My heart stutters when I spot my shoes placed neatly beside the bed. The courtesy is more threat than kindness. The message is clear: I was handled, moved, arranged by someone who didn’t need me awake for any of it. My jeans are stiff with blood at the knee, but I don’t remember getting hurt.
Last memory: the cement room, the high whine of gas filling my lungs, a figure with no face lowering a mask over mine. Everything after is static.
I search for my phone, but my jacket is gone. Forcing myself to stand and ignoring the black spots swimming across my vision, I blink slow and steady. The door to the hallway is heavy wood with a brass handle. I try it.
Locked. Obviously.
I thump my head against the door once, then turn back to survey my cage.
No windows that open. The glass looks thick enough to stop a bullet, probably even a small explosive. Beyond it, city lights glitter against black sky. My brain tallies clues on autopilot: high floor, urban skyline, condensation on the glass from air conditioning. Somewhere above the fifth floor. Hotel or a rich man’s fortress.
Footsteps in the hall. Then a click.
I back up and grab the crystal decanter from the table.Heavy. I test its weight, curling my fingers around the neck. Not as good as a bat, but it could crack a skull if I swing hard enough.
The door opens with sick, silent grace.
He enters. The one from the cement room, the one who had me strung up by my wrists while my shoulders screamed. Now he’s in a three-piece suit that hugs his shoulders like armor made of wool. Beard trimmed tight, dark hair brushed back, eyes so dark I can’t separate iris from pupil.
He doesn’t look surprised to find me armed and upright. He steps inside, closes the door, and sits in the wingback chair opposite the bed. No words. No throat-clearing. sits there, legs spread, one hand resting on his knee like he owns every molecule in the room.
The silence grows claws.
I hold the decanter higher. “Sit,” he says. The voice is unremarkable… rough, like years of smoke scarred his throat, but there’s no accent. It’s the voice of a man who stopped needing to prove things a long time ago.
I don’t move.
He raises an eyebrow. Not a challenge. Boredom.
“Sit,” he repeats, softer. There’s a gun in his lap now. He lifts it enough for me to see, lazy and deliberate. The implication doesn’t need words.
I sit on the edge of the bed. I don’t drop the decanter.
We face each other. I count seconds in my head to keep from screaming.
His head tilts, measuring me. “Name?”
I almost laugh. “You already know it.”
“Say it.”
“Alexandra Clark.”
“Anything else you go by?”
“Not unless you count ‘hey, you.’ Which I doubt you do.”
His mouth twitches. Almost a smile, but not quite.
He taps the gun against his knee. Casual. Controlled. He’s performing ease, but I catch the way his fingers curl around the grip—tight, precise. He wants to see what I’ll do. If I’ll lunge for it, if I’ll cry, if I’ll beg.
I roll my eyes at him instead.
“Who was the man who warned you?” he asks.
The question catches me sideways. I expected the usual—who do you work for, who are you fucking, who paid you. Not this.
“No one warned me.”
