Deep. Wet. Coughing up blood between bursts of genuine, delighted laughter.
"Truly mine," he said, his voice thick with blood and satisfaction. "I should have come for you earlier. Look at you—beaten, bleeding, laughing in the face of death. That's not your mother's weakness. That's me. Pure."
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing red across his yellowed knuckles.
Then he gestured to one of the guards.
A thin manila file dropped onto the glass table in front of me with a soft thud.
Photos spilled out. A man in his mid-forties with a smug smile and expensive suit—the kind of face you'd see at charity galas and political fundraisers. Behind the photos were police reports, clipped together with neat efficiency: child pornography charges filed, then mysteriously dropped for "lack of evidence." Known associate of the Bratva, recently caught skimming millions from their gun pipeline into Eastern Europe.
"A job," Klaus said simply, like he was offering me a business opportunity instead of a murder contract. "This pedophile piece of shit has been stealing from us. Millions. He thinks we won't notice because he has friends in the NYPD. He's wrong. Kill him. Clean. Quiet. Professional. Prove you're ready to take your place."
I looked at the file.
At the face of a man who absolutely deserved to die. A predator who'd hurt children and gotten away with it. A thief who'd stolen from monsters and thought himself untouchable.
Every instinct I had screamed that the world would be better without him.
But that wasn't the point.
The point was Klaus wanted me to prove I was his. That I'd kill on command. That I'd cross the line from survivor to executioner, from architect to assassin.
"No," I said.
Klaus nodded once—not surprised, just acknowledging my choice.
The guards hit me again.
Harder this time. More deliberate. Fists driving into my ribs with surgical precision, targeting the spots they'd already softened. Boots to my thighs that would leave bruises the size of dinner plates. Something cracked—bone or cartilage, I couldn't tell which—and pain exploded white-hot through my chest.
I spat blood onto the pristine floor and laughed again through red teeth.
"Just pull the trigger, old man. Stop wasting everyone's time."
"No," Klaus said calmly.
He gestured again.
The enormous TV mounted on the wall flickered to life.
Live feed. Crystal clear. Real-time.
Alena in her London flat—alone in the kitchen, wine glass in hand, dark hair falling loose around her shoulders. She was staring at her phone like she was willing it to ring. Like she was waiting for me to call and tell her everything was fine.
The image made my chest cavity collapse.
She looked exhausted. Pale. Eyes red-rimmed like she'd been crying. The kitchen behind her was a mess—broken glass on the floor, wine staining the wall, her laptop open on the counter surrounded by scattered pages.
The camera angle shifted.
Lucy laughing at something Marcus said in their London home, her engagement ring catching the light. Marcus smiling next to her, pouring wine, oblivious to the surveillance.
More files slid across the table. Photographs. Addresses typed in neat columns. Schedules showing their routines—when Lucy went running, when Marcus visited his office, when Alena wrote late into the night with only her kitchen light on.
Everything Klaus would need to make them disappear.
"Say no one more time," Klaus said quietly, almost gently, "and she goes down like a sack of potatoes. Simple. Clean. Before you can even get on a plane back to London."
