A pause.
"I gave Kirill something that allowed him to speak. But he said something about Moira." That thin smile appears. "Lorenzo removed two fingers with bolt cutters. Left index and middle. Clean cuts, minimal blood loss."
I look at Ruslan, and before I can say anything, he continues.
"Lorenzo wanted Kirill's tongue. Would've been poetic, silencing the mouth that threatened her. But tongue wounds bleed like a severed femoral. He'd be dead in four minutes. Lorenzo told him he was leaving him for you. So he's intact. Mostly. Everything that matters, anyway. After that, I left to meet you at the hospital. Lorenzo and his torturer are keeping Kirill alive for you."
"Good."
My phone vibrates.
Yuri's message lights the screen:I'm in.Kirill ran this operation by hiring local muscle and brought only Aleh with him. Confirmed that the two Armenians work for Gregor Markov, aka Grigory Markov.
Me:Found Markov?
Yuri:Working on it.
Me:Thank you, brother.
Yuri refused to rest. Said he was good enough to do the job from his hospital bed, one hand holding his side while the other flew across his keyboard.
Dimitri's been at Hartley's brownstone, assisting Yuri in accessing Kirill's network through the computers left at the house.
"I need something special for Kirill," I tell Ruslan as we step out into the rain. "The same compound he planned for Fee, but modified. I want him to experience what she would have felt, the disorientation, the drowning sensation. But amplify the pain receptors. And most importantly, distort his perception of time."
Ruslan nods, already understanding. "A day will feel like a week."
"Good." My voice drops lower. "And support his body so it doesn't give up. I want him to be aware of all of it."
The warehouse door scrapes open, revealing a space lit by harsh industrial lights. The concrete floor glistens with puddles of water and something darker.
And then I see them.
Aleh hangs from the ceiling like a broken marionette, his limbs bent at impossible angles. Every joint dislocated, bones visible through bruised flesh. His face is a swollen mass of purple and red, eyes nearly sealed shut. Blood trickles from his nose, his ears, the corners of his mouth. The electrical burns form a spiderweb pattern across his chest, angry red lines that disappear beneath the waistband of his torn pants.
Lorenzo has transformed him into a living anatomy lesson of what the human body can endure without dying.
Beside him, suspended by heavy chains but physically intact save for the missing fingers, is Kirill. Meat hooks hang from the ceiling nearby, their curved points gleaming under the lights.
Kirill's eyes find mine, glassy from whatever Ruslan gave him earlier but still defiant.
"Finally...the ghost arrives." His voice is raspy, slurred. "Come to avenge your little virgin? She was so beautiful when she slept. So trusting."
I ignore him and turn to Ruslan instead, who has started preparing. Kirill ignores him, and he keeps talking to me.
"She told me things, you know," Kirill continues, desperate to provoke a reaction. "Your precious Fee. About her fears. Her dreams. For months, while you thought you were watching her, she was talking to me, to Phoenix."
I smile at his weak attempt to wound me. I saw the conversations Fee had with Phoenix. "You want to talk about Fee? Fine. But first, let me tell you about Vadim."
Ruslan starts lowering him. I close the distance until I'm standing over him, close enough that he can smell the coffee on my breath.
"Your brother was scum. He wasn't just stealing from the Basovs; he was a liaison to the sex trafficking ring here in the city using the Basov ports."
Kirill looks at me, directly in my eyes.
"The operation moved girls as young as thirteen across state lines," I continue. "Some of them never made it to their destinations. Your brother sold them like cattle."
His breathing quickens, pupils dilating. "You killed him."
