85● DMITRI KIREEV (POV)

85● DMITRI KIREEV (POV)
DMITRI KIREEV

The warehouse is completely dark, with lighting only in one chair—the chair that the son of a bitch sat in, the one responsible for the tunnel scheme, the one who put Harper in danger. I rest my hands on the back of the chair, lowering my gaze, seeing the blood on my knuckles. I wanted to stop, wanted to make him suffer slowly, but that’s not who I am.
I take a step back and watch the way he tries to reorganize his own body, like he still has a chance to get up, like he still hasn’t realized where he is and who I become when I shut that compartment inside me.
I choose to shut off.
It’s always like that. Comes like an internal click, silent. Especially when Harper’s name is mentioned. She’s always been, from the beginning, the axis around which my fury spins—the exact point where I choose to shut off everything that doesn’t serve and start acting the only way I know how when the line is crossed. When he spat in my face and said that wouldn’t be the last attempt against her, I didn’t explode. I confirmed the monster that lives inside me and gave it room to breathe. He knew too much. And worse: he was proud. Proud people break easier when they realize there’s no audience to witness their act of courage.
I move toward him calmly, unbuttoning the shirt still stained with blood, the fabric clinging to my body, limiting my movements—and I need nothing in my way. I roll up my sleeves slowly, staring at him coldly. He tries to crawl away, dragging himself across the floor, but the space is tight, and his strength has already been drained where it is needed. I grab the chair and tip it over—not to sit him down, but to take away any illusion of stability. There is no support here.
The Russian mafia doesn’t teach haste. It teaches patience. It teaches that pain isn’t just physical—it’s anticipation, it’s disruption, it’s stripping the other of any sense of time. I crouch in front of him, at his level, and let a few seconds pass in silence. The warehouse amplifies his breathing, each ragged pull of air sounding like a mistake he can’t fix.
“You’re going to talk,” I say—no threat, no raised voice. “The question is how much of you will be left when that happens.”
I start with what leaves no obvious marks. Pressure. Angles. Points that make the body react against its will. He writhes, tries to hold in the scream—and fails. I observe, adjust, and pull my hand away at the right moment, so I don’t take him too far. Information requires consciousness. Always. When he starts crying, I know it’s still too early. Crying is emotional resistance, not a break. The break comes later, when the body understands there’s no possible adaptation.
I stand up, walk over to the table, and pick up one of the simple tools I left there on purpose—a small steel pair of pliers. Nothing sophisticated. It doesn’t need to be. The fear isn’t in the object; it’s in the hand that holds it. I return to him and kneel again, this time behind him, close enough for him to feel my presence without being able to see me properly. Uncertainty weighs more when vision fails. I bring my mouth close to his ear.
“Every route has someone who seals it,” I murmur. “And I know it wasn’t you.”
He shakes his head, denies it, clinging to the last crumb of control. I apply more pressure to the palm of his hand and count silently, then release. Repeat. The cycle tightens slowly, like a knot that pulls itself shut. He starts spitting out random names, throwing out anything he can in the hope of confusing me. It doesn’t work. I correct him. Once. Twice. The third time, I let the pain linger—just long enough to teach.
“Stop,” he says at first without a voice, the word falling apart before it even leaves his mouth. His head shakes again, an empty reflex, and I feel his whole body lock up when I apply more pressure. I count silently, like I always do. One. Two. Three. Release. I give him the exact pause he needs to realize that wasn’t the worst of it. That it was just the question being asked in another language.
“You’re past that stage,” I murmur, my tone unchanged. “The one where you pretend you don’t know.”
He swallows hard, the sound far too loud in the silence of the warehouse. “I… I don’t seal anything,” he insists, rushing now, stumbling over his own words. “I just relay. I just do what I’m told. It wasn’t supposed to go wrong.”
“I know,” I reply. No sarcasm. Just a fact. “That’s why you’re still breathing.”
I squeeze again. A bit more. Not enough to break the bones in his hand—just enough to scramble whatever line of thought he’s still trying to hold onto. He screams a name—someone too small, too disposable. I pull my hand back and shake my head once.
“No,” I say. “That one wouldn’t have access to the tunnel route.”
He starts speaking faster, throwing out names like cards onto a table, hoping one will count. A driver. A middleman. An old contact is already dead. I let him. I listen. I wait for him to run out. When silence returns, I lean a little closer.
“You’re stalling,” I say quietly. “And time is the one thing you don’t have.”
The third time, I don’t count to three. I let it go longer. His body reacts before his mind does—and that’s when the resistance truly cracks. When he speaks, it doesn’t come out as a scream. It comes in fragments, like each syllable costs something he no longer has.
“It… it wasn’t a direct order,” he says, forehead drenched, eyes unfocused. “It came… came from above, but not as high up as you think.”
I pause. Make it clear he hit something.
“Name.”
He squeezes his eyes shut, as he could hide inside his own head. “It’s… It’s people from the top,” he whispers. “Allied with Vor. Your brother. Not a soldier. Never was.”
I wait. I don’t interrupt him. Silence does more work than I do now.
“Sergei Volkov,” he finally says, almost inaudible. “He seals it. Always has. Nothing big moves without going through him.”
The name settles in me with the right weight. No surprise. Confirmation. I straighten slowly, taking a step back, letting him realize he’s crossed the point of no return. I don’t say anything right away. I don’t need to.
“I didn’t know it was her,” he adds too fast, desperation trying to negotiate. “When the name came down, it was already sealed. I swear.”
I turn to him one last time. “You knew it was someone important,” I reply. “That was enough.”
I step back, grabbing the gun secured at my back, the familiar weight fitting into my hand like a natural extension of my arm.
Without a second thought, I fire a single shot—precise, straight into the center of his forehead.
The body falls without resistance; it had finally understood there was nothing left to hold it up. The dry sound of the impact echoes through the warehouse and dies quickly, swallowed by the thick silence that rushes back in. I don’t move closer. I don’t need to check. The execution was clean. It always is.