“And you?” I continue, voice even. “You will already be dead from fentanyl before the sirens reach your driveway. And the story they’ll tell about your family? A broken pipe. A tragic accident. A little explosion. Nothing worth looking into.”
His chest heaves, ragged. He sounds like an engine trying to start in the dead of winter.
“Please,” he chokes out again, voice cracking, all the defiance gone. “I swear, I didn’t?—”
“You did.” I set the folder down with a final, precise tap against my knee. I lean forward, elbows on my thighs, and hold his gaze until he can’t look away.
“This is the part where you stop lying, Tyler,” I say softly. “Because whether your daughter gets to breathe fresh air again depends on how useful you are to me in the next ten minutes.”
The bulb swings above us, casting us in and out of light. For a long, heavy moment, I let him drown in the silence, let him listen to his own panicked breaths. Then I ask,
“Now tell me—do you want to live? Do you want your wife and kids to live?”
Tyler’s bottom lip slackens, trembling, a line of spit clinging to the corner of his mouth. His eyes roll, pupils blown wide until only a thin rim of color remains. Sweat soaks his shirt, sticking damp to his chest and arms. His body jerks like he’s trying to shake something out of his skin.
He sags against the ropes, head lolling to the side, breath coming in uneven bursts—shallow, then gasping, then shallow again.
“Answer me, Tyler,” I say, and when he doesn’t, I slap him sharply across the face. His head jerks, the impact snapping him back for one second.
“Do you feel that?” I ask, tilting my head, my tone as calm as if I’m asking him about the weather. “The way your heart feels like it’s trying to claw its way out of your chest?”
His throat works, but no sound comes out.
“That,” I say, holding up a vial of Narcan between two fingers, letting him see it clearly, “is your body telling you that you are running out of time. Do you want to die?”
“N-no,” he whimpers, barely audible.
“Then you are going to make a phone call,” I tell him, my voice turning to steel. “And you are going to demand the immediate release of Lily Petrov.”
I lower the vial just out of his reach. “Or you will never get the chance to make another call again.”
I let him sit in it a moment longer, let the tremors roll through his body until he can barely hold his head up. Then I reach into his jacket pocket and pull out his phone. Face ID opens it easily when I tilt it toward his swollen, terrified face.
He tries to say something, but it comes out as a wet, garbled sound.
“Save your breath,” I murmur, scrolling through his contacts. “You’ll need it in a moment.”
I find the number I want—the one tied directly to the precinct where they’ve been holding her—and press Call. The ringing fills the basement, sharp against the rasp of his struggling breath.
When a woman answers, her voice clipped and professional, I don’t speak. I shove the phone against his mouth.
“Speak,” I order, my hand fisting in his collar.
Tyler stumbles over his own tongue, voice raw and unsteady, but the words come out like a gunshot: “Release Lily Petrov. Immediately.”
There’s a pause, static crackling on the line. “Mr. Richards, I?—”
“I said,” he snaps, desperation twisting his tone, “drop all charges. Now. Do it now, or so help me God?—”
Another beat. Then a quieter voice on the other end, resigned: “...Okay.” The line goes dead.
I pull the phone back, click it off, and slip it into my pocket.
“That wasn’t hard,” I say, my voice almost light as I drive the needle of Narcan into the muscle of his thigh. He jerks as the antidote floods his system, his body trying to right itself as the poison recedes.
“My daughter… my wife,” he stammers, wheezing as his body starts to calm.
“They’re currently in Maine,” I tell him, my voice flat. “Visiting your mother-in-law. You piece of shit. You don’t even know where they are while you’re selling your soul to Takeda Matsumoto.”
