Entangled with the Mafia Don novel Chapter 77

Ezra's POV

The hum of the ICU was a rhythmic, soul-crushing drone, a constant reminder of the machines keeping Davina’s body tethered to this world while her mind drifted in a grey abyss. For forty-eight hours, I hadn't slept. I hadn't changed my clothes. I had only moved to do the one thing I knew how to do: destroy.

I sat in the plastic waiting chair, my eyes fixed on a small television mounted on the far wall of the lounge. The news anchor, a woman with perfectly coiffed hair and a rehearsed expression of solemnity, was speaking over a graphic of the Sokolov crest.

"...a tragic end to one of the city's most prominent business dynasties. Authorities report that Tatiana and Ivan Sokolov, along with their remaining executive board, perished in what appears to be a coordinated series of internal disputes and structural failures. The Sokolov estate has officially filed for bankruptcy as the family line reaches an abrupt and mysterious end..."

A thin, dark smirk pulled at the corner of my mouth. "Internal disputes." "Structural failures." It was a poetic way of saying I had spent the last two days systematically hunting down every man who carried that name or cashed their checks. I had burned their warehouses, drained their accounts, and left their legacy in a pile of ash on a pier.

Two chairs to my left, Lexi sat huddled in a hospital blanket. She looked older than she had forty-eight hours ago. She didn't look at me, her gaze glued to the screen as the anchor moved on to a story about the weather.

"Liars," Lexi whispered, her voice rasping from days of crying. A bitter, jagged laugh escaped her. "They talk about them like they were some unfortunate 'business family' caught in a string of bad luck. They don't mention the basements. They don't mention the girls. And they certainly don't mention the monster who actually put them in the ground."

She turned her head slowly, her eyes tracing the bruises on my knuckles and the cold, dead hollows of my face. "How does it feel, Ezra? To have the news lie for you? To have the world pretend you don't exist while you play God?"

I didn't turn to face her. I kept my eyes on the flickering screen, the blue light reflecting in my irises.

"The world believes what I tell it to believe," I said, my voice a low, vibrating growl. "The Sokolovs are a footnote now. They are a cautionary tale that no one will remember in a month."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" Lexi spat, her grief turning into a sharp, defensive edge. "Does their 'demise' put the blood back in my sister? Does it bring back my husband? You played your games, you killed your enemies, and we’re still sitting in a hallway smelling of bleach and death."

I finally turned my head. The smirk was gone, replaced by an expression so bleak it made Lexi flinch.

"It wasn't a game, Lexi," I said, my voice dropping to a terrifyingly quiet calm. "It was a debt. And I don't care if the news lies or if the world remembers. I only care that the hand that reached for her is gone. The mouth that threatened her is silenced. The bloodline that hurt her has been erased from the face of the earth."

I leaned back, the plastic chair creaking under my weight.

"This is what happens," I continued, my eyes shifting back to the glass window of the ICU where Davina lay still. "This is what the world looks like when someone hurts what I hold dear in my heart. I don't negotiate. I don't forgive. I simply remove the problem until there is nothing left but silence."

Lexi looked at me for a long time, the disdain in her eyes warring with a sudden, chilling realization of the sheer scale of my obsession.

"You're not just a king, Ezra," she whispered, a shiver running through her. "You're a forest fire. You think you’re protecting her, but you’re burning everything she ever loved to keep the wind off her."

"If that’s what it takes to keep her breathing," I said, my hand instinctively reaching for the glass, "then let it all burn."

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