Mikel falls into step beside me as we leave the surveillance room and walk down the long concrete corridor leading toward the interrogation wing.
The air grows cooler as we move deeper underground. The walls absorb sound until the only noise left is the echo of our footsteps along the polished floor.
At the end of the hall, the interrogation room door stands open. Inside, Volkov sits restrained in the chair at the center of the space. The hood remains in place. His head turns slightly when we enter, sensing movement through instinct alone.
“Who is this?” he demands, tension hardening his voice.
No one responds. Mikel steps forward and lowers the headphones over Volkov’s ears. The transformation is immediate. Darkness, silence, isolation. We leave the room, the door closing softly behind us.
Outside in the hallway, I watch the camera feed appear on the wall monitor. Volkov stirs in the chair almost immediately, his head turning slowly as he tries to orient himself in the absence of sound and light.
The human mind resists emptiness. Give it time, and it begins creating its own noise.
Mikel leans one shoulder against the wall while watching the screen. “How long do you want him there?”
I fold my arms across my chest. “Long enough.”
Inside the room, Volkov tests the restraints again, the metal cuffs pulling against the chair with slow, impatient movements while the headphones seal him inside complete silence. Time stretches in the darkness where he sits, stripped of sound and light, left alone with nothing but his own thoughts and the growing uncertainty of when the door will open again.
At some point, the headphones will come off, the door will open, and the darkness will end. When that moment arrives, the first voice he hears will be mine.
The hallway outside the interrogation room remains quiet. Concrete walls absorb most of the sound in this level of the estate, leaving only the low mechanical hum of the monitoring equipment mounted along the corridor.
I pause beside the surveillance screen long enough to confirm the camera feed is active, then turn toward the stairwell that leads back to the main level of the house. Mikel follows without comment, our footsteps fading through the corridor as we leave the door sealed behind us.
By the time we reach the surveillance room upstairs, the monitors already display the live feed from below. The camera shows Sergei Volkov alone in the chair on the other side of the wall. He stirs again.
Even through the silent video feed, the tension in his body remains visible. His shoulders pull against the restraints while he tests the metal cuffs with slow movements that grow more forceful when they refuse to give. The hood still covers his head, and the headphones seal him inside complete darkness and silence, leaving him alone with the uncertainty of how long the isolation will last.
The human mind doesn’t tolerate that level of emptiness for long. At first, it resists, searching for anything familiar to hold onto, but when nothing answers, it begins filling the silence with its own noise. Memories surface, imagined sounds take shape in the dark, and the rhythm of one’s own thoughts grows louder with every passing minute. Time behaves strangely in rooms like that, stretching in ways that make minutes hard to measure, while unease slowly grows in the quiet spaces between breaths.
Mikel stands beside the wall monitor in the surveillance room, his arms loosely folded as he watches the feed. His attention moves toward me. “You think he’s starting to understand yet?”
I keep my eyes on the monitor where Volkov continues testing the restraints in the chair. “He already does.”
Volkov’s head turns as if he senses movement somewhere beyond the darkness. The gesture reflects the strain of a man who knows control has slipped from his grasp but refuses to accept it fully.
Men like Volkov rarely confront fear directly. They build systems that keep consequences at a distance, surrounding themselves with money, intermediaries, and layers of protection that allow them to pretend the violence tied to their decisions does not truly exist. Tonight, those layers have been removed.
I watch the monitor a moment longer while the seconds tick past.
Volkov’s breathing grows deeper. Even without sound, the rise and fall of his chest makes the pattern obvious. His fingers curl slowly against the restraints before loosening again as he adjusts his position in the chair. The room has begun doing its work.
Nearly an hour passes while we watch the feed. When I finally step away from the desk and move toward the door that leads back down to the lower level, Mikel falls in beside me without a word.
The metal handle turns beneath my hand with a quiet click. Inside the interrogation room, the air feels cooler than the hallway. The overhead light remains off, leaving the room illuminated only by the dim lamp mounted in the corner near the camera.
Volkov sits exactly where we left him. The hood still covers his head. The headphones rest firmly against his ears. His head lifts when the door opens. Even without hearing the movement, he senses the change in the air, the subtle pressure that comes when another body enters the room.
I step inside. Mikel follows, closing the door behind us with a quiet metallic sound.
Volkov’s posture tightens immediately. “Who is this?” he demands again, his voice muffled beneath the hood.
No one answers.
I walk slowly around the chair, studying him. Up close, the man's details become clearer. His coat is expensive wool, tailored perfectly across the shoulders. A gold watch sits at his wrist, its polished surface reflecting the dim light. Even restrained, he carries himself with the stubborn dignity of someone who has spent most of his life believing money makes him untouchable.
That belief is difficult to abandon.
