"Do you see?" I ask her wordlessly.
She flinches at the crackle of bone snapping. Her face is ashen as she clutches my jacket to her chest.
But she doesn't look away or run.
Her pupils are blown wide. She’s terrified, yes, but she also looks fascinated. She’s watching the blood on my hands with intensity, unable to tear her gaze away.
Something dark coils in my gut.
I release Petrov. He slumps to the floor, unconscious, breathing in ragged gasps.
I stand, rolling my shoulders. My knuckles are split and bloody.
I walk over to her and take my jacket back from her trembling hands.
"Clean this up," I tell Lev. "Get him a doctor, then send him back to Moscow. Tell the Council the debt is paid."
I grab Helena's elbow. "Office. Now."
I march her up the metal stairs to the glass-walled office that overlooks the floor and kick the door shut, finally cutting off the noise of the grinders.
I walk to the corner sink, grab a wet wipe, and scrub the blood off my hand. Helena stands by the door, watching.
"You enjoyed that," she whispers.
"It was necessary," I say, tossing the bloody wipe into the trash.
I walk to the desk and tap a thick file markedTHE VENEZUELA CONTRACT.
"The Venezuelan deal," I say, tapping the file.
She blinks, likes she’s trying to shift gears from the brutality she just witnessed to corporate logistics.
"Venezuela?" she asks. "What about Apex Holdings? I thought you owned Apex? You told me that it was a shell company you used to bait me into the meeting."
"Apex is a shell," I agree, leaning against the desk. "I created the obstacles to see if you would jump through the hoops. Owning the client doesn't make the contract worthless."
"But the logistics were frozen," she argues. "The bridge loan from Mr. Rossi? The environmental permits? That deal was dead in the water."
"I resurrected it," I say calmly, flipping the file open. "Mr. Rossi has been paid in full. The environmental permits were rubber-stamped by the EPA this morning. I created the roadblocks to test you, Helena. Now that I need the road clear, the obstacles have been removed."
I point to the manifest.
"The logistics are already in place. Apex has placed a legitimate order for 20 heavy-duty mining drills to be shipped to Caracas. The charter leaves in three days."
She walks forward slowly, studying the schematics. "Mining drills?"
"Standard industrial equipment. Lead-lined. Perfectly legal. We have a government contract with Venezuela."
The tension bleeds from her shoulders.
"It's... legal?" she asks, skepticism warring with hope.
"Yes. You wanted to do legitimate business. Here it is."
I see her mind working. She thinks that if she handles this clean job, maybe she can redeem herself for the Atlantic Loop. She thinks she can be a real Director again.
"Okay," she nods. "I can do that. I can sign off on mining drills. It's legitimate."
