Just wipes the blood from under my nose with maddening precision, like he’s clearing something from his field of vision.
Only then does he speak again.
“How old were you,” he asks, dabbing at the split in my lip, “when he started using your face to make his point?”
I stare at him.
The question is so direct it doesn’t feel real at first.
Not because of what it asks. Because of who’s asking it. Vaska doesn’t look up from what he’s doing. He presses fresh cotton to my lip, steady and impersonal, like he asked me what time it is.
My mouth opens.
Closes.
I don’t answer.
His thumb shifts against my jaw—not hard, just enough to keep my face where he wants it.
“How old?”
I swallow.
The room feels too warm all of a sudden. Too small.
“Thirteen,” I say.
The word comes out flat.
I hate that. Like I’m reporting weather. Like it happened to somebody else. Vaska doesn’t react.
Not to the number. Not to the way it leaves my mouth like it means nothing.
He just tosses the bloodied cotton onto the table and reaches for another piece.
“Your mother?”
My throat tightens. “Murdered when I was eight.”
He nods once like he’s slotting the fact into place.
“And your father?”
I hesitate for half a second. Because I know he knows that answer. Everyone knows when my father was killed. But mostly because saying his name out loud always makes him feel real again, and I don’t know which version of him Vaska is asking about—the man who existed before, or the one who died and left me with Gabriel.
“Selim Kaya,” I say quietly. “Dead when I was thirteen.”
Only then do Vaska’s eyes lift to mine.
Brief.
Direct. Too knowing.
“And that’s when it started.”
Not a question.
I stare back at him, breathing shallow.
