10 Days to Ruin

It wasn't enough for the reporter, though. That little bird flew close enough for me to snatch her out of the air and make a meal of her.

And fuck, what a meal it was. Her moans are still echoing in my head. She couldn't even spit out the word Please-that's how badly she wanted, needed me.

Fuck me if I didn't feel the exact same.

It was a lifetime's worth of impulse all distilled into one moment. Because I don't bend, I don't break, I don't waver, ever.

Except for once.

Except for tonight.

But as I said-that's behind me now. And I am no ssyklo.

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 wet snap of bone and tendon. His scream carves the room.

Ariel's face flickers in the aftermath-green eyes blown wide, lips bitten raw. I wrench my attention back to the present and grind my boot into the kid's shattered knee. He howls.

"Second opportunity. I cannot promise a third."

"F-fu-fuck you!"

Another swing. Ribs cave like rotten timber.

Her gasp against my mouth. The hitch in her breath when I slid inside her.

I drop the crowbar. It clatters, loud as a gunshot.

Feliks raises an eyebrow but says nothing.

The spy wheezes, pink foam on his chin. Lung puncture. He'll drown in his own blood soon.

I crouch to eye level. "Last chance to die useful."

In response, he spits. A weak arc of blood and saliva grazes my cheek.

I exhale and wipe it off. "Poor choice."

My knife finds his throat before he blinks. Steel parts flesh-a hot, red smile. He gurgles. Twitches. Stills.

And just like that, another little bird dies.

In the corner, I hear the rasp of gears and the burble of flame as Feliks finally lights his cigarette. "Messy," he comments.

"Efficient," I correct.

But my hands stutter as I clean the blade. Her fingers, trembling as I bandaged her cut. The way she laughed-reckless, bright, a lit match in a oil well.

I sheathe the knife, and with it, I put away those distractions.

Blood cools sticky between my fingers as I light a cigarette of my own off Feliks's flame. At our feet, the corpse leaks onto linoleum.

For a moment, I'm twelve again-watching my father gut a traitor in our kitchen. Mother scrubbed crimson from grout for days.

"Folks at the gala are whining," Feliks informs me, smoke curling around his jagged face. "They're asking when you'll make your rounds."

They. The vultures. The ones who'll clap like seals when I complete my deal with the Greeks tonight. They won't quite understand what it means, what will change, but they'll still applaud and cheer like the good little puppets they are.

I drag the smoke into my lungs until they burn. "Tell them to hold their standing ovation until after I sign my life away."

He snorts. "Don't sound too eager, brattan." He taps the ash off his cigarette. "Heard your bride-to-be's got fangs."

"Don't they all." The ember between my fingers pulses like a dying star. "The first Makris girl did, too. Look how it served her."

Something flickers behind his milky eye. "Leander is running out of spares."

My pulse hiccups. Green eyes. Nips at her lower lip when she's seething. Orgasms like a wildfire catching. And when she moans, it's⁠-

The cigarette snaps between my fingers. I grimace, then drop it and crush it beneath my heel. "I don't keep track of their litter. As far as I'm concerned, one is as good as the next."

I start rolling my sleeves back down, smoothing my hair back in place. I walk a fine line between the shadow and the sunlight, and the civilians at the gala can only handle so much darkness before they shrink away in fear. Best to keep things buttoned-up.

Even when I'm reassembled, though, and Feliks has helped me back into my suit jacket, I feel filthy.

I need a shower. A scalding one. To strip this stink of fear sweat and cheap cologne.

"Leander's probably throwing a fit," I remark.