Page 34 of The Butcher
He said that with such certainty and finality that I knew it was the truth. My shoulders loosened just slightly, the tightness in my chest easing enough that I could breathe without feeling like something was pressing down on me.
“Okay,” I said, and I meant it.
“But there is something you need to know,” he said.
The shift in his tone was subtle, but I felt it immediately.
“What’s wrong?” I asked as my anxiety rose once more. His touch should have calmed me, but it didn’t stop the unease sitting heavy in my chest.
“What you saw,” he said, his voice low and controlled, “isn’t random. It’s tied to someone building something they shouldn’t be.”
I frowned, trying to make sense of it. “What do you mean?”
He didn’t answer right away. His eyes stayed on mine, watching me in that quiet way he had, like he was already a few steps ahead and deciding how much to give me. “Alessio,” he said finally.
The name meant nothing to me, and I didn’t try to pretend otherwise. “I don’t know who that is.”
“No,” he said, just as steady. “You wouldn’t.”
A slow, creeping feeling that I wasn’t going to like whatever came next filled me.
“He’s your half-brother.”
For a second, everything in me went still. My breath caught before I could stop it, my mind trying to grab on to something that made sense, but there was nothing there.
“That’s not possible,” I said, slower now, like I needed to hear the words out loud to believe them. “My mother and father only have my sister and me.”
Alexei stayed silent, letting me sift through my thoughts.
“Yes, your mother and father have you and your sister.”
It all settled in, and I shook my head, my mind trying to deny what Alexei meant. “My father had achild with someone else?”My husband’s silence told me that was exactly what this all meant.
“Alessio is your father’s bastard son, one your father knows about but doesn’t claim. He’s been making moves on his own,” Alexei continued, his tone steady and controlled, like he was laying out facts instead of dropping another fracture into the middle of my life.
“He’s been organizing his own crews, setting up his own routes, and making deals like he has something to prove. He’s using a last name he doesn’t officially claim to build something that is encroaching on shit he should know nothing about.”
He leaned back slightly, his gaze never leaving mine. “There was a hit on a Bratva warehouse and shipment. It left several of our men dead and the product destroyed."
His jaw tightened.
“We thought it was your father, but we found out Alessio orchestrated it without your father’s knowledge.” His voice dropped lower then, rougher around the edges in a way that sent a cold knot into my stomach.
I stared at him, trying to process the words, trying to understand how someone I’d never evenheard of had somehow been tied to the violence surrounding us from the beginning.
Alexei’s expression hardened as he watched me absorb it all. “The difference is that now he’s getting reckless,” he said quietly. “And reckless men make mistakes that cost them their lives.”
His eyes darkened as he leaned forward slightly, his voice turning deadly calm. “The biggest mistake he made was forcing himself into my life… and putting himself anywhere near you.”
My heart was pounding as I stared at my savage, handsome husband.
I let that sit, my thoughts struggling to catch up. A brother I had never known about. A name that should have meant something and didn’t. A piece of my life that had been hidden so completely it might as well not have existed at all until now.
“And he’s dangerous?” I asked.
Alexei’s thumb stilled against my skin for just a second before moving again, slower this time. “He’s reckless and already made enemies,” he said. “And men like that don’t stop until someone makes them.”
Silence filled the space between us. I could feel the air thin, not just from the conversation, but around him, like something had already been decided and I was only just catching up to it.
