Chapter Eight - We Gotta Kill This Guy

CHAPTER EIGHT

We Gotta Kill This Guy

AT SOME POINT, every story like this reaches the part where everyone just… decides.

This isn’t a debate anymore. This isn’t politics. This is damage control. The system is cracking, and the guy with the worst beard in Russia has become public enemy number one.

And so, in late 1916, a group of nobles looked at each other and said what the whole empire was thinking.

We gotta kill this guy.

It wasn’t a whisper. It wasn’t metaphorical. It was a real plan, drawn up by real men with real titles and real rage.

At the center of it all: Prince Felix Yusupov.

Now, let’s talk about Yusupov. Richest man in Russia. Married to the Tsar’s niece. Dramatic. Eccentric. Loved costumes and cross-dressing. Hosted weird parties. Spoke in riddles. The kind of man who would both plan a murder and commission a painting of it.

And he hated Rasputin with a burning, aristocratic passion.

To Yusupov and his crew, Rasputin wasn’t just an embarrassment, he was a parasite. A manipulator. A danger to the state. And most importantly, the Tsar wouldn’t remove him. The Tsarina wouldn’t hear it. No one would act.

So they did what nobles have always done when the system fails them.

They plotted.

The plan was half cloak-and-dagger, half fever dream.

Step one: Invite Rasputin over under the pretense of meeting Yusupov’s wife.

Step two: Poison him with cyanide-laced pastries and wine in a cozy little murder basement.

Step three: Once he dies, drag the body out, dump it in the river, deny everything, and hope the empire stabilizes.

Simple. Elegant. Insane.

It wasn’t just about removing Rasputin. It was about saving the monarchy. In their minds, Rasputin was the infection keeping the Romanovs sick. Cut him out, and maybe, just maybe, they’d survive.

What they didn’t realize yet was that Rasputin wasn’t just a man.

He had become a myth.

And myths don’t go down easy.