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I rested my elbows on my knees and looked at him properly. “How many?”

He blinked. “What?”

“How many girls have you moved?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s unfortunate.”

“I swear, I don’t know. Hundreds⁠—”

I lifted one hand. He stopped. The warehouse fell silent again.

The world kept moving, even with evil sitting three feet away in a chair. That had always disturbed me. Not the blood and violence. Not even the men who begged once they realized death had entered the room and taken a seat. It was the rest of it. The gulls still screamed over the docks. Engines still coughed to life beyond the walls. Somewhere, a man laughed. A phone rang. Somewhere, a woman bought bread, a child crossed a street, and the sea dragged itself in and out, churning its vile secrets.

Evil did not split the world open. It sat there breathing, sweating, blinking. And the world allowed it to.

“Vittorio,” I purred, gently enough that his face changed with brief, pathetic hope. “You’re going to die tonight.”

He stared at me. The hope vanished. I watched him understand. It arrived slowly, like cold water drenching a body.

First denial. Then bargaining. Then calculation. Then the first glimpse of the pit of hell.

“No,” he whispered.

“Yes.”

“I can give you names.”

“You will.”

“If I give you names, you’ll let me walk.”

“No.”

His mouth opened, but nothing came out.

I tilted my head. “This is the part where you tell the truth because it is the last useful thing you will ever do.”

He began to shake. Muscular. Involuntary. The body preparing to run while the ropes told it there was nowhere left to go.

“I have children,” he pleaded.

“So did some of the women you moved.”

“I never touched them.”

“You profited from the men who did.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“No.” I looked at his hands, soft and manicured despite the blood under one nail. “It’s a more cowardly way to live. When you use your power over a woman to dictate who and what she becomes.”

He made a sound then. A small, wounded sound, as though I had insulted his honor.

Men were strange that way. They could step over bodies for years and still bleed when someone called them out for what they were.

I removed a small recorder from my jacket pocket and placed it on the floor between us.