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“Boss, please—” he starts.

I pick up the small metal bar on the table and twirl it once between my fingers and approach him. “Last chance. Where is she?”

“I don’t know.” His voice cracks. “They didn’t tell me anything else. I only got a message to move the camera. They said it was just—”

Crack.

His scream bounces off the walls as I snap the first finger back. The index. Clean break.

“Try again.”

“Please—Adrian, please—I swear I don’t know!”

Crack. The middle finger.

Another cry. He thrashes, but the cuffs hold him in place. His knuckles are already swelling, skin torn and purple.

I crouch down beside him, eye level now. “You were in my house. Guarding my wife. And you let her get taken. That makes you two things—either a traitor or an idiot. Which one are you?”

“I—I didn’t know it was her. I didn’t—I swear to God, I didn’t know!”

Crack.

The ring finger now. His breath hitches—sharp and wet, like he’s going to pass out. I grab his chin and force him to look at me.

“You will not faint. You will stay awake, and you will remember this. Every second of it.”

He sobs. “It wasn’t supposed to go this far.”

“Oh, it hasn’t even begun, Alexei.”

I snap the last finger slowly. A clean, intentional break. His entire hand hangs limp now, and he slumps forward, wheezing through the pain.

I stand and wipe the sweat off my brow.

“There’s a name you’re forgetting. A face. A license plate. A drop location. Think hard. You’ve got another hand.”

His lip trembles. “I swear. I only ever dealt with one guy. Masked. Russian accent.

“Russian.” I nod. “Okay. We’re getting there. What’s his name?”

Alexei shakes his head. “Please—”

I slam my fist down on the armrest beside his shattered hand, and he jumps.

“The name,” I growl.

He finally whispers, voice barely audible, “Yegor.”

My entire body freezes.

Yegor.

The air shifts. My breathing slows. It feels like something ancient has been dragged back into the light. A name I haven’theard in years—because I thought I’d buried everything attached to it.

I straighten, my gloved fists tightening. “Yegor?” I echo.

Alexei nods, terrified. “He said—he said you’d know.”