Chapter 9

The Call from the Past

The night pressed on like an unwelcome guest. The lights shining bright in Lucien’s mansion, but Alexei saw none of it. His body sagged into the couch, head heavy, arms draped like weights. He had run rooftops all week, his blades wet, his clothes carrying the scent of gunpowder and fear. Spying, killing, vanishing—again and again until even the hard callus in his chest felt bruised.

Sleep took over him in waves. The leather couch swallowed his frame, and his eyes, half-shut, drifted into darkness.

Then the vibration came. A buzz against the wooden table. Once. Twice. A third time, stubborn, insistent.

Alexei groaned, pressing the heel of his hand against his eyes. His head ached from exhaustion. Phones never rang for him. His work passed through Lucien’s lieutenants, not through numbers on screens. He almost ignored it.

The fourth buzz, hit him upright.

He squinted. The screen still glowing. His body shaken with the name on the screen, a name he hadn’t seen in years.

Uncle Arjun Singh.

Alexei sat up. His chest jolted so violently he thought his ribs would crack. His uncle? That name belonged to a different world — Russia, family, laughter muffled under the weight of snow. A world shattered by bombs and the red stain of war.

For a moment, he thought it must be a trick. A cruel illusion. His throat tightened, breath catching between disbelief and terror.

He pressed his palms to his knees, he wanted to sigh in and stay steady before answering the phone, then he lifted the phone to his ear. His voice scraped out, trembling.

“...Hello.”

Static answered first, and then a voice — older, rougher and yet unmistakable.

“Alexei? Alexei! Alexei, my boy… is it really you?” The voice asked.

The sound cut through the years like a blade. Alexei’s lips trembled, his chest constricted before he even answered.

“Hello, Uncle…” He whispered, stammering as though learning words anew. “It’s… me.”

There was silence, long enough for Alexei to fear the call would collapse. Then the voice returned, heavy with emotion.

“By God… you’re alive.”

Alive. The word cut something open in his heart. Alexei pressed his forehead to his palm, his teeth clenched with the sudden surge of tears. He had killed men without mercy. He had watched blood spill the marble floors. Yet now, at a single word, his body betrayed him with sobs he could not contain.

His uncle’s voice broke, too. “They told me… all of you were gone. Your mother—”

The name hit Alexei like an axe. His mother, her screams in the night, her body in the snow, blood steaming in the cold. His fists tightened.

“She was murdered,” Alexei whispered. “In cold blood. Before my eyes. I… I couldn’t…” His throat failed him. Words crumbled into silence.

On the other side, Arjun Singh’s breathing grew ragged. “My sister… oh, God. She was the kindest soul. And they took her from us.”

The line quivered with grief neither could hide. Both men sat in separate worlds, yet their eyes filled with the same burning tears.

For a long while, they spoke in fragments — memories of Russia, of childhood summers when Alexei was just a boy, when his uncle visited from India bringing sweets wrapped in foil. They remembered laughter in the kitchen, his mother’s songs. Every word was a knife, cut and killing him slowly, but also a thread binding Alexei back to the boy he had once been.

His uncle asked how he had survived.

“With… grace,” Alexei sounded, choking. “I was hungry. I stole food. Hid in cellars, in ruins. Sometimes… I thought death would find me, too. But… I survived it all uncle.” He cried.

Arjun sobs too. “That you did..., my boy. That you did.”

Alexei closed his eyes. For a moment, the mansion’s walls faded. He wasn’t Lucien’s blade or Brussels’ phantom. He was simply a boy who had lost too much. We are indeed living in a wicked world.

The realities are now returning like a plan slight.

His uncle asked him a question Alexei dreaded: “And now? Where are you? Who takes care of you?”

Alexei sighed. Should he lie? Tell the truth? His eyes drifted the whole room — the opulence, the unspoken rules of Lucien’s house. His uncle could not know. No one outside could ever know. Lucien’s world was sealed with silence.

“I… work,” Alexei answered finally. “A man found me. Took me in. I… owe him everything.”

Arjun’s interest shifted, for a moment. “As long as he treats you with kindness, that's what matters.”

Kindness! The word almost made Alexei laugh, bitter and hollow. Lucien was no kind man. He was iron, discipline, danger wrapped in silk. He had saved Alexei from fire, but at a cost — his freedom, his innocence.

Still, Alexei murmured, “He… gives me purpose.”

The call stretched past midnight. They spoke until Alexei’s voice grew hoarse, until his uncle’s words slurred with fatigue. When at last they said goodbye, it was not final. Arjun’s last words lingered:

“You are not alone, Alexei. Not anymore. Whatever chains hold you… remember, you have blood who loves you.”

The line went dead.

Alexei sat in silence for like an hour, the phone call hit his chest. His body trembled. He had thought his family was gone forever, he has thought that no one to a family again. He remembered their ashes scattered all over the Russian snow. Yet here was a proof — one thread remained. A thread of love and belonging.

And suddenly, he was afraid, too afraid of too many questions his uncle would ask.

He was also afraid of Lucien.

Lucien Devereux controlled his world with iron fist. Every movement, every alliance, every whispered word was measured. Lucien had rescued Alexei, molded him, claimed him as an investment. But Lucien also despised distractions. Family ties. Weaknesses. Anything that could divide loyalty.

Alexei knew: if Lucien discovered this call, his uncle’s life would be in danger.

The next morning, the mansion buzzed as usual. Men shuffled through with guns strapped in coats. Cigar smoke swallowing the whole air. Lucien’s voice cut the hall, commanding, amused, dangerous in its way.

Alexei entered the dining room with a slow steps, though his chest constricted with a storm. Lucien sat at the head of a table, cutting meat. His eyes lifted, landing on the boy.

“You look tired this morning, is anything the matter?” Lucien remarked.

Alexei kept his emotions neutral. “Long night, boss.”

Lucien’s brow arched. “Bad dreams?”

“Perhaps.”

Silence stretched. Lucien’s fork clinked to the porcelain. Then, with a smirk: “Remember, Alexei. Nothing you dream will ever serve you better than the work I give you.”

Alexei nodded, but inside, his uncle’s words still echoeing. You are not alone.

Some days passed, but the call still lingered. Alexei now hid the phone in his mattress, switching it off whenever he returned from missions. Each time it buzzed, his heart raced, torn between joy and fear. He wanted to hear his uncle’s voice again, to ask questions, to remember he was human — not just Lucien’s phantom.

But he also feared Lucien’s watchful eyes, always watching.

One evening, as he polished his knife, he caught Lucien smart eyes looking at him. Not with suspicion, but with that strange, unreadable intensity that Alexei had grown used to. Lucien always seemed to see more than he spoke.

“Your hands tremble tonight,” Lucien observed.

Alexei clenched his fists. “I'm just tired, boss.”

Lucien rose up, circling him like a hawk. His fingers brushed Alexei’s shoulder — a touch both possessive and probing.

“You know I despise lies,” Lucien warned.

Alexei’s breath stopped. Did he know? Had he heard?

But Lucien only smiled, stepping back. “Rest, then. Tomorrow, there’s work to be done. Important work.”

Alexei exhaled when the man left, but something dangerous is knitting deeper in his stomach.

For the first time, he wished he could run. Run to his uncle, to blood, to something untainted by power and crime. Yet he knew the truth: there was no escape. Lucien’s shadow stretched too long and too wide.

Still, in the hidden corners of night, Alexei whispered a promise to himself.

“I survived Russia. I will survive this, too. And one day… I’ll be free.”

That night, he dreamt of snow, of his mother’s voice, and of his uncle’s words, echoing like a lifeline through the darkness.

And in the mansion’s highest room, Lucien Devereux stood by the window, sipping wine, eyes glinting with suspicion.

He had noticed the boy’s distraction. He always noticed.

Lucien murmured to himself with a certain voice.

“Someone has touched what is mine. Whoever it is… I will find them.”

The game had shifted. Alexei did not yet realize how dangerous one phone call could be.