“Hello?” I called out.
No answer.
Only the slow drip of something in the distance. Water, maybe. Or blood. In places like this it was always one or the other. My heart hammered harder, every beat thudding against my ribs, trying to break free. I scanned the room again, forcing myself to catalog details the way I’d trained myself to do when survival depended on memory. One door to the left. No windows. A metal table against the far wall. Tools laid out in careful rows, too detailed to be accidental. Overly neat to be anything good. A cold understanding slid through me.
I hated this place.
I couldn’t remember the capture, couldn’t remember the fight, but that didn’t matter. Men like me didn’t get peaceful endings. If I was here, it meant someone had finally gotten the drop on me. Footsteps sounded beyond the door, slow and unhurried. Whoever they belonged to, decided they had all the time in the world.
The steps dragged slightly, a faint scrape with every second stride, like the sole of a boot worn uneven. Something creaked. Gloves, maybe? The small, intimate sounds of preparation. This wasn’t business, this was personal.
My stomach tightened.
I tried to slow my breathing and couldn’t. My chest hitched, air snagging halfway in. The room felt smaller with every inhale. My shoulders strained against the restraints even though I knew it was useless, the instinct to fight rising sharp and feral anyway.
The handle rattled. The door opened.
Light from the hallway spilled across the floor in a thin, pale strip, and a figure stepped through it, blurred at the edges by the glare. My vision tunneled, focusing only on the shape of it, the threat it represented. My jaw clenched so hard it hurt.
Not again, I thought, the words pulsing through my skull like a prayer or a curse. Not again. The figure moved closer. A hand reached for my face, fingers sliding under my chin to force my head up.
The touch was wrong, though. Smaller than I expected. Warmer. Shaking.
“Remo. Hey. Remo.”
The room stuttered. The light above me fractured, splintering into white shards. The walls wavered similar to heat over asphalt. The hand on my jaw tightened, then shifted, cradling instead of restraining.
“Remo, wake up.”
My eye flew open and the world slammed back into place so fast it left me dizzy. The warehouse ceiling loomed overhead, dark beams cutting across the early gray of dawn.
Instinct surged through me, pure animal reflex, the kind carved into bone after too many years of surviving by violence. I lunged forward, my hand shooting out and catching a wrist, I twisted hard, ready to neutralize the threat that didn’t exist.
“It’s me,” Alessia whispered, breath trembling. “It’s just me.” Slowly, her face materialized out of the dark, her eyes wide and terrified, one hand on my face, the other in my grip. She didn’t fight, didn’t even try to pull away.
Reality returned, clumsy and disjointed. I dropped her hand and sat up, pushing her away from me. Guilt rushed in fast and ugly. For a second I couldn’t look at her, couldn’t stand the thought that I might’ve hurt her.
“You were screaming,” Alessia said quietly.
Sweat soaked through the bandages wrapped around my ribs, stinging where the cuts remained open. My heart hammered so hard, I expected it to claw out of my chest.
The chair was gone. The light. The door. All of it gone. But the threat stayed, clinging to me as if part of me was still strapped down somewhere under that buzzing bulb, waiting for the door to open again.
I lifted my gaze to Alessia’s concerned expression. “Want to talk about it?” she asked, her expression genuine care.
“I’m fine,” I muttered, a lie that even I didn’t believe.
Her expression tightened. “Dammit, Remo, you’re not.” She wiped my forehead with a cool cloth, and I tried to pull away. Unfazed, she gripped my jaw and continued, her touch gentle.
No one had ever witnessed this side of me and I fucking hated it. “I don’t need to be coddled,” I said, more sharply than I meant to.
“Well, tough shit,” she snipped. “You haven’t slept properly since your brother dragged you here. You’re exhausted. You’re stitched together like a patchwork quilt. And every time you close your eyes you sound like you’re dying. So, deal with it.”
She reached for a bottle on a crate used as a table, poured water into a glass, and pressed it into my hand. It trembled hard enough that the surface rippled. Alessia noticed, and without saying a word she steadied the glass and tipped it toward my mouth herself.
I drank because arguing required energy I didn’t have, and because the cool water grounded me, dragged me back into my body one swallow at a time. Done, I gestured for her to help me up.
“I need the bathroom.” Frustratingly, I had to let her help me to the door.
