Page 146 of Secret Heir

“I’ve come to hear the truth.” Nikolai’s voice is deadly quiet. He pulls up a chair outside the cell, and sits down like we have all the time in the world. “You’re going to tell me everything. Every detail. Every name. Every operation.”

Alexander laughs and it’s a wet, pained sound. “Why? You sentenced me to death, so what benefit do I have to talk?”

“True.” Nikolai’s expression doesn’t change. “But I can make it quick with one bullet to the head. It’ll be over in a second. Or…I can make it last days. You know there are ways to keep someone alive and conscious while causing unimaginable pain. Pavel is quite skilled at it.”

Pavel steps forward from the shadows, cracking his knuckles. His face is expressionless.

Alexander’s confidence wavers slightly. “You wouldn’t.”

“You poisoned my seven-year-old son.” I step forward, my shoulder on fire but I ignore it. “You tried to murder my me and my brother. You’ve spent fifteen years destroying this organization and you just tried to kill the woman I love and my unborn child.” I glare at him with hatred. “There is nothing we wouldn’t do to you.”

For the first time, real fear flickers in Alexander’s eyes.

“So talk,” Nikolai continues. “Or we start cutting pieces off and see how long you last.”

The interrogation lasts hours. At first, Alexander tries to hold out and maintain his defiance. He claims we have no proof and the evidence is circumstantial

Then Pavel goes to work. Eventually, Alexander fucking breaks.

“Fine!” He’s sobbing now, his earlier confidence completely shattered, and all I feel is disgust to see a grown man sobbing like a baby. “Fine! I’ll tell you everything! Just stop! Please stop!”

Nikolai signals Pavel to step back. “From the beginning then.”

And Alexander talks.

He confesses to working with multiple Corsican families for over a decade. Union Corse initially, then branching out to the Guerini clan, the Francisci network, and smaller operations in Marseille and Nice.

He confesses to undermining the Bratva from within and feeding intelligence to the Corsicans. He acknowledges funding through Cyprus and Marseille and recruiting moles within our organization.

He also admits to planning Nikolai’s assassination. The original plan was to kill me first with the car bomb, shake Nikolai’s confidence, and make him vulnerable, just as Nikolai suspected. Then there would be a coordinated series of attacks on key operations while Nikolai was distracted and grieving.

“And when Nikolai was weakened, I’d have stepped in,” Alexander says, his voice flat and emotionless. “I’d offer support, stability, and leadership. The council would have turned to me. I’d have consolidated power, and the Corsicans would have moved in to help secure territories. They would get the East Coast drug trade, and I get control of the Bratva.”

“The car bomb,” I say. “The poison. All of it.”

“All of it.” He looks at me with dead eyes. “The car bomb was planted by a Corsican operative I’d recruited. The poison for your son was a neurotoxin from a Marseille supplier.”

Hearing him admit to trying to murder Daniel—saying it so casually and matter-of-factly—makes my blood run cold.

“Why Daniel?” My voice shakes with barely-controlled rage. “He’s a child. Why target him?”

“Because killing you wasn’t enough.” Alexander’s smile is cruel. “I needed to break you completely and destroy everything you loved. Your son dying would have shattered you and made you weak. Nikolai would have been vulnerable through you.”

I want to kill him. But Nikolai’s hand on my good shoulder stops me. “Not yet,” he murmurs. “We need more.”

“What more is there?” Alexander laughs bitterly. “I’ve told you everything. The embezzlement, the assassination attempts, the conspiracy, everything. All of it. Are you happy now?”

“Why?” Nikolai asks quietly, but there’s pain underneath. “We grew up together, Alexander. I trusted you. Fifteen years of loyalty—or what I thought was loyalty. Why betray everything?”

Alexander meets his eyes. “Power,” he says simply. “You were never going to step aside, Nikolai, or give me the position I deserved. I was your second for fifteen years, and I’d be your second for fifteen more. Always in your shadow. Always waiting. So I decided to take it by force.”

The naked ambition in his voice is chilling and the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

“That’s all?” Nikolai asks incredulously. “Ambition?”

“That’s everything.” Alexander smiles bitterly. “Power is everything and I was willing to do whatever it took to get it.”

The council reconvenes in the main room. Alexander is dragged up from the basement, blood smeared on the ground.