His brow furrows, but he doesn’t argue. He knows me well enough to understand the difference between punishment and strategy.
I exhale smoke into the night, my mind circling the same question that’s been gnawing since the convoy burned: if she is the leak, why hasn’t she run sooner? Why play the game this deep, this carefully, only to stumble now? Unless she never stumbled at all. Unless she wanted me to notice.
I flick the ash to the ground.
One way or another, I’ll have the truth. When I do, there won’t be anything left for her to hide behind.
Inside the warehouse, she waits. Bound, silent, and knowing exactly what it means that I walked away instead of pulling the trigger.
The night presses down on the warehouse lot, thick and heavy, the kind of dark that carries its own silence. The SUV idles at my back, its low growl the only sound until Dimitri steps closer, lighting a cigarette off the tip of mine. He exhales slow, watching me through the smoke.
“You’re sure,” he says. His tone is steady, but I hear the edge in it. “About her?”
I don’t answer right away. I watch the ember of my cigarette burn down, the red glow fading against the black sky.
“She lied,” I say finally. “That’s enough.”
Dimitri nods once, but I know him too well. He doesn’t argue—not yet—but his silence asks for more. He’s my brother in all but blood, raised in the same streets, carved from the same violence. He knows I don’t throw accusations lightly.
“You’ve seen things,” he says after a moment, flicking ash onto the gravel. “Moves she’s made. Maybe too clean, maybe too careful. But she’s been good for us. Better than anyone else in her position.”
“Good is not the same as loyal.” My voice is flat, cold.
Dimitri studies me. “Then why isn’t she dead already?”
That’s the question gnawing at me, the one I can’t answer cleanly. I take a slow drag, let the smoke burn through me, and exhale. “I want to know who she’s working for. Who gave her courage enough to play in my circle.”
“You’re not sure it’s her.” He says it like fact, not question.
I glance at him, my jaw tight. “I’m sure enough.”
He shifts, his boots scraping against the gravel. “You’ve been watching her. I’ve seen it. More than you should. That makes me nervous, you know.”
The tone isn’t mocking; it’s old habit. Still, it cuts sharp. I turn toward him, the ember of my cigarette glowing between us. “You think she’s blinded me.”
“I think she’s in your head,” he says evenly. “When someone gets in your head, they’re harder to cut out. That’s dangerous.”
The truth of it lingers in the air, heavier than the smoke. I’ve been circling her for weeks, testing her, waiting for cracks. And every time she should have broken, she held steady. Too steady.
“She doesn’t fear me,” I say, half to myself.
Dimitri snorts softly. “Everyone fears you. Some hide it better.”
“Not like her.” I shake my head, the memory sharp: her eyes locked on mine as I bound her wrists, the way she didn’t scream, didn’t plead. “She sat there calm as if she already accepted what was coming. That isn’t hiding. That’s something else.”
Dimitri narrows his eyes. “Then what do you think it is?”
I flick the cigarette to the ground, grind it under my heel. “That’s what I intend to find out.”
We stand in silence for a moment, the only sound the faint hum of the SUV’s engine. Dimitri draws on his cigarette, his face carved in shadow.
“You want her broken,” he says.
“I want her honest.”
He exhales smoke, shakes his head. “Same thing, in the end.”
“Not with her.” The words come sharper than I intend.
