Chapter 419 - 419: Viktor. [FIXED!][24/06!]

Kyle finally pushed open the door to the Royal Suite, his body heavy with exhaustion. The day had been relentless—Viktor, Eleanor, the youths with their ball, the endless weight of navigating a city that never stopped moving.

He didn't greet anyone. He didn't stop to chat. He walked straight to his bedroom, collapsed onto the bed, and buried his face in the pillow.

"I don't wish to be disturbed," he mumbled into the fabric. "I want to sleep away the day."

The door creaked.

Kyle didn't need to look up. He knew that creak. He knew the footsteps that followed it—light, deliberate, completely uninvited.

"Ella."

She stood at the bedside, her arms crossed, her expression perfectly neutral. She didn't say anything, didn't move. She just stood there, watching him like a scientist with a fascinating test subject.

Kyle kept his face buried in the pillow.

"Ella. Please, not now."

Silence.

He could feel her presence. It was like a weight pressing down on the air, thick and unshakeable. She wasn't doing anything wrong—she wasn't speaking, wasn't touching him, wasn't even breathing loudly. But just knowing she was there made him restless.

"She's not technically disturbing me. She knows exactly what she is doing!"

Kyle tried to ignore her. He focused on the darkness behind his eyelids, on the rhythm of his own breathing, on the distant hum of London traffic.

It didn't work.

Her presence was a splinter under his skin. A loose thread he couldn't stop pulling.

"Fucking hell!" Kyle barked, flipping onto his back. "Why are you such a brat!?"

Ella remained stoic. Her face was a mask of calm indifference, but there was a glint in her eyes—a spark of mischief that told him she was enjoying this.

Kyle grabbed a pillow and shoved it over his face.

"She'll leave. She has to leave. No one can stand in silence for this long."

He waited.

Five minutes, ten, twenty.

The weight of her presence didn't shift.

Kyle pulled the pillow off his face. Ella was still there, still standing, still watching. Her arms were still crossed. Her expression was still neutral.

Thirty minutes passed. Surely, she would have left by now. No one could be that jobless. That persistent, that utterly insufferable.

Kyle squinted at her. "Are you on cocaine?"

Ella's stoic expression cracked. A snicker escaped her lips, barely suppressed. Her shoulders shook with the effort of holding it in.

"Fine!" she said, throwing her hands up. "You win!"

She turned and walked away, her hips swaying with exaggerated drama.

Kyle watched her go. She was wearing shorts that her buttocks swallowed whole—the kind that barely covered anything, the kind that was more fabric-adjacent than actual fabric.

She did that on purpose.

He shook his head, but a smile tugged at his lips.

He was still exhausted, still drained, still carrying the weight of the day. But somehow, Ella had managed to lighten it, just a little.

"She's impossible. But she's mine."

Kyle pulled the pillow back over his face and let sleep take him.

-

Viktor sat alone in his rented flat, the remnants of his second breakfast scattered across the table. The café had been adequate—not exceptional, but adequate. The food had filled the void, and the conversation had filled something else.

He replayed the interaction in his mind, dissecting every word, every gesture, every flicker of emotion across that infuriatingly calm face. The American had been relaxed and unbothered. He had treated Viktor like a person, not a monster.

No one does that.

Viktor's metal teeth scraped against his lower lip as he considered the implications. Kyle had offered him something. Not directly, not explicitly. But the offer was there, hanging in the air between them like smoke.

Three hundred million dollars a month. For each family head.

The number was absurd. Impossible. No one had that kind of money—not legitimately, not without attracting attention, not without collapsing the global economy under the weight of such a transfer.

But he said it like it was nothing. Like it was pocket change.

Viktor leaned back in his chair, his massive frame creaking the cheap wood. His eyes drifted to the window, where the London skyline stretched in shades of grey and steel.

"If I had that money..."

He could do so much. Build something new. Something that didn't answer to the old families, the old rules, the old constraints. A mercenary group, perhaps. A private army that operated in the shadows, thriving on violence in parts of the world that required it.

Viktor's mouth watered at the thought. His tongue traced the edges of his metal teeth.

Complete freedom. No limits. No leash.

The vision was intoxicating. He could see it—men in tactical gear, loyal only to him, carrying out operations that would make the Mafia's old methods look quaint. No bureaucracy. No politics. Just violence, pure and unfiltered.

That's what he was built for.

But the offer came with a cost. If Kyle's plan succeeded—if he really could dismantle the family operations and replace them with something legitimate—Viktor's world would change. The violence wouldn't disappear, but it would be redirected. Controlle, xhanneled into something that served a purpose beyond itself.

It would bring a halt to the typical family operation.

Viktor didn't know if he wanted that. The families had been his identity for so long that he couldn't imagine existing without them. They were his cage, yes, but also his shelter. His purpose.

Why did Marcello have me watch him?

This was a question that occasionally sat in his mind.

The question had been nagging at him since the beginning. Marcello had given him a simple task: watch Kyle. Report back. Don't interfere unless necessary.

But Viktor was beginning to wonder if Marcello was watching him instead.

Viktor briefly wondered if Marcello was testing his loyalty.

It made sense. Marcello had always been cautious—paranoid, even. He trusted no one completely, not even Viktor. Especially not Viktor. The Butcher was too dangerous, too unpredictable, too valuable to be left unsupervised.

"If I fail test, vhat happens?"

Viktor didn't know. But he wasn't bothered. Kyle could never be the one to hold his leash. There was a simple reason for that, a reason that transcended money and power and influence.

Kyle couldn't do for me what Marcello did.

Viktor closed his eyes, and the memory came flooding back.

-

He had been fourteen years old. Small for his age, but already dangerous. His father had commanded him to kill his brother—the weak one, the soft one, the one who made Viktor weak by association. He had obeyed.

He had killed Alexei with his own hands.

Afterward, there had been no trial. No questions. No mercy. Viktor had been sentenced to death by his own family, thrown into a prison where the guards looked at him like he was already dead.

But Viktor hadn't died.

He had established himself as the top dog within days. The strongest prisoner had challenged him—a man twice his size, with hands like shovels and a reputation for cruelty. Viktor had killed him. Not quickly, not cleanly. He had taken a huge chunk of the man's neck with his teeth and swallowed it before the guards could intervene.

The memory made him smile.

"They thought I vas an animal. They were right."

The dead man's goons had come for revenge, of course. Viktor had expected them. He had killed them too—more gruesomely this time. He had made sure their deaths were slow, painful, unforgettable.

After that, no one challenged him.

But Marcello had heard about him. The Mafia had no base in Russia—the country was too volatile, too dangerous, too resistant to outside control. But Viktor was their leeway. A Russian who had proven himself capable of unimaginable violence. A man who could open doors that had remained closed for decades.

Marcello had used his connections to deliver a message to Viktor in that prison.

You want blood? Be my weapon and I will give you all the violence you seek,"

Viktor had accepted. Not because he was grateful—gratitude was a weakness he had abandoned long ago. But because Marcello had given him a choice. A real choice, not the illusion of one.

He gave him a purpose.

That was something Kyle could never understand. Kyle had come from nowhere, built his empire on nothing, and now thought he could buy loyalty the same way he bought everything else.

Loyalty isn't bought. It's earned.

Viktor opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling.

He would continue watching Kyle. Not because Marcello commanded it—though he would obey. But because he was curious. He wanted to see what this strange young man would do next. He wanted to see if the offer was real or just empty words.

If it's real...

Viktor's metal teeth glinted in the dim light.

Then he will have to decide what he really wanted.