Chapter 39 #2
I don’t offer my hand. Down here, handshakes are a way to steal skin cells, to test pulse, to slip blades into sleeves. I keep my hands visible, empty, and still.
Einar’s gaze tracks my posture, the way my coat hangs, the slight tremor I refuse to hide. He is studying me the way a man studies a weapon he plans to buy.
“You look tired,” he says.
“I’m not here for concern.”
“No,” he agrees. “You’re here for a name.”
I don’t move, but my attention tightens. “You sell context.”
“I sell accuracy,” he corrects. “Context is what people call it when they don’t want to admit how much they enjoy knowing the reason something hurt.”
He steps closer, boots quiet on rubber flooring. There is no fear in him. That is either arrogance or preparation.
He tilts his head, examining me. “You’re taller than I expected.”
“I’m not here to meet expectations.”
His smile sharpens. “Everyone is.”
The cold room feels like a mouth closing. Outside, the market hum continues, but it seems farther away here, muffled by insulation. Private. Contained.
I say, “Who put out Elara Vance’s hit?”
The name lands between us like a dropped coin.
Einar’s eyes flick—microexpression, a tiny shift. Surprise, maybe. Or satisfaction.
“You use her name openly,” he says. “Bold.”
“I’m not bold,” I answer. “I’m done being patient.”
He lets out a soft breath that might be amusement. “Ah. That kind of night.”
I step closer, reducing the distance until the cold air between us feels thinner. “You know.”
“I know many things,” Einar says gently, like he’s speaking to a child who has discovered that adults lie. “The question is what you’re willing to trade for the correct one.”
“I don’t trade,” I say. “I take.”
I keep my voice even. “Kollbein said you’d talk when you wanted someone else dead.”
Einar’s smile doesn’t change, but his eyes do. They brighten. Like a man hearing a compliment he can’t deny.
“Kollbein talks too much,” he says. “It will cost him.”
“Answer me.”
He refuses.
I step closer again. “Who started the chain.”
His gaze holds mine, and for the first time I see something like curiosity mixed into his calm. “You care about her,” he says.
It’s not a question. It’s a knife sliding in to see what bleeds.
“I care about the contract,” I lie.
Einar hums. “Mm.”
He turns, slowly, as if to glance toward the doorway, and I track the movement. He is checking something. Timing. Placement.
Then he looks back at me. “Tell me,” he says softly, “Vapor. Did you take her because you didn’t want her dead… or because you didn’t want her to belong to anyone else?”
The cold room feels suddenly warmer, like my blood is heating too fast.
“She’s not an object,” I say.
“Neither are you,” Einar replies. “And yet here we are. Labels everywhere. Monster. Hitman. Scribe.” His eyes narrow slightly. “You call her your little scribe, don’t you?”
My muscles go rigid.
Einar’s smile deepens by a fraction. “That’s what I thought.”
He knows too much. Which is his entire business, yes, but it means he has proximity to the source—either the one who ordered the hit, or the one who benefits from it.
“Who,” I repeat, letting the word scrape.
Einar sighs, as if indulging me. “You,” he says.
I stare at Einar. “Cut the bullshit.”
He doesn’t flinch. He looks… pleased. Like I finally said the line he’d been waiting for.
“Temper,” he murmurs. “That’s always been your weakness, Vapor. You hear a piece of the truth and assume it’s the whole blade.”
“I asked you who started it.”
“And I answered,” he says calmly. “Just not in the way you wanted.”
I take another step. The rubber floor absorbs it, but the intent doesn’t. “I didn’t put a contract on her head. Try again.”
Einar chuckles softly, shaking his head. “Indirectly,” he says. “That’s the word you’re missing. Nothing truly ugly is ever done directly. That’s for amateurs.”
My jaw tightens. “Explain.”
“There is a lot,” he says mildly, “that you don’t know.”
He walks past me then, close enough that his sleeve brushes my arm. It’s deliberate. Testing boundaries. He stops, and I turn around to face him again.
“Tell me,” he says, “do you know a man named Henrik?”
The name lands wrong. Not familiar, not unfamiliar—just… blank.
“No,” I say.
Einar’s eyebrows lift a fraction. “Pity.”
I don’t move. “Why should I?”
“Because,” he says, turning to face me again, “Henrik Vance is very important to your little problem.”
My pulse stutters once, sharp and traitorous.
“Vance,” I repeat.
Einar watches my face closely now, savoring every microfracture. “Yes. That Vance.”
My voice comes out colder. “He’s dead.”
He smiles. Not wide. Just enough. “Is he?”
The cold room seems to tilt, just slightly, like the floor has shifted under the weight of a new possibility.
“You see,” Einar continues, conversational, “death is a flexible concept in our circles. Bodies are easy. Records are easier. Conviction is the only thing that really matters.”
Something in my head starts assembling pieces I didn’t know were loose.
Einar goes on. “Henrik is… brilliant. Neurochemistry. Extraction compounds. Formulas that don’t just change things, but change how the body understands death.” His eyes gleam faintly. “I introduced him to the market years ago. Opened the right doors. Made the right people curious.”
“Why are you telling me this,” I say.
“Because,” he replies, “at some point, admiration curdles.”
Jealousy, then. Greed. I can see the shape of it forming, ugly and familiar. He backstabbed him.
“I wanted to share his work,” Einar says plainly. “His success. His position. His formulas. But Henrik grew… cautious. Paranoid. He started pulling back, hiding pieces of his work from me.”
“What does this have to do with Elara?” I ask bitterly.
“She was always the leverage,” Einar answers. “The one variable Henrik could never neutralize. His blind spot. His proof that he was still human.”
I feel something hot and volatile coil in my chest.
“So,” Einar says, “I applied pressure.”
I say nothing. I don’t trust my voice.
“I let Henrik understand,” he goes on, “that secrets don’t stay buried forever. That formulas have a way of resurfacing. That accidents happen. Especially to daughters who ask too many questions. She started her own investigations.”
The room hums. Or maybe that’s just my blood.
“You threatened her father,” I say.
“I implied,” Einar corrects gently. “Threats are crude. Implication is elegant.”
I step forward without realizing it. He doesn’t retreat.
“And Henrik,” Einar says, “did exactly what a frightened father does. He moved her.”
The world narrows.
“He put out the hit,” Einar continues. “Amateurish. Off-books. Men he trusted. Instructions to collect her, not harm her. To bring her underground until things… settled.”
I feel sick. My breath comes slower now. Measured. Dangerous.
“And then,” Einar says, almost regretful, “you arrived, accepting the hit.”
“You accepted the contract,” he continues. “Killed Henrik’s men. Took his daughter.”
I say nothing.
Einar lifts his hand between us. Slowly moves his finger—from his own chest… to mine.
“And in doing so,” he says quietly, “you made yourself the perfect perpetrator. The perfect villain in the story.”
The words slide under my skin.
I feel it then—the shift in the room. Not in Einar. Around him. A change in the air pressure, the subtle disturbance of bodies repositioning outside the doorway. My instincts flare.
I turn my head slightly, listening.
Footsteps. Multiple. Controlled. Closing in.
I look back at Einar. “You brought company, coward.”
Einar’s expression doesn’t change. “You came alone.”
The cold room’s doorway darkens as figures appear—men in practical gear, faces partially covered, eyes hard. They don’t rush. They don’t need to. They already own the exits.
I shift my weight, calculating angles, distance, numbers. Four men in the doorway. Maybe more outside. The rubber floor will slow my traction. The racks will limit movement. The room is designed to trap someone.
Einar steps back, giving space like a man stepping away from a cornered animal. “Don’t make it messy,” he says, and there is mild disappointment in his tone, like he’d hoped for a simpler outcome.
“You wanted information,” he says, voice low.
Einar nods once. “I wanted you.”
My skin goes cold in a different way.
“You’re useful,” he continues, conversational, as if we’re discussing trade routes. “You’re legendary evil. And you… inconveniently took the hit of a woman I used as leverage.”
The men step forward.
I reach for my bag, but one of them is already moving—fast, trained. A hand clamps around my wrist, twisting. Pain sparks. My tremor turns vicious under strain.
I drive my elbow back, connecting with ribs. The man grunts but doesn’t release. Another grabs my shoulder. Another hooks my arm. They move like they’ve rehearsed this.
Einar watches like an audience member at a play he funded.
“You think you’re the only predator in these tunnels,” he says over the scuffle, calm as snowfall. “You think your mask makes you untouchable.”
One of the men snatches my mask off, the straps loosen, and my bare face touches the cold air.
I snarl, and the sound surprises even me, animal, feral. I wrench my arm, using the pain as leverage, and for a second I almost break free—
Then the floor shifts.
A panel beneath my boots gives way with a metallic clank, and the sensation is wrong—controlled, engineered. The rubber mat isn’t anchored. It’s a lid.
I drop half a meter as the trap opens, landing hard on steel grating inside a recessed cage. The impact jars my bones. My knee spikes pain.
Above me, the men slam the panel shut. Bolts slide. Locks click into place with brutal efficiency.
I am standing inside a square steel enclosure sunk into the floor, bars rising to waist height, then a mesh lid above, sealing me in like an animal being transported.
For a moment, the world is only the sound of my own breathing.