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His eyes dropped to it.

“You want a confession?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Like a priest?”

The question should not have amused him, but desperation made men foolish.

“No,” I taunted. “A priest offers absolution.”

“And you?”

“I can offer you a quick death.”

His lips parted, shock swallowing all the color from his face.

I pressed the button on the recorder. The red light blinked awake.

“Names,” I needled.

He spilled the truth in portions, testing the room after each one, hoping some name would satisfy me enough to buy him some measure of mercy.

He gave me names. Roles. A dock supervisor. A customs official. Two brothers who owned a transport company. A police captain. A doctor who forged death certificates. A woman who ran an employment agency and had a penchant for recruiting desperate mothers.

I listened. When he paused, I asked questions. When he lied, I corrected him and reminded him of the dead fourteen-year-old whose name he had never learned because numbers had been easier to remember.

Her name was Livia. I made him say it. He cried then. Not for her, but for himself. Still, tears were tears. The body did not always know whether grief had earned them.

By the end, his voice had gone hoarse. Sweat shone on his forehead. The warehouse smelled of his fear and not much else.

“I told you everything,” he responded. “Please.”

There it was. The oldest word. The cheapest. The most expensive.

Please.

I stood and retrieved the recorder.

His eyes followed my hand, frantic now. “Listen to me. Please. I have a family. I can disappear. You will never see me again. I swear on my children.”

He began sobbing. I moved behind him. There was no need to hurry. Death was patient when summoned properly. One of our men near the door looked away. The other kept his eyes forward. I preferred the second one.

Vittorio twisted against the ropes. “No. No, no, no. God, please. I confessed. I confessed.”

I leaned close enough that my breath skated over his skin. There was a certain satisfaction in knowing that I would be the last person he would ever see.

“Yes, you did.”

I gave him one more moment. Then I killed him. It was quicker than he deserved. The body jerked once against the restraints, then sagged. His head fell forward, chin against his chest, mouth still open.

The warehouse returned to silence. I stood behind him with my hand still raised, listening to the sudden absence he had left behind.

There should have been something. Revulsion. Triumph. Satisfaction. Guilt. Instead, there was only peace. Not joy or pleasure. Just peace.

A faint, terrifying quiet spread through me, as if a crooked thing in the world had been straightened by force and my soul had approved before my conscience could object.

That frightened me more than guilt would have. Guilt would have meant there was still friction between what I had done and what I believed myself to be. Guilt would have been proof that some softer part of me had survived intact. But peace? Peace was dangerous. Peace meant the act had fit too neatly inside me.