Footsteps crossed the concrete.Slow.Unhurried.Purposeful.
Luca raised his good eye.
The man who entered didn’t look like the others.No visible weapons.No tattoos climbing his neck or disappearing under his sleeves.He wore a dark coat, perfectly cut, and gloves that hadn’t seen a single drop of blood.
That was what set Luca on edge.
The man stopped a few feet away and studied him in silence.
Not with pity.
Not with curiosity.
With assessment.
“You didn’t break,” the man said at last.
Luca huffed out a laugh that turned into a cough.“Give it time.”
Something almost like amusement flickered across the man’s face.Almost.
“I’ve read your file,” he continued calmly.“Foster system.Group homes.Juvenile detention.Prison.You were punished repeatedly for defending someone weaker than you.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.“That your pitch?”
“No.”
The man reached up and removed his gloves.
Leather whispered softly against skin.
The sound carried.
The interrogator nearest Luca shifted his weight.The others exchanged a glance—quick, instinctive.Men who’d survived long enough to recognize the moment when something had gone wrong.
The stranger took one slow step forward.
Then another.
He stopped beside Luca and glanced down at the cuffs binding his wrists.
“Enough,” he said quietly.
Not a command.
A verdict.
The door opened again.
Four men entered without a word, moving in practiced silence.No uniforms.No insignia.Not thugs.Professionals.They spread through the room with lethal efficiency, positions taken, angles covered.
One of them met the stranger’s gaze and he gave a single nod.
That was the only signal.
The baton was knocked aside before it hit the floor.One interrogator barely had time to curse before his arm was wrenched behind his back, bone popping out of its socket with a sound that made Luca’s teeth ache.He was knocked unconscious before his scream of pain really got going.
The one that had stood the furthest from him went for his gun and was slammed face-first into the concrete, teeth cracking hard enough that blood sprayed.
