Page 91 of Captive Ruin

“They’ll kill me!”

Van Wyk’s voice is as low and as menacing as I’ve ever heard. “Worry. About. Me.” Whatever he does next tears a scream out of the man.

“Sovietnik… Dmitri… Koval…” he sobs out.

“Thank you. And this is for touching what isn’t yours.” Van Wyk takes a fistful of his hair, pulls his head back, and draws the karambit across his throat.

Blood flows down, all over his shirt. So much of it. He chokes like he’s drowning, his good hand clutching at his throat. His eyes meet mine, and I know I’m the last thing he’s going to see. Then Van Wyk shoves him forward, to flop face-down on my carpet. I heave, covering my mouth as I turn away, barely swallowing in time.

“I’m sorry I was late,” he says, crouching to wipe his knife on the man’s shirt with efficient movements.

“Late?” I echo. I’m shivering violently, staring stunned at the corpse of the man he’s just killed before me.

Two dead men in my apartment.

“Yes, late,” he says as he straightens, treading shattered glass into my carpet on his way to shut what’s left of my door. The lock has been smashed in, and it doesn’t really close. “I wasn’t planning on coming, but…” He trails off with a shrug.

I’m just glad he did. If he hadn’t, what would’ve happened to me? To Lucy?

Wait… if he wasn’t planning on coming, why is he here?

Van Wyk has his phone out. “Haynes? I need clean up at Amelia’s apartment. Two bodies.”

What the hell?

Haynes. I’ve heard that name before. And how does Van Wyk have those kind of cleaning services on speed-dial?

I’m not sure I want to know. This night… it’s been too much. Too intense. I feel feverish, like it’s a nightmare I can’t wake up from.

“Yes, all of it,” he says in response to something. “And the front door doesn’t shut anymore.” A pause. “Ten minutes.”

It’s only after he’s hung up and slid his phone back into his pocket that I realize he never told them my address.

I crawl to my armchair. It’s the only piece of furniture that’s survived this evening, but I’m too weak to drag myself into it. I flop against its base, touch my bruised cheek and wince. The pain helps ground me.

Van Wyk strides to my side, stepping over Gold-Tooth’s body without looking. He drops to a knee beside me, and I catch a hint of his usual cologne. “Let me see that.” His voice is soft, completely different than when he was… interrogating Gold-Tooth. Or talking to whoever the hell Haynes is.

He reaches for my cheek, his touch gentle as he probes where I got slapped.

I’ve just watched Van Wyk torture a man for information. Right in front of me.

And then kill him.

After he killed someone else. The short man is lying unmoving across my smashed coffee table, and I know he’s dead even though I can’t see his face.

And now Van Wyk’s examining me, like he knows what he’s doing.

And fuck… Serranto.

“You said Serranto is dead.”

“Yes,” he replies, focused on my cheek. He’s playing his fingers carefully across the bone. It stings, but I barely register it.

“Did you kill him?”

“Yes.” There’s no hesitation.

Christ.