Page 42

I move to the bar cart, pick up the carafe, and pour two glasses of water. I hand him one, our fingers touching at the rim. For a split second, his grip is firmer than it needs to be. He doesn’t break eye contact.

He takes a sip. Sets the glass down on the table with a click.

“Are you going to tell me what this is?” he asks, voice neutral.

I drink, then put my glass down next to his. “This is the part where you ask questions. I answer what I want.”

He nods once.

“Who are you?” he asks.

I smile. “Bentley Brooks, House Brooks, Compliance Director for the Ministry of Acquisition.”

He shakes his head. “Not your file. The real you.”

I move closer, so that the distance is measured in breaths.

“I am the person who decides if you live or die, and whether you matter to the world after.”

He processes this, then says, “What do you want from me?”

The question is so direct it almost throws me.

I want a thousand things. I want to fuck him, break him, see how far he can go before his mind cracks. I want to turn him into a weapon, then keep him on a shelf for my own use. I want to see him burn and keep burning.

Instead, I say, “I want to see if you’re as good as I think you are.”

He laughs, a short bark. “You could have just asked.”

“I did. You answered.”

I step back, just enough to pace. The windows let in more light, but the room seems colder.

He says, “What is the Ministry, really?”

I look at him, gauge the risk of honesty.

“The Ministry is a system. The world is a machine, and we are the gears. There are four main branches: Design, Erasure, Enforcement, and Acquisition. Each with its own mandate.”

He nods, as if imprinting it into memory.

“Design is psychological warfare,” I continue. “Propaganda, information, behavioral collapse. They build the tools that make people do what we want.”

He looks at my hands, the way I flex my fingers.

“Erasure handles disappearances. Assassinations, blackmail, cleaning up the evidence. If you go missing, it’s because they want you to.”

He’s listening now. I can see him slotting the pieces together.

“Enforcement is violence, pure and simple. They train the monsters. If you want something done that cannot be undone, they send in Enforcement.”

“And Acquisition?” he asks.

I look him in the face. “Acquisition is well… acquisition. We take people, make them property, workers, business owners or pieces of us. Anything that can be bought or sold or broken. They staff the rest of the system.”

He absorbs this, then says, “So which am I?”

“You are a little of all,” I say, and I mean it. “That’s why you interest me.”