Chapter 7

The Blood in Brussels

Alexei’s heart had hardened into something of a stone and unbreakable.

There's always a blood in his hands every week now. The stains never seemed to leave, no matter how many times he scoured his skin until it burned. Yet, with each kill, each whisper of Lucien’s approval, the boy who once begged for crusts in the alley sank deeper into the borns of the man he was becoming. Even the city felt it too.

Brussels was no stranger to crime. For centuries, corruption had flowed through its veins like wine. Politicians sold favors in chambers. Businessmen struck deals in back rooms where knives lay closer than pens. But what was happening now… this was different.

Too many deaths, too clean and too precise.

Bodies found in apartments, throats slit without struggle. Ministers collapsing “of heart attacks” that looked too suspicious when their pockets held a half-burned contracts. Judges resigning, their families disappearing into the night.

And everywhere, in the corners of their fear, the whisper of Lucien’s reach.

“What in God’s name is happening in Brussels?”

The question shook the silence of the police headquarters, spoken by Senior Inspector Pieter Dijk. He slammed a folder onto the table so hard that the papers split.

His colleagues, men with years of chasing smugglers and thieves, said nothing. None of them had an answers that could make sense of what was unfolding.

Pieter Dijk dragged a hand down his face, his voice bitter. “We’re not chasing criminals anymore. We’re chasing ghosts. They vanish before we even arrive. They leave no witnesses, no evidence, nothing.”

One of his officers muttered, “The trackers can’t follow a scent that doesn’t exist. Whoever is behind this… it’s like they know every step before we take it.”

Another added, “It’s Lucien. It has to be Lucien. Everyone knows he runs this city, but no one has ever pinned him down. Now it’s like his shadow is everywhere.”

Pieter Dijk’s throat tightened. He thought of the boy he had glimpsed once, months ago. Pale with his eyes too old for his face. The Russian, he had only seen him for a moment, stepping into Lucien’s car outside the Hôtel Amigo, but the image lingered.

That boy was no ordinary street rat.

Something told Pieter Dijk the boy was at the center of this calamity.

Meanwhile, in Lucien’s mansion, Alexei’s transformation was nearly complete.

He no longer flinched when Lucien slid a file in his desk, a new name circled in red. He no longer trembled when a silencer was pressed into his palm, or when a vial of poison was tucked into his coat.

He killed without hesitation.

At first, he had whispered apologies in Russian over every body. But now, words felt meaningless. The dead did not care. And Lucien only cared about results.

Blood had become his only language. Every drop spilled spoke for him in ways his tongue never could.

In the taverns of Brussels, men talk in silence when speaking of recent weeks.

“Did you hear? Minister Dupont… seen in his study, face-down on his desk. They said it was a stroke. Bah. Who the hell could believes that anymore?”

“Or Judge Leclerc. Gone. Family too. No trace, a man like him doesn’t just vanish. Not without someone powerful pulling the strings.”

“They say Lucien has a boy now. A war loaf from Russian, pale as death. They call him Le Fantôme.”

At the sound of that nickname, Alexei felt his blood chill the first time he overheard it whispered in a market.

A ghost, that was what he had become.

The other boys in Lucien’s orbit could no longer keep pace with Alexei. His missions grew more dangerous, his kills more sophisticated, his returns more praised. Lucien never hid his pride.

One night at the dinner, Lucien raised his glass and declared in front of his men: “To Alexei, who has done in months what some of you have failed to do in years.”

The men clapped half-heartedly, some masking resentment with smiles.

Matteo’s heart beat hard. Yvan’s brittle.

But none of them dared challenge him again.

Alexei had risen above them, and Lucien had marked him as untouchable.

In the grand Hôtel de Ville, Mayor François Lambert sat with his advisors, with a trembling hands as he signed yet another document.

He had heard the whispers. He knew who was dying, and why.

Lucien was cutting through Brussels like a surgeon, slicing away anyone who threatened his empire. And always, the ghost of a boy was whispered in the background.

The Mayor muttered, “This city… it belongs to him now, no one their denied or challenge him.”

“Should we speak to the press? Warn them?” One of his advisors asked.

The Mayor’s eyes now blazing with fear. “Do you want to end up like the others? Silence is the only way we survive now.”

And so the whole of the city’s leaders now swallowing their fear and said nothing, while Alexei’s legend growing in the dark!

One night, Lucien summoned Alexei into his study. The firelight and the smoke from his cigar curling like snakes.

Lucien gestured to the chair opposite his desk. “Sit.” He ordered.

Alexei obeyed.

On the table lay another file. But this one was heavier than the others, bound in leather.

Lucien slid it towards him. “A test,” he said. “Bigger than before.”

Alexei opened it. His eyes scanned the photographs, the documents, the maps. The target was not a single man this time.

It was a network.

A group of five businessmen, tied together by dirty contracts and foreign debts, feeding information to Brussels’ enemies.

“They call themselves the Consortium,” Lucien explained. “Five heads of a single snake. Cut off one, the others scatter. Cut off all, and the city bleeds.” He concluded tapping the table.

Alexei’s lips parted. “You want me to…”

“Erase them, one by one and quietly. He cut in. Without leaving a whisper. If you succeed, Brussels will kneel. If you fail, we all burn.”

Alexei’s heart pounded. This was more than a mission. This was a declaration of something more dangerous.

Lucien pat him in the back. “I chose you, Alexei, because you are no longer a boy. You are stone. And stone breaks everything it falls upon.” You can do this, boy.

As Alexei set out on his new mission, Brussels itself seemed to frighten with fear.

The police doubled their patrols, but found nothing. The trackers searched alleys, hotels, and ports, but the ghost always slipped past.

At headquarters, Inspector Pieter Dijk looked at the growing list of names with red ink in his map of Brussels.

Each death, each disappearance, brought the same question back to his lips:

“What in God’s name is happening in Brussels?”

Still, no answer came.

In the dead of the night, Alexei stood on a rooftop. His pistol in his hand, the wind biting his face.

To his sight, the first of the Consortium’s five moved through the street, unaware.

Alexei’s heart of stone beat beat. No fear, no trembling and only silence.

Before, he had been the boy who begged for bread.

Now, he was the puzzle that even Belgium’s finest could not track.

The ghost of Lucien’s empire. And the blood of Brussels.

And as he raised his weapon, the thought came fast:

There was no going back.