Chapter 6

The Stone Heart

From the night he killed Varmeer, Alexei felt something in him calcify. He woke the next morning not as the starving boy who once snatched bread crusts from garbage bins, but as someone new.

A man.

At least that was what Lucien wanted him to believe.

When he looked in the mirror, he still saw the hollow cheeks of an orphan, the skin stretched over bones, the eyes that once begged strangers for coins. But in those eyes something else had taken a root.

The memory of Varmeer choking on his own blood was etched into him like a scar. Instead of softening with horror, it hardened him. His hands no longer shook when he held the pistol. His steps no longer faltered in darkened corridors.

And Lucien noticed it.

Lucien wasted no time. The very next day, Alexei was sent on an errands—following rival gang members, planting listening devices, bribing clerks in government offices with stolen envelopes of cash. The work was dangerous, but Alexei carried it out with an expect mind.

“I told you, you were born for this. It only took one kill to awaken it.”

Alexei said nothing. He only lowered his eyes and nodded.

But in the weeks that followed, the assignments darkened. No more petty surveillance. Now Alexei carried blades under his shirt, poisons in his pocket, silenced pistols dangling in his ribs.

He slipped into hotel rooms like a ghost, leaving men sprawled in their bathtubs with their throats slit. He sat in cafés, sipping coffee until the mark sat in from him, and then fired once through the table before disappearing into the night.

Every kill left him emptier, but also stronger.

The other boys Lucien kept around—the ones he trained from the streets—watched Alexei with envy.

There was Matteo, older, who once lorded his strength over Alexei during sparring. There was Yvan, fast with knives, always smirking when Alexei stumbled. They had mocked him for his accent, his thinness and his silence.

But now?

Now, when Alexei entered the training hall, they fell small.

He had surpassed them all.

It happened gradually, without Alexei noticing.

Where once he shivered at the sound of a body hitting the floor, he now felt nothing. Where once his stomach churned at the smell of blood, he now breathed and wiped his blade clean.

His heart, once with longing for family, for love, began to harden into stone.

He was no longer the orphan who survived on scraps.

He was the Capo’s shadow.

But shadows do not live for themselves. Shadows belong to the one who casts them.

It was during a training session that Matteo challenged him openly.

“You think you’re better than us because Lucien favors you, right?” Matteo sneered, circling him in the ring. The other boys watched eagerly, hungry for a fight.

Alexei said nothing. His silence only enraged Matteo further.

“You’re nothing but a stray dog he pulled from the gutter. Without him, you’d still be licking crumbs off the street.”

Alexei’s eyes flicked to Lucien, who sat on a leather chair at the edge of the room, sipping his drink, watching. Always watching.

“Fight him,” Lucien said lazily. “Show me if the stone heart holds.”

The next moment, Matteo lunged.

The spar was brutal. Matteo was stronger, but Alexei was faster. Each blow landed like thunder, each kick snapped through the air. The crowd of boys shouted encouragement, some for Matteo, others for Alexei.

Then, in one swift move, Alexei twisted, caught Matteo’s wrist, and slammed him to the floor. The knife Matteo had hidden in his sleeve skittered in the tiles.

Alexei pressed his blade to Matteo’s throat.

The room fell silent.

“Do it,” Lucien ordered, testing him.

Alexei’s breath came hard. The knife trembled. He could slit Matteo’s throat and end it. Prove himself once and for all.

But some part of him hesitated. Matteo wasn’t a mark. He was just another boy.

Lucien’s eyes moved, as if reading his thoughts. Then he stood, walked forward, and laid a hand on Alexei’s shoulder.

“Enough.”

The knife lowered. Matteo scrambled away, humiliated.

Lucien whispering into Alexei’s ear. “Stone must be tempered. You don’t waste it on fools. Save it for those who matter.”

Alexei nodded, though his heart pounded. He had been one breath away from murder. Again.

The rivalry ended that night. Matteo never challenged him again. Yvan kept his distance. The others, once bold, now glanced away when Alexei’s eyes met theirs.

It wasn’t just skill. It was Lucien’s protection.

Alexei belonged to the Capo in a way the others never would.

Lucien praised him in front of the men, gave him better suits, finer food, trusted him with missions reserved only for his closest.

At dinners, Lucien poured his glass himself. At meetings, Lucien asked for his opinion before anyone else’s.

The bond grew, twisted dangerous.

Alexei hated the way his heart raced when Lucien touched his hand too long, when his voice dropped to that tone meant only for him.

And yet, he craved it.

Like hunger, like thirst.

Months passed. Brussels grew darker under Lucien’s world.

Alexei spied on ministers who sold secrets, blackmailed judges into silence, and eliminated journalists who dared to uncover the truth. Each mission carved another piece of his soul away, leaving the stone heart colder.

But it also filled his pockets.

For the first time in his life, Alexei wore tailored suits. He ate meals of roasted duck, caviar, fine bread and wine. He slept in sheets rather than gutters.

To the world, he was still a ghost. An undocumented shadow.

But inside Lucien’s mansion, he was something else.

A weapon.

One evening, after a mission that left two businessmen dead in their houses, Alexei returned to find Lucien waiting on the balcony.

The Capo handed him a glass of whiskey.

“To you,” Lucien said. “The boy I found in the gutter is gone. In his place stands a man who commands fear.”

Alexei swallowed the burn of the drink, staring at the city lights.

“Do you ever regret it?” he asked.

Lucien turned his head. “Regret what?”

“Killing. Becoming what you are.”

Lucien chuckled. “Regret is for priests and poets. Not for men like us.”

Alexei stared at him, searching for something human behind the cold mask. But all he saw was a man who had buried his soul long ago.

And Alexei feared he was following the same path.

By the end of that year, Alexei’s name was whispered in the underworld.

The Russian boy. Lucien’s blade. The orphan with ice in his veins.

Fear followed him wherever he went.

Women glanced at him in nightclubs, intrigued by his beauty. Men stepped aside in alleys, wary of his silence. Police officers turned their eyes away when his shadow passed.

But inside, Alexei still heard the gunshot that killed Varmeer.

Still saw the blood.

Still longed, secretly, shamefully, for Lucien’s rare smile of approval.

He had become a man. A killer and a spy.

But in the hours of night, when the city slept, he still curled on his bed, staring at his hands.

Hands that no amount of scrubbing could ever wash clean.

What Alexei didn’t know was that his rise had not gone unnoticed.

Politicians whispered about the boy in Lucien’s shadow. The Mayor, François Lambert, had already marked his name in his thoughts. The Inspector, Pieter Dijk, had seen his face once, and something in him stirred. Even the Governor, Charles Vermeulen, would hear soon enough.

The Cham had not yet entered his life, but destiny was already weaving the threads.

For now, Alexei was Lucien’s weapon.

But the day would come when too many hands would reach for him.

And his stone heart would be tested like never before.

Alexei closed his eyes that night, the city busy beyond, the taste of whiskey still burning in his throat.

He whispered to himself in Russian, the language of his dead parents, the words only he could hear:

“Forgive me.”

But forgiveness, like regret, was not meant for men with stone hearts.

Not anymore.