He's alone when I enter, hunched over a desk covered in ledgers and cash. The moment he looks up and sees me, his face goes the color of old snow.
"Mr. Alekseev." His voice cracks on my name. "I wasn't expecting you."
"No." I close the door behind me with a soft click that sounds like a gunshot in the quiet room. "I don't suppose you were."
He tries to stand, his chair scraping against concrete, but I'm already moving. My hand closes around his throat, slamming him back into his seat with enough force to rattle his teeth. His eyes bulge, his hands clawing at my wrist, but I don't squeeze hard enough to cut off his air. Not yet.
"Maya Levin," I say, my voice dropping to something cold and lethal. "Tell me about her debt."
"I don't know what you're talking about." The lie comes out strangled, pathetic.
I tighten my grip fractionally, watching his face turn red. "Try again."
"Fifty thousand!" The words burst out in a panicked rush. "She owed fifty thousand for drugs and interest. But she's been paying it down. I swear."
"With information." I release his throat and step back, giving him room to breathe. "About me. About Aria. About our lives."
He rubs his neck, his eyes darting toward the door like he's calculating his chances of escape. They're zero, but I let him hope for a moment before crushing it.
"I needed to know if you were legitimate," he stammers. "If the girl's sister was really with you. For collection purposes."
"Collection purposes." I let the words hang between us, heavy with disbelief. "You thought it was smart to investigateme? To squeeze my woman's sister for intelligence?"
"I didn't know she was yours!" His voice rises to something close to a shriek. "Not at first. By the time I figured it out, I was already in too deep."
"So you kept going." I pull my gun from its holster, the movement casual, and watch him flinch. "You kept pressuring Maya. Kept collecting information. Kept making yourself a problem I need to solve."
"Please." Tears stream down his face now, mixing with the sweat beading on his forehead. "I'll forgive the debt. All of it. Maya doesn't owe me anything. Just let me go."
"I'm not here about the debt." I chamber a round, the sound echoing off concrete walls. "I'm here about what you did with the information you collected."
His face goes even paler, if that's possible. "I didn't do anything with it. I swear."
"Liar." The word comes out soft, almost gentle, which makes it more terrifying than shouting ever could. "You sold it. To who?"
"I don't know his name!" The confession bursts out like he's been holding it in too long. "He was Russian. Paid cash. Asked about your routines, your security, your relationship with the girl."
Ice slides down my spine, settling in my stomach like a stone. "Describe him."
"Older. Maybe fifty. Gray hair. Expensive suit. Had an accent like yours but thicker." Cane's words tumble over each other in his desperation to cooperate. "He knew things about you. About your organization. Said he was interested in your vulnerabilities."
Matvey. It has to be. The description fits, and the timing makes sense. My rival has been collecting intelligence, building a case against me, using Maya's addiction and Cane's greed to gather ammunition.
"How much did he pay you?" I ask, my voice deadly calm.
"Ten thousand. For everything I had."
"And what did you have?"
"Your schedule. When you leave the house. How many guards you take. Where you go." He's sobbing now, snot running down his face. "Information about the girl. Her business. Her sister. Her routines."
Every word is another nail in his coffin. He's given Matvey everything needed to plan an attack, to identify weaknesses, to strike where I'm most vulnerable. The knowledge makes rage build in my chest like pressure in a sealed container.
I don't waste time with speeches about loyalty or consequences. My hands move with practiced efficiency, and Cane's screams echo off the concrete walls as he realizes the fatal mistake he made. The interrogation is brutal but necessary. I extract every detail about Maya's debt, about the meetings with Matvey's representative, about everyone who knew. When it's finished, Cane lies broken on the floor, his breathing shallow and wet.
I stand over him, my gun trained on his head, and feel nothing. No satisfaction. No remorse. Just cold calculation about whether he's more useful dead or alive.
His blood-flecked lips move, words barely audible as he gasps for breath. "Sold… information about Aria… to someone very interested."
