Except he tried to save me. Risked everything to give me a head start that I wasted.
“Maybe he liked me,” I say. “Can’t imagine why. I’m very unlikeable.”
The guard behind me steps closer. His aftershave is cheap and aggressive, the kind that announces itself from ten feet away. I don’t flinch. That’s what they want.
Leone says, “We know you were at the docks. We know you met with Castillo’s people. We know you took the information.”
I blink. Information? That’s new. I file it away, keep my face unimpressed.
“Wow,” I say. “You should work for the NSA.”
He doesn’t blink.
I let the silence stretch, then sigh. “Look, I’m a courier. I pick things up, drop them off. No one tells me what’s in the packages. I don’t ask. Asking is how you end up dead.”
Leone’s stare could freeze magma. “Who hired you?”
“I told you. No names. text messages and cash.”
“Describe them.”
“Can’t. Never met face-to-face.” That part’s true. The jobs came through a burner phone that got replaced every two weeks. Voice modulator on the calls. Instructions in clipped, robotic sentences. “Whoever runs it knows how to stay invisible.”
He paces the room now, a lion in a concrete zoo. The guards watch him, not me. Interesting.
“You’re protecting someone,” he says.
“I’m protecting myself. There’s a difference.”
He rounds on me, and for the first time, I see the violence simmering beneath the control. His hands flex like he wants to wrap them around my throat.
“You think this is a game?”
I meet his eyes. “Isn’t it?”
For a second, neither of us moves. Then his fist unclenches. He walks to the door, signals to the guards.
“You’ll stay here until you remember something useful.”
The guards linger after he leaves. Aftershave steps forward, face blank as drywall. “Breakfast will arrive shortly. If you need anything, knock.”
I almost laugh. “Thanks for your concern.”
He glances at the decanter still sitting on the table. “Don’t try using that as a weapon.”
“No promises.”
They leave. The lock clicks.
I collapse back onto the bed and replay every second. Leone didn’t buy my act… he’s too controlled, too patient. But he also hasn’t hurt me. Whatever they need, they need me intact to get it.
Intact isn’t the same as free.
I walk to the window and push the heavy curtain aside. The courtyard below is immaculate, geometric, symmetry only psychopaths and billionaires care about. I count six guards patrolling the perimeter in formation, never looking at each other, moving like chess pieces on a timer.
I let the curtain fall and turn back to my gilded prison.
Viktor’s dead. I feel it in my gut, even without confirmation. He warned me, and they caught him, and now he’s a body in a basement or a stain on a concrete floor. He wasn’t a hero. He wasn’t even a good person. But he tried to save me, and that must mean something.
