Page 10 of 10 Days to Ruin

Except for tonight.

But as I said—that’s behind me now. And I am nossyklo.

The car stops. Klaus opens my door. The restaurant’s broken sign casts sickly purple shadows across the cracked pavement.

Time to go to work.

Inside, the restaurant reeks of mildew, rust, and spoiled meat. Empty plates still sit on some tables, coated in years of dust, like the diners just got up and walked away mid-meal. The leather booths are cracked and peeling. Rats scatter at my approach.

Feliks emerges from the shadows with an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. His scarred face twists into what passes for a smile. “He’s in the kitchen. Been crying about his family for the last hour.”

I grimace. They always cry about their families.

“Any complications?” I ask, shrugging off my jacket and handing it to him. No point in getting blood on good Italian wool.

“Nyet. Clean grab. No witnesses.” Feliks follows me through the swinging doors. “Though he did try to swallow something when we caught him. Some kind of data chip.”

I roll up my sleeves. “And?”

“Made him cough it up. Literally.” He holds up a small plastic bag containing a bloody micro SD card. “Haven’t checked what’s on it yet.”

“Give it to Roza. She’ll have a field day.”

The spy is zip-tied to a steel prep table, face mashed like a fucking eggplant and caked with dried blood. Remarkably, he’s still conscious.

Young, too—younger than I expected. No doubt fresh out of whatever shithole the Serbs train their operatives in these days. Still soft with baby fat at the edges. His left eye swells shut; the right darts like a trapped roach.

The good eye widens when he sees me. “Y-y-y…”

“Yes,” I agree. “Me. As always, I’m touched by my reputation.” I grab a chair, spin it around, straddle it backwards. Feliks hands me a crowbar. The cold steel sings in my grip. “Let’s talk.”

The boy—because that’s what he is, really; not a man, not even close—tries to look brave. “I have n-nothing to say to you.”

Something tickles at the back of my mind. A flash of green eyes, defiant words:Or else what?

I shove the memory away.Focus on the job.

“Everyone says that in the beginning,” I inform him sadly. My voice stays flat. Detached. A scalpel, not a sledgehammer. “But eventually, they all talk. The only question is how much it has to hurt first.”

Many men say things like that. Few mean it. The Serbian boy knows that I do, because when he looks into my eyes as I speak, he flinches.

But that’s just because he wasn’t raised like I was. I don’t flinch. I haven’t flinched since the night my father held my fingers over the stove burner for tracking mud on his Persian rug.“Pain is a language,”he’d said, flames licking my skin.“Learn it.”

This kid in front of me has no idea just how fluent I am. He doesn’t know how deep the old scars go or how thick the callus is that’s grown over them.

It’s not his fault. But ignorance won’t save him.

“Let’s try questions. What’s on the data chip?” I ask.

He whimpers but shakes his head, snot bubbling over split lips.

I sigh.

I stand.

I swing.

The crowbar cracks his kneecap—a wetsnapof bone and tendon. His scream carves the room.

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