Chapter 76 Chapter Seventy Six

Chapter 76 Chapter Seventy Six
"Hello Lorenzo." Cesar greeted him like an old time friend, his voice carrying the particular warmth of a man who had rehearsed this moment a hundred times in his head. "Remember me?"

Of course he doesn't remember you. The thought flickered through Cesar's mind with quiet amusement. 

Men like Lorenzo never remember the faces they were paid to erase. That was the tragedy of hired killers — they were too transactional to be sentimental.

Lorenzo frowned as he tried to get his vision to focus on the man in front of him but was having trouble because it seemed as if the world was spinning and he wasn't drunk. 

The fluorescent light above him swam in nauseating circles. His wrists burned where the restraints bit into his skin. Nothing made sense — not the cold metal chair beneath him, not the wires he could vaguely feel taped along his arms, and certainly not the calm, well-dressed man standing before him like they were meeting for coffee.

"Who are you?" His words were slurred and he felt like he was dead drunk. What the hell did they inject him with?

Cesar caught the disorientation in Lorenzo's eyes and filed it away with mild irritation. He turned slowly, deliberately, toward the man standing to his right — the one who had dragged Lorenzo in like a sack of discarded problems.

"Did you hit him too hard?" Cesar glared at the man beside him. If this idiot has scrambled his brains, I swear to God—

"He tried to escape, sir. We had to—" The man started to explain, his voice carrying the particular nervousness of someone who already sensed they were on thin ice.

"If he doesn't give me what I want, you're dead." Cesar growled at him. It wasn't a threat delivered in anger. 

It was worse than that — it was delivered in the same even tone one might use to discuss the weather, which made it infinitely more terrifying.

"Yes, sir."

Good. 

Cesar smoothed the front of his jacket and turned back to the matter at hand. He faced Lorenzo again, studying the man the way a jeweler studies a stone — not with emotion, but with the cold, practiced eye of someone assessing value. 

You tried to kill me, he thought. And now here you are. Funny how the world corrects itself.

"My name is Cesar." He let the name sit in the air for a moment. "Cesari Sandoval." A pause. "Rings a bell?"

"Don't give a fuck who you are." Lorenzo spat.

There it is. Cesar almost smiled. Bravado. The last refuge of a cornered man. He had seen it so many times it had become almost endearing — almost. 

He pulled the chair in front of Lorenzo around and straddled it with practiced ease, draping his arms across the back with the casual authority of a man who had never once doubted he controlled every room he walked into.

"Okay." Cesar agreed simply, as if Lorenzo had said something perfectly reasonable. 

Take your time. Make yourself comfortable in your defiance. It won't last.

"Will you answer this question for me then?" he continued, his voice dropping to something almost conversational. "I promise to let you go if you do. In fact—" he tilted his head slightly, "—I'll give you five million. Who sent you to kill me?"

"Fuck you!" Lorenzo hissed.

The room settled into a silence that felt almost physical. Cesar said nothing for a long moment. He simply looked at Lorenzo the way a chess player looks at a board — not reactive, never reactive, but always calculating three moves ahead. 

He'll break, Cesar thought with absolute certainty. They always break. The only variable is time, and I have plenty of it. He doesn't.

"Are you sure about that?" He remarked dryly. "Five million's a lot of money." A dry, humorless smile crossed his lips. "I'd give up my mother for five million."

And that's not even a joke, he thought privately, the smile not quite reaching his eyes. His mother was someone whose death wouldn't hurt him one bit. 

In fact it'd be a day of celebration for him if he happened to hear of her death. Some wounds calcified into something harder than grief — they became indifference, and indifference, Cesar had long since learned, was its own kind of freedom.

"I'm not telling you shit." Lorenzo said.

Then we do this the other way. Cesar felt no anger about it. No frustration. He stood from the chair in one smooth, unhurried motion, the way a man stands when he has already made peace with what comes next.

"Very well then." He straightened his cuffs. "You see these wires attached to your body?" He gestured almost gently toward them, as though pointing out something of mild academic interest. 

"They are connected to that." He directed Lorenzo's gaze toward the machine positioned nearby — squat, industrial, and utterly indifferent to human suffering. 

"You're sitting on an electric chair, my friend." He let the information land. "What's it going to be? Your way, or the hard way?"

Choose wisely, Cesar thought. For both our sakes.

"Kill me and you won't get what you want." Lorenzo said, his chin lifting with what remained of his dignity.

Cesar almost appreciated that. The logic was sound, at least. You're smarter than you look, Lorenzo. But not smart enough.

"Oh, this isn't to kill you." Cesar said pleasantly. "This is to torture you first." He clasped his hands behind his back. "This won't kill you. The president has given specific instructions on how you'll die." He paused, letting the next words carry the full weight of their meaning. "Remember Alicia Renault?"

Lorenzo paled and gulped loudly. The bravado drained from his face like color from a wound.

Yes, Cesar thought, watching the shift with quiet satisfaction. You remember Alicia Renault. Everyone who has ever run in your circles remembers what happened to her. Good. Fear is a much better conversationalist than pride.

"That's what I thought." Cesar smirked. "You gonna talk, or what? I don't have all day."

"I'm still not telling you anything." He replied in a belligerent tone. The words were defiant but something behind his eyes had shifted — a hairline fracture in the wall.

He's already started lying to himself, Cesar noted. He'll talk. Men always find religion when the pain gets real enough.

"Electrocute this bastard." Cesar ordered.