Chapter Four
NIKOLAI
The water is still there.
My throat has closed to a raw tunnel that screams with every swallow. My tongue is thick, a foreign object stuffed into my mouth. The glass sits on the table, catching the fluorescent light in small dancing refractions. I’ve memorized the way the light moves, the condensation forming on the outside, the way the surface trembles when the ventilation system cycles on.
Just out of reach.
I’ve measured the distance against my own straining fingers a hundred times, pulling against the restraints until my wrists bleed.
How long has it been? A day? Two? Time has become unreliable. My lips are cracked and bleeding in the corners. When I run my tongue across them to check the damage, the motion produces no moisture at all.
I would kill for that glass of water. I would tell them anything.
That thought scares me more than the thirst.
My mind keeps sliding away from the present. Moscow in the summer. The rooftop bar at the Ritz. Elena—the curator I was supposed to meet for dinner. She drank champagne with her eyes closed on the first sip, like she was praying.
I would close my eyes for water. I would pray for it if I thought anyone was listening.
The memory shifts. I am seventeen, locked in my father’s wine cellar for the third time that year. What I remember is the cold and the dark and the way I pressed my back against the stone wall.
The cellar had a wine rack along one wall. I remember thinking about breaking a bottle open just to have something liquid on my tongue. I didn’t do it. I knew what would happen if I damaged his collection.
He always came back.
The door opens.
My body reacts before my mind catches up—muscles tensing, heart rate spiking. He steps through the doorway carrying something new. A black case about the size of a tackle box.
He sets the case on the table next to the water. The click of the latches opening sounds impossibly loud.
I crane my neck. All I catch is a glimpse of metal and sterile white packaging.
“Look,” I say. My voice comes out as a croak. “Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you. Just tell me what you want. I’ll sign over accounts. I’ll give you names. Just stop with the mind games.”
He doesn’t respond. He is arranging something inside the case, his movements precise and unhurried. I hate him for his calm. I hate him for standing there in his clean dark sweater while I sit here in a thin gray smock with my tongue turning to leather.
“Please.” The word escapes. “Please. I’ll do anything. Just give me the water.”
He turns toward me.
In his hand is a scalpel. The blade catches the light the same way the water does.
“What are you going to do with that?”
He approaches the chair. His footsteps are measured. I find myself cataloging details because focusing on details is easier than focusing on the blade. The faint white lines of old scars on his forearms. The absolute blankness in his pale eyes.
He stops beside the chair. His free hand reaches for something at the side of the headrest. A mechanism clicks. The restraint around my skull tightens, locking my head in place.
“Wait.” My voice is thin. “Wait, please, you don’t have to do this. Whatever they’re paying you, I can triple it.”
He adjusts the restraints on my arms, pulling them tighter until my hands are immobile. The scalpel rests on the tray beside my head.
“Don’t.”
He picks up the scalpel.
