Standing before the intense, unyielding gaze in Alia's eyes, Viktor's muscles grew taut. His mafia-bred arrogance had taken a severe blow, yet the suffocating self-assurance and unsparing truth in Alia's voice shook him to his core.
Alia took a deep, heavy breath for a single moment. A dry, bitter smile flickered across her pale lips a smile wrapped entirely in terror. Stepping even closer to Viktor, as if standing face-to-face with death itself, she whispered.
In an ice-cold, weighty voice, looking straight into Viktor's eyes, Alia spoke: "You want to know who is driving you and all of us toward destruction? If you truly want to face that truth... then listen. You don't need any outside enemies to kill you. The shadow sleeping deep within your own blood will one day tear through your chest and shatter the empire you built with your own hands into tiny pieces!"
Hearing these terrifying and unexpected words from Alia, Viktor's brow furrowed. The ruthless, hardened expression of the mafia lord faltered for a split second. Was he in disbelief, or was his throat suddenly going dry from the fear of some unknown truth hidden inside him?
Viktor clenched his jaw, locking his gaze with razor-sharp intensity for a fleeting second. Then, hardening his voice into something as menacing as possible, he fired back a direct question: "Who? Who are you talking about? Give me a name!"
Alia didn't utter a direct name. Instead, she took a few steps back, a cruel yet helpless smile playing at the corners of her lips. Her whispering voice hissed through the tense air of the room like a snake.
Narrowing her eyes, Alia spoke with a deeply mysterious and cryptic tone: "You want a name? Does the face hiding in the darkness watching your downfall even have an ordinary name, Viktor? He is not someone you can find in the snows of Siberia or finish off with a bullet from your gun. He lives as your shadow, speaks to the rhythm of your every heartbeat, and is gnawing away at the very roots of your mafia empire. He is that identity one you never wanted to be, yet in whose blood you were born."
The moment Alia's final words dissolved into the air, the heavy, dense fog inside Viktor's mind cleared in a blinding flash. As the syllables slammed against his consciousness, everything crystallized into terrifying clarity.
"In whose blood you were born..."
It didn't take Viktor another second to understand what those words meant. His jaw locked into iron, and a glacial emptiness bled into his eyes. He instantly realized who Alia was talking about no one other than his own biological father! That very same man who had calmly slipped away into the inner room moments ago, whose cold, ruthless blood flowed through Viktor's own veins his own progenitor, his father! Viktor understood then that his mafia empire, his power, his entire arrogance was nothing more than an elaborate web of conspiracy, and the master architect behind it all was none other than that man.
Seeing the silent realization dawn on Viktor's face and the terrifying truth ignite in his eyes, Alia could hold back no longer. All her restraint shattered completely. Overwhelmed by a heart-wrenching cry and absolute, unadulterated panic, she broke down in tears, unleashing a continuous, endless torrent of thousands of desperate words:
"Yes! You've finally figured it out, Viktor! Do you understand now? That man—the one you've called father all these years, in whose shadow you stood believing yourself to be the supreme ruler of the underworld—he isn't just your creator, he is the ultimate executioner of your life! Have you ever paused to think why he raised you step-by-step amidst this bloodshed and cruelty? Why he forged you into a mafia lord with his own hands? Not out of any shred of affection, Viktor! He didn't give you the legacy of his blood to nurture you; he molded you to serve as a living sacrificial lamb for his own corrupt soul!
You think you're independent? You think your guns, this palace, and this vast empire move according to your own will? It's all a lie! You are nothing more than a puppet, your strings pulled by the ugly, crooked gestures of that man's fingers. That cursed bell that rang last night wasn't an external threat; it was a clock—set by his design to awaken the monster sleeping deep inside you. He wants you to destroy the people you love with your own hands, he wants this kingdom of yours to crumble into dust, so that he can finally break free from his ancient, unholy curse!
Every single night of mine is spent in the terror of hell, Viktor! Whenever I look into your eyes, I see the cold, ruthless shadow of that monster standing right behind you. How many times have I screamed to save you, how many times have I tried to warn you, but blinded by your own arrogant mafia pride, you brushed my words off as madness? Now that the truth stands before you like a crystal-clear mirror, doesn't your chest tremble? How can you bear to draw even a single breath under the roof of a man who didn't give you life out of love, but used you merely as an instrument for his own hidden agenda?
Our love, our life together, our luxurious existence everything is a massive deception, a flawless trap. He has driven you step-by-step to a precipice where no other path remains: either you destroy everything with your own hands, or your very existence is wiped from the face of this earth forever. And he sits safely in the shadows, enjoying the show, just as he has cast a dark spell over our blood-soaked lineage for generations! Tell me, Viktor, what will you do now? Can your billions of dollars, can your entire mafia army fire a single bullet against your father's invisible web? Can you deny your own blood and free yourself from this curse? Tell me!"
"And you... will you end up blindly obeying the commands of that damned father of yours? I'm telling you..." Alia couldn't finish her sentence. The sharp, suffocating pain choking her throat blocked her voice entirely. No more words came out; she simply buried her face in both hands and broke down in wracking, uncontrollable sobs. The sharp, helpless echoes of her crying bounced off the heavy walls of the study, piercing straight into Viktor's chest like jagged arrows.
Alia's heart-wrenching tears and this terrifying truth about his own blood shattered Viktor's steel-like shell of a mafia lord in a single instant. The man whose single roar made the entire underworld tremble suddenly felt as though his spine had been snapped in half. The strength in his knees vanished completely.
Overwhelmed by a crushing wave of exhaustion, disbelief, and hollow emptiness, Viktor dropped heavily onto the leather sofa behind him. Both his hands clawed tightly into his hair, clenching into hard fists as if he wanted to tear his own head apart. A suffocating silence filled the room, broken only by the muffled, agonizing sounds of Alia's weeping.
After a long, stretching moment, keeping his head bowed in a state of utter despair, defeat, and deep sorrow, Viktor whispered in a broken voice,
"Alia... in the end... there is nothing left for me to do."
Alia didn't stay in the study for another second. Leaving behind a turbulent sea of heartbreak and streaming tears, she rushed out into the next room, the door slamming shut firmly behind her.
As heavy, suffocating silence settled back into the study, Anna slowly stepped forward and stood right in front of Viktor. The panic in her pale eyes was still strikingly raw. Looking directly at him with a trembling voice, she dropped the stark, chilling truth:
"Brother... you still don't get it! She isn't going to save you Alia has sworn to kill her own husband! She is going to finish you off with her own hands, and that is the absolute, direct command of both our father and her own father!"
Hearing those words hit like a physical blow, Viktor froze into absolute ice, sitting motionless on the sofa. A deep, heavy wave of sorrow and profound regret washed over him as he thought of Alia. Poor girl... she will never find a moment of peace in her life. No matter how breathtaking or extraordinary these beautiful women are, why must their fates always end up in such tragic misery? No matter what powerful, wealthy men they end up married to, they are ultimately forced down this cruel path of having to destroy the very person they love with their own hands. Where on earth are these beauties ever supposed to find true happiness?
The moment Alia rushed into the other room, the atmosphere grew even heavier and more suffocating. With the door locked behind her, she could no longer hold herself together. The ruthless fate of her life, her deep love for Viktor, and the inescapable web of this cursed family's conspiracy had completely shattered her endurance.
She could no longer see any way out or any path to salvation. Facing the unbearable agony of standing against her husband and seeing suicide as the only release from this living hell, she didn't hesitate for another second. She violently pushed open the heavy glass window in the corner of the room, looking down into a terrifying drop where nothing could be seen except sharp rocks and pitch-black darkness.
Alia stepped up onto the window ledge, preparing to plunge into the empty air. A silent, hollow sigh escaped her pale lips instead of tears she chose death as a far more peaceful mercy than having to destroy the man she loved with her own hands. Stripping away every last attachment to life, she made the ultimate, tragic decision to end it all!
Standing at the edge of the window, facing death in the biting, cold wind, Alia closed her eyes. The tears streaming down her face seemed to vanish before they could even hit the stones below. At that exact moment, all the beautiful memories of their life together flashed across her mind—the first moments she shared with Viktor, the deep promises of their love, and the sweet face of their little child. Her heart was tearing apart. Silently and desperately, she thought, "My sweet child... please forgive me! This mother of yours had no other choice..." Just as she whispered her final plea of love and forgiveness for her baby and prepared to leap into the empty air
Suddenly, the door burst open with a violent crash, and Viktor rushed into the room! Anna must have told him everything just in time.
In a fraction of a second, Viktor sprinted forward, wrapped his arms tightly around Alia's waist, and yanked her away from the window ledge, pulling her back inside. Both of them tumbled hard onto the floor.
Inside Viktor's chest, his heart was pounding with wild, primal fury. Just a second's delay, and he would have lost the person he loved most! Shaking with a volatile mix of sheer terror, rage, and adrenaline, he pushed Alia slightly back, stood up, and in a blind flash of anger, landed a sharp, hard slap across Alia's cheek!
Out of his boiling rage and a voice trembling with wild disbelief, a fierce roar tore through his throat:
"Are you out of your mind, Alia?! Why were you trying to die?! Who gave you the right to throw your life away, tell me?!"