“Back for more conversation?” My voice comes out steadier than I expected. Good. The Petrenko mask is holding. “I have to say, your interrogation technique is fascinating. Very avant-garde. Most people at least start with a few questions before they leave their prisoners to marinate in existential dread.”
He doesn’t respond. He doesn’t even look at me. He arranges something on the tray with focused attention.
“The silent treatment, then.” I need a different angle. Money didn’t work before. “You know, I’ve met men like you. The ones who think they’re above negotiation. But everyone has a price.”
Nothing. Not a flicker.
“Maybe it’s not money for you. Maybe it’s power. I have connections to half the families in Eastern Europe. Information that could make you invaluable to Ivan, not just useful. I could make you his right hand instead of his attack dog.”
He picks up something from the tray. The light catches it.
Trauma shears. The kind paramedics use to cut through clothing on accident victims.
“Or maybe it’s simpler than that.” My voice is getting faster despite my efforts to control it. “Maybe you want to be the oneasking the questions instead of taking orders. I can help with that. I know things about the Baranovs that Ivan wouldn’t want getting out.”
He walks toward me. The shears held loosely in his right hand.
“Things about his son. About the shipments that go through the northern route. About the arrangement with the customs officials in?—”
He stops in front of me. Close enough that I have to tilt my head back to see his face. Close enough that I can see the individual threads of his dark sweater and the faint white lines of old scars on his forearms.
“I can make you untouchable,” I say. “Just give me a phone. Five minutes. I’ll?—”
He reaches for my tie.
The shears slide beneath the silk. Cold metal touches my throat for half a second before the blades close and the fabric parts.
My father gave me this tie. Hermès. Hand-stitched. A gift for my twenty-fifth birthday presented with the closest thing to affection Viktor Petrenko has ever managed.
The man in front of me drops it on the floor like garbage.
“That tie cost more than most people’s cars,” I hear myself say. Even I can tell my voice is getting thinner.
He doesn’t acknowledge the words. He just keeps working. The shears slide between my skin and the seam of my jacket. The blades whisper through Italian tailoring. The jacket falls away.
He cuts through the buttons of my shirt. The cold hits my bare chest like a slap.
I try a different tactic. Rage.
“Baranov dog.” The insult comes out sharp. “That’s what you are. A trained animal doing tricks for your master. The Kennel—isn’t that what they called it? I’ve heard whispers. They take children and turn them into things that can’t think for themselves.”
His hands pause. Just for a second.
Then they resume cutting, working down to my trousers.
“Is that what happened to you?” I push harder, searching for the crack. “Did they break you so completely that you forgot how to be human? Or were you never human to begin with?”
Still nothing. But I saw the pause. I felt it.
He’s not ignoring me because he’s disciplined. He’s ignoring me because my words are irrelevant to whatever he’s actually doing.
He’s not listening to what I’m saying. He’s watching how I say it.
The realization cuts through my scrambling thoughts. His eyes aren’t on my face. They’re tracking the rapid rise and fall of my chest. The visible tremor in my muscles. He’s reading my body the way scholars read ancient texts.
The shears make quick work of my belt, my trousers, the boxers I put on this morning when I was still a man with a future.
He removes my shoes with clinical efficiency, unlacing them rather than cutting—and I file that detail away, wondering if the preservation means something in his private taxonomy.
