His jaw flexes. “We saw you run. Someone tipped you off.”
I shrug. “Maybe your boys need to work on their stealth. Sounded like a pack of wild pigs coming up those stairs.”
He looks at my hands. My knuckles are still raw from punching the wall when they grabbed me—stupid, useless, satisfying. His gaze lingers, then returns to my face.
“You’re not a professional,” he says.
“Fuck you.”
A real smile this time. Small and tight, but real. “If you were, you’d be dead.”
I lean back on my palms, forcing my body into a pose of relaxation I don’t feel. But I keep my eyes on him. The way his spine stays ruler straight. The way he breathes like even that is a calculated choice. Military. Ex-cop. Or mafia with a stick so far up his ass it’s tickling his brain stem.
“You got a name,” I say, “or should I call you ‘creep’?”
He considers. “Leone.”
No last name. No indication if it’s first or family.
I repeat it, exaggerating each syllable. “Lay-oh-nay.” He doesn’t react. Either I’m butchering the pronunciation or he genuinely doesn’t care.
“Okay, Leone. You’ve got me. What now?”
He folds his hands, and the gun disappears somewhere beneath his jacket. “You’re going to tell me who your contact is.”
I laugh hard enough that spit flies from my mouth. “What makes you think I have one?”
He shifts forward. Not threatening, but close enough that I can smell him. Cologne and some kind of berry, like expensive soap. “Because the boss wants to keep you alive. It’s unusual.”
He studies my face, hunting for a reaction. I give him nothing but teeth.
“You’re not afraid,” he says. Statement, not question.
I look down at the decanter, then back at him. “I grew up with bigger assholes than you.”
He says nothing.
The silence stretches. I wait for him to snap, to threaten, to pull the gun and crack it across my face. But he watches. Patient as a predator who knows his prey isn’t going anywhere.
Silence is a weapon too. Most people rush to fill it, to confess, to crack. I let it grow instead. I count the veins in his hand. I note the scar on his knuckle, the way his nose sits crooked from a break that never healed right. Up close, his eyes aren’t dark. They’re empty. Like staring into a black hole that used to be a man.
I can’t read him. That’s the part that makes my skin crawl.
He stands, finally. Holsters the gun with a motion so smooth it looks rehearsed. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”
“Why wait?” I ask. “You’re not getting anything out of me. Might as well shoot me and toss me out the window.”
He shakes his head. “No one is dying tonight.”
He moves to the door, pauses with his hand on the brass handle. “If you need anything,” he says, “knock.”
Then he’s gone. The lock clicks behind him.
I sit on the bed for a long time, decanter in my lap, every muscle wound tight enough to snap.
I don’t know how I ended up here. But I know one thing—these aren’t street thugs playing gangster. This is money. Discipline. The type of operation where people disappear and no one files a report.
The very people Viktor tried to warn me to stay away from.
