I share a look with Sawyer, who blocks the exit, he too feels it, fear. I can see it behind the mask he is wearing, straight in his eyes. Dominik doesn’t engage in the scene, it’s not his place.
There’s a man tied to a chair at the front now; Maxim Lazovsky. The rat. He’s shaking. His hair matted to his skull, blood running from his mouth. One eye swollen shut. One hand already missing a finger. He looks like he’s been screaming, but here, screaming means nothing. Not in this room. Not in front of him. This is Russian torture, which me and Ada read about in folders, saw on the news. But this time we see it with our own eyes.
I hear Ada’s breath stutter in my earpiece.
“Jesus Christ,” she whispers.
That’s all.
Nothing else.
Aslanov circles him slowly.
No expression. No sound.
Then he stops. Tilts his head slightly.
“Who gave the order?” he asks.
His voice is a whisper. But it hits like a hammer.
Lazovsky doesn’t answer. His mouth opens, but closes again, like whatever he was about to say died in the back of his throat.
So Aslanov moves again.
Walks to the table.
Picks up something I hadn’t noticed.
A pair of pliers.
He turns them in his hand like he’s considering the weight.
Then he crouches down in front of Lazovsky, face calm, voice soft.
“You broke the code. You turned Zakharov. You turned Yegorov. You held meetings behind my cousin’s back. You plotted to kill him, your pakhan. You declared me dead.”
Lazovsky’s chest shakes. “Please—”
“No.”
The pliers move.
There’s a snap.
A scream.
A tooth hits the floor.
I flinch.
No one else does.
Zakharov is already dead, a bullet between his eyes and his pants soaked in piss. Yegorov is next to him, his throat torn open like he talked back to God.
I feel like I’m going to be sick.
And then there’s Dimitri.
