Fuck.
What I wouldn’t give for a smoke right now.
The cell smelled like fresh bleach, like somebody scrubbed it clean after a mess and forgot the part where a man still had to breathe in here. There were four concrete walls, a bed bolted to the floor with four steel anchors, a stainless toilet that reflected my face back in a funhouse bend, and a camera bubble tucked up in the corner like a smug little eye.
I sat on the edge of the bed and mapped the room for the fifth time, then the sixth, inventorying everything because that’s how you live when you’re me. When I was a kid, I used to lie in bed and count the screws in the radiator, then the cracks in the plaster, then the distance between the door and my father’svoice. You grow up like that, and your brain learns to measure escape even before the trap springs.
Left wall: hairline fracture at shoulder height, as if someone swung against it and lost the fight. Good to know.
Floor: slightly sloped toward the drain under the toilet—subtle, but I could feel it in my ankles when I stood and closed my eyes.
Door: matte black, solid core, no visible hinges on my side. Slot built into waist height for food trays. Magnetic lock.
The camera’s lens had a scratch across it, almost like someone before me had tried to blind it and failed. If I climbed up on the bed and leaned just so, I could almost get above its field of view. It wasn’t perfect. Not by a long shot. But it would be enough for a sleight of hand or two.
I counted my pockets again out of habit even though they’d stripped me bare and put me in a gray t-shirt and pants that smelled like cheap detergent. No belt, no laces, no watch. They left me a small plastic water cup because they wanted me hydrated enough to answer questions and awake enough to suffer.
They were thoughtful that way. Good planners.
Thanks, Revenant.
Last clear snapshot before this box? Concrete hallway, Revenant escort on our heels, Katya at my side muttering that she didn’t like the feel of the setup. We’d left Kara and the Markovs back in that ridiculous penthouse suite with strict orders to stay put, and I’d actually let myself believe—for a second—that meant they’d be safe while we handled the politics. Then the flashbang wentoff, someone yelled, and my world turned into white noise and needles. When I woke up, Katya was gone and I was here.
Without any of them.
Which, honestly, was pretty shitty of them.
I heard some footsteps not far down the hall, but they weren’t coming my way yet. From my observations, the building had a rhythm that was starting to make sense: the hum of air conditioning, the soft hiss of negative air pressure outside the sealed door, the timely patrols. I’d figured out that there were two guards to a hallway, and that they rotated at thirty-minute intervals. The last swap clicked six minutes ago, which meant the commander had, if my math was right, nine to twelve minutes before he decided to grace me with his pretty face.
Couldn’t wait…
I rolled my neck slowly, keeping my breathing even. The urge to imagine his nose under my fist or my boot connecting with his dick was becoming more and more tempting.
Focus.
The bolt heads on the bed anchors were tamper-proof Torx screw heads. No problem, if you had a screwdriver designed for them. I didn’t. But the panel under the bed’s steel frame—the maintenance access—had softer screws. It even looked like they were scratched up a little bit. Maybe someone before me tried to work at them with a coin. I didn’t have a coin, but I did have teeth and time and the kind of patience that only comes when you know pain is inevitable.
The cup was plastic. The rim, though, was thin enough to break and wedge into a screw head if I worked my weight right. Fileit down against concrete, narrow it, use it like a screwdriver. Maybe. I needed to watch for the camera though.
The fluorescent light overhead flickered when the HVAC kicked on. The casing was sealed with a quarter-turn cap. If I could get it off, the aluminum shield inside might give me a shard capable of scratching the camera lens, but they’d notice that for sure. And the second I messed with the lens, I’d have fifteen seconds before they sent someone to knock my teeth out for my trouble.
I stood up and made the rounds, counting the steps around the perimeter of my cell and then sat down again. Closed my eyes. Breathed. Pictured the route here: the hand on my shoulder, rough but not exactly cruel, the zip tie around my wrists biting deep enough to numb my fingers, the way the corridor smelled like chilled water and detergent.
And then, I thought of Katya.
I should have kept my mind off her. I didn’t. All I could picture was her delicious curves, the way she blushed every time I looked at her, and the way she moaned my name when I slid into her.
Thinking about her made my dick hard.
Now was not the time for that.
I pictured cold showers. Siberian winter. The smell inside a fish market. The texture of tapioca. Mikhail lecturing about logistics and saying my name with that disappointed big brother tone he’d perfected by twelve. Andrei rolling his eyes and saying some sarcastic comment that would inevitably make Mikhail and me both laugh.
The camera blinked red, patient.
All right. Enough romance. Back to work.
I took the plastic cup, snapped the rim with my teeth, and spat out a sliver. I ran it along the concrete under the bed, shaving it down to a narrow wedge. The noise wasn’t much, a soft whisper the air should swallow if done correctly. I timed it with the patrol steps—shave when they moved, still when they paused on their turn. Little by little, a usable edge emerged.
