Page 14 of Heresy
I run an exploratory hand over the thin, lumpy mattress on the metal cot. Institutional gray fabric, padding no thicker than a dictionary. But touching it triggers an unexpected comparison, and a bitter smile touches my lips before I suppress it.
Dmitri's cage had silk sheets and soundproofed walls. Egyptian cotton that cost a fortune, concealing the brutality underneath. You could scream for hours in that penthouse prison and no one would hear, the walls designed to contain secrets polite society preferred not to acknowledge.
This cage, at least, is honest. It doesn't pretend to be anything but a container for a human-shaped object that no longer qualifies for dignity or choice. There's something almost refreshing in its brutal transparency. At least here, you know exactly where you stand.
A sudden, jarring sound from the hallway shatters the silence. Metal scraping metal. The heavy bolt. My heart launches itself into my throat. I scramble to my feet, pressing myself against the far wall as the heavy steel door swings inward.
Dim yellow light floods my gray universe, and he fills the doorway like a natural disaster given human form—a massive silhouette that blocks the only escape route and absorbs the light, making the darkness his personal atmosphere. Hex. His presence consumes all the oxygen, his shadow stretching across the floor like a territorial claim.
He steps inside,and the heavy door closes behind him with a boom that shrinks my world to these four concrete walls and the monster contained within them. He carries a single, hard-backed wooden chair. The furniture scrapes against the concrete with a harsh sound that settles directly into my nervous system. He places the chair in the center of my cell, transforming the neutral space into a throne room.
He sits with imperial ceremony, a king taking his throne in conquered territory. He leans forward, massive forearms restingon his thighs, and just watches me. The silence is a weapon he wields with terrifying skill, stretching between us until I think it might snap something inside me. I force myself to meet his gaze, a pathetic but necessary act of defiance. My heart hammers against my ribs, but I refuse to let him see how thoroughly his presence has destabilized me.
Finally, he speaks, his voice a low, emotionless rumble designed to vibrate in your bones.
"What's your name?"
The question drops into the silence like a stone into a deep well. My new life is eight months old. I have practiced this moment for every one of those days, rehearsing this particular lie until it felt more real than the truth.
"Vera Ivanov," I respond, surprised by the steadiness of my own voice. Say it like it's yours. Say it like you weren't born with a name that was a death sentence. Say it like Katarina Volkov died eight months ago in a gilded cage, and this is all that remains.
He shows no reaction, his dark eyes maintaining an unblinking focus. "Why were you at my pier, Vera Ivanov?" He uses the name deliberately, rolling the syllables off his tongue like he's tasting them, testing them.
"I'm a photographer," I say, keeping my voice even. "I specialize in urban decay, industrial architecture. Someone told me the Red Hook waterfront had character." The best lies are wrapped around a core of honesty. I give him nothing else, no unnecessary details. I watch him, waiting for him to call the bluff, for recognition to dawn. He is dissecting me with surgical precision, and I can only hope he doesn't see the ghost I'm so desperately trying to hide.
A slow,cold smile touches his lips, an expression that never reaches his eyes. The smile is of a predator that has already won and is now savoring the moment. "You're a good liar, Vera."
The words hit me like a physical blow. He never believed me. This was all theater.
He leans forward. "My tech guy, Glitch, he's thorough. He tells me Vera Ivanov left Chicago two years ago after a bad breakup. A man named Michael. Apparently, it was messy."
My blood transforms into ice water. There is no Michael. It's a trap, a cage of fiction built around me, baited to see if desperation will make me agree with a lie.
"It was a long time ago," I respond, my voice a carefully constructed wall of indifference.
He waves a hand, dismissing the fictional Michael. "That's the story," he says, his voice dropping to a softer register that is infinitely more terrifying than any shout. "But it's not the truth, is it? The truth is in the way you flinch when a door slams. The truth is in the way you knew how to run on that pier, how to use the shadows. The truth is in the way you're looking at me right now…" His voice becomes a whisper that carries more menace than a scream. "Not like a scared photographer. Like someone who has seen a monster before."
A memory flashes behind my eyes, unbidden and sharp as broken glass. Dmitri's face, contorted in an aristocratic sneer. The glint of his signet ring just before it connected with my cheek hard enough to leave an impression that lasted for weeks.
My breath hitches involuntarily. A tiny gasp that betrays everything, a crack in the armor that reveals the vulnerable flesh underneath.
A flicker of grim triumph lights his eyes. He saw it. He caught that microscopic betrayal and understood exactly what it meant. The violation of being so completely seen is worse than any physical touch. The terror in my veins curdles into something else—a cold, sharp anger that tastes familiar as old blood. The rage that kept me alive that last night in Dmitri's world.
I straighten my spine, lifting my chin to meet his gaze head-on. "And what about you? What's your story? Why does the all-powerful President of a motorcycle club look like a man haunted by more ghosts than all the ruins in this city combined?"
The question hangsin the charged air between us, a naked challenge. I brace for the explosion, for the back of his hand. For the first time since I met him, the mask slips. Not much—a muscle jumping in his jaw, a flicker of something wild and violent in the depths of his eyes—but it's enough. He looks at me not as a problem to be solved, but as something that has just drawn blood. In his momentary shock, I see the truth of my words reflected back at him. Ghosts. A legion of them. Recognition passes between us—an acknowledgment that we both carry damage that shaped us into something harder, sharper.
He doesn't answer my question. He would never grant me that control. Instead, he stands abruptly, the chair legs shrieking against the concrete. He towers over me, a mountain of controlled violence, and for a terrifying second, I believe this is it. But he doesn't strike. The storm is locked away again.
He turns and walks to the door in two long strides, pulling the heavy steel open. He pauses in the doorway, his back still turned to me.
"You're a good liar, Vera." His voice is a low, chilling rumble. "But the ghosts you're running from? I can see them in your eyes." The words hang in the sudden draft, a final judgment. "And my ghosts are bigger than yours."
The door slams shut with the sound of a gunshot. The heavy bolt slides home with mechanical finality. I am left alone in a darkness that feels different now, charged with an electricity that didn't exist before. The silence that follows is not empty; it's an active presence that speaks to a connection I never wanted.
This wasn't an interrogation. It was an acknowledgment between damaged souls. The moment when a hunter realized his prey might have teeth. He may hold all the tactical advantages, control every variable.
But now I know he bleeds.
