going to catfish them for information?" Leonardo smirked as he came up behind me. I hadn't heard him come back from taking Allegra to the hotel, but to be fair I had been in a basement for a while. He briefly turned towards his boss, "Allegra is fine, but I made sure Aldrich was there in case she kept losing blood."

Alessio nodded his acknowledgement, but Lucia just rolled her eyes at his previous comment and ignored him, "Because not every name on there seems to be a trafficker. There's one man who showed up after a little more hunting, pretty clean record. Some more digging, and I found the chat. It's between a lower member of the Russian mafia and Dimitri, and they're using a lot of innuendos, but I'm 99% sure that they're talking about a plan to overthrow Niklov."

Alessio's stern gaze furrowed even further, "Dining room."

We hurried there together, each perching on a chair but scooting closer to look at her screen. A couple of previous messages were there, but Lucia seemed to be waiting for Alessio's command or say so before we jumped in.

He nodded curtly, "Mention Violet."

Lucia's fingers hovered over the keys for a moment before she devised a message 'Lily wanted to make sure that Violet was doing alright."

We waited with baited breath for either of the icons to give a response until one of them messaged 'Pavail, close this on your computer and try to isolate one of the others. I'll take care of this.'

If this other man named Pavail had just signed off, then the only man left on the other end of the line was Dimitri. Lucia took a chance, 'Lily was so glad to get Violet's last letter.'

There was a longer pause this time, I could imagine that he was shocked and trying to think of the proper response. It finally came, 'I'm impressed, both by your timing and the skill of whoever managed to find this channel. First, what did Violet give Lily?'

I knew that Dimitri was only asking because he wanted some sort of assurance that it was truly us. I reached forward and quickly hyped out my reply, "Her shoes and jacket. She offered her jeans but I said no."

Lucia glanced at Alessio, pushing the laptop towards him. His brow furrowed for a moment before getting straight to the point, adding to my previous message, 'is it safe?'

'For now.'

The single word from Dimitri was enough to set the conversation in full swing. Alessio leaned over the keys, 'How many men?'

'Last week I know half stood with me, but something bad happened last night, I think it turned a lot of men away from him. I might have ¾.'

'With a little help?'

'A better chance.'

Leonardo stepped away from behind us where he had been reading over his boss' shoulder and began pacing. "The sooner we move on them, the better. Dimitri will never have full support for a mutiny, ¾ of Niklov's men turning against him is probably as good as it's going to get. If he's as erratic as Fynn said, he could break at any moment and do something to retaliate for what just happened in the basement. Or just randomly attack for no reason, like he did to Eliana and Ezrah."

'Is there suspicion?'

'Yes. Our best enforcer. He seems to know something, but we've made no official moves or attempted to recruit openly against Niklov so he doesn't have much proof.'

'How close of an eye is he keeping on you?'

'Very. In the room with me right now, there's a few of us supposedly discussing a deal in Russia, he thinks I'm messaging them. He called a meeting this morning and he's been keeping me occupied ever since. I can't shake him, and I'm becoming increasingly worried at his insistence. I haven't seen Scarlette since last night, or Niklov.'

'Next to Niklov, is he your biggest threat?'

'Without a doubt. I suspect he's been onto Scarlette and I for a while. He's about as intelligent as melting ice, but he has a short fuse and if he found any tangible proof against us, we'd be dead.'

Alessio leaned back in his chair away from the screen, running his fingers through his hair while he processed the information. He didn't have time to respond before another message came through from Dimitri, 'I don't think we have much time. It's becoming palpable, I think the men are itching to do something on both sides of this. We're a time bomb waiting to happen. It would have to be soon.'

'That is not difficult for us. We have your location and can be there at any time.'

'How could you possibly have our location?'

'Adrik Falon.'

'Dead?'

'Yeah. Sorry about that." I didn't know that it was possible to put that much sarcasm into a typed message, but Alessio's complete lack of emotion when he typed it almost made me laugh- then I remembered that I was the one who made him dead, and I should probably feel worse about what I had done.

'Don't be. Falon was an asshole, and he was a staunch supporter of Niklov. At least he's out of the way. If that's the case, the earlier we make our move, the better.'

'When can you see yourself being ready?' Alessio typed out, putting his hands together and resting his chin on them.

'As soon as I can find Scarlette. I needed a password from her, when I have it, we can move.'

'That's much quicker than I expected,' Alessio seemed concerned, but I absolutely understood why. It wasn't a lot of time to create a real plan with Dimitri, much less arrange and assign his own men.

'I wasn't overplaying it when I said that they're onto us. If we wait anymore, they might figure things out.'

'That may not be enough time to even talk to the other bosses and let them know what's happening."

'Stealth and the element of surprise is far more important than numbers- if Niklov got wind of the other leaders being involved, he would find a way to go down blazing and take as many of us as possible with him. I'm assuming you're the only ones ready to move out on such short notice, and Lily is the only one that has been talking to Violet.'

Alessio sat back in his chair, first glancing at me and then looking at Leonardo with question in his eyes. It wasn't often that he took advice from others since he usually made the executive decisions, but this wasn't the plan.

"It's your call, boss," Leonardo relinquished. "But doing it with inside help, specifically his, is going to make it much easier than if we tried to go in alone. He knows the situation and their immediate danger."

"A quick turnaround without much preparation makes me nervous," Alessio mused.

I interjected this time, "This may be one of those times that you have to roll with the punches."

"Not being prepared could get my men killed," He ran his hands through his hair again, tousling it past all hope of getting it to lay in place again.

"And missing this opportunity would probably get us all killed in the future," Leonardo finally took his seat again, putting an end to the pacing that had begun to intensify my nerves.

Alessio reached for the computer again, 'You're privy to what's actually happening. We take your lead. We'll start preparing for whatever you give us. Close this window out when we're done since they're watching you, when you have details, you can reach Lily.'

He added my cell phone number, which I understood because it was the least conspicuous- everyone else's could probably be traced back to them and could probably get us killed. Even though I knew he wouldn't text me immediately, I made sure to turn my volume up as loud as it could possibly go. I couldn't afford to miss any of those calls.

Dimitri sent us one more before the line went out, 'I'll call when I can get away. Have as many of your men ready as you can. Could possibly be as early as tomorrow.'

I wasn't even sure if Dimitri got Alessio's last short response of confirmation, but we all sat back in our chairs for a moment processing what we had just done. Alessio, unsurprisingly, was the first to speak. "Leonardo, weapons are your first task. I want you and the other capos in the armory room, we just did inventory so start handing them out accordingly. Every man eligible for this one should be called and notified, get Stefano and Emilio to help with that. Lucia, I need you digging for anything that you can on the building. Now that we have an address, we should be looking for something to get an advantage- blueprints, layouts, even plans for electrical wiring if you can. We can't have too much information at this point."

They nodded, hurrying off to do what they were bid, and I stood, stopping in front of Alessio who sat with his head in his hands. I ran my fingers through his hair, trying to ease some of his stress, "Is there anything that I can do to help? I know I'm not trained like your men, but if there's anything..."

He took a long breath, finally opening his eyes and looking up at me, "There is. You know the medical wing here better than anyone. Whenever this happens, it's bound to bring in some casualties, and I don't know what the situation will be with the Russian's supplies. There's a closet at the end of that hallway with some medical bags, would you mind stocking them and getting them into the SUV in the garage?"

"Of course," I quickly bent over to give him a kiss on the cheek. I paused on my way out the door, "Are you alright?"

He nodded, "Certainly, cara. Make sure to get some sleep tonight."

I nodded, feeling as though something was off about his behavior, but being questioned right now was the last thing that he needed.

Alessio:

Eliana left the room to set the first aid kits, but something else was bothering me. Lucia had taken her laptop, so I left the room empty handed and headed towards my study. I wanted to collect my thoughts and go over a couple of things, but something about Eliana's willingness and desire to help was making me hesitate. She was looking for ways to help us assassinate someone, and sure I had just seen her do it point blank in a storm of anger and revenge, but this was much more premeditated.

I sat down at my desk, thinking about my last words to Eliana and realizing that my men would work themselves through the night in preparation if they needed to, not realizing that resting up before a fight was important too. I grabbed my phone to message Angelo and Leonardo, telling them to come to my office when they had a chance.

Waiting for them to show up, I sank into my chair. The truth was that I was incredibly proud of how Eliana had been handling herself. She adapted quickly, which is more than she should have had to do, but it was all because I put her in danger in the first place. And there she was just half an hour ago in the basement, shooting a man. She had every right to do it, and it was exactly what I would have done... but that was the problem. I didn't want her to be like me, I wanted her to stay herself.

I knew she wasn't some innocent and naive person when I met her. There was something about her eyes or the way she analyzed people when they weren't looking, she didn't really trust anyone but Ezrah. In my line of work you have to be able to read people and even though Eliana was difficult at first glance, her title would probably be something like 'I Look Beautiful and Innocent but I Could Kill You Without Blinking: A Study in the Effects of Long Term Trust Issues and Betrayal'.

She deserved a much better life than what she had gotten. Even if she hadn't told us what had happened to her, I had known something bad had happened in her life. I had assumed it was something with a bad foster home (which ended up being an understatement), but it had become apparent after the first night she stayed in my bed. The wall of pillows did nothing to soften the sounds of her rattled breathing when a nightmare wrecked her sleep, and even though I had promised her to be a gentleman, I had broken the line to make sure that she was alright, reaching across to grip her shoulder. I thought the fear was because of what the Russian's had done, but she had whimpered that name, Lily, so many times that it hadn't made sense in the moment. My touch had seemed to pull her out of the worst of it, stopping her flinching even though her hand had shot up to grab mine.

Her eyes had flickered open, just long enough to get a glimpse of me leaning over her. I thought it would terrify her and that she would be angry at my intrusion, but she had just closed her eyes again and fallen back asleep. I figured she might have mentioned it in the morning, but I genuinely don't think she remembered it through the haze of sleep. It was like that almost every night, but once the wall of pillows came down between us it slowly got better.

Knowing someone was with her seemed to help, so even if she was asleep by the time that I got back to my room, or as I had starting thinking of it since she was staying indefinitely, our room, I would give her a kiss on the forehead and loop my arm around her waist, just enough that she would instinctively know, even in the midst of sleep, that she wasn't alone. The way that she now would unconsciously curl towards me in my arms every night without fail made me mad at all of the nights she had been alone in her apartment without anyone to be with her while the nightmares plagued her. But slowly, the more time she spent with me, it lessened.

The knock at my door jarred me from my thoughts. I called for them to come in, Leonardo giving me a grin and gesturing to the floor above, "You're going to have a whole ambulance's worth of supplies by the way Eliana's packing."

I clenched my jaw, not meaning to snap as much as I did. "I should tell her to stop and go to bed."

"She wants to help," He seemed so lighthearted about the matter that I couldn't help but snap.

"I know that," It came out as a growl. "But do you think I enjoy it? Letting her be involved? Ruining her, corrupting her?"

There it was, the real root of my problem. I was angry at myself not just for getting her involved, but still enabling it further. It was her choice what she wanted to do, but this dangerous option never would have been a possibility. Those scars on her back, the cigarette burns, even just the memory of the girl who stumbled in the front door covered in blood would haunt me for the rest of my life.

Angelo raised an eyebrow, contributing to the group conversion which was rare. "Just because she's a woman doesn't mean that her focus, or yours, is maintaining her perceived purity. She's an autonomous human before