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Do I recognize him?
Ollie circles him, calm and methodical.
“Do you know him, Renata?” When his eyes meet mine, I have a terrifying shock of recognition.
“Yes,” I whisper. “He went to school with Carlos, but I can’t remember his name.”
“It doesn’t matter what his name is,” Ollie says, his eyes narrowing. He remains calm as he traces his thumb along the edge of a huge blade. I try to breathe, reminding myself that this is necessary, that there is no peaceful way forward. But the bilestill rises in my throat, a stark reminder of the scene that’s about to unfurl before me.
Ollie steps in front of the man and tips his head to the side, inspecting him as if he’s a specimen in a biology lab. I’ve seen that cold gaze in his eyes many times before, the one that chills me to the bone. This is the Ollie they whisper about, the one who enacts revenge without mercy or hesitation.
“Who sent you here?” His voice is low, but the threat unmistakable. The man groans, barely able to lift his head, but Ollie grabs him and forces him to look up.
“Was it Carlos? Tell me.”
“I—I don’t know anything!” the man sobs.
“Fucking hell, let me be the type who stands up to a fucking interrogation and doesn’t shit his pants,” Ollie murmurs with disdain. “You’re a big, tough guy when you’re swaggering down the streets of Colombia, aren’t you? But here, when it’s just me versus you, you’re a child.” He shrugs. “My brothers aren’t even here.”
The man’s eyes are wild and desperate. “He knows you betrayed us,” he says to me with a sneer. Ollie backhands him so hard that the man’s head snaps back, and I feel the crack of his hands in my bones. I flinch.
“Who?”
The man clenches his jaw and doesn’t respond, turning away. Ollie’s expression doesn’t change. With ruthless precision, Ollie’s blade flashes in the dim light, cutting through flesh with a swift, practiced strike. No room for mercy. The scream that follows tears through the air.
“The carpet, Ollie,” I whisper.
Ollie violently kicks the man’s chair to the side as the tiled pathway that leads to the doorway narrowly catches the falling blood.
I have to bite my lip to stop from crying out myself. Is this what I’ve become? Immune to violence and more concerned with Ekaterina’s carpet than a man’s life?
“Where is he? What is he planning next?”
“I—I don’t know anything!” the man sputters, blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth. His eyes are wild with fear, darting from Ollie to me as if hoping I’ll intervene. I look away, unable to meet his gaze because deep down, I know exactly how this is going to end.
“Is he telling the truth, my love?” Ollie asks me.
I have to shake my head. I can’t look in the man’s eyes. “No, of course not,” I whisper.
Ollie’s blade moves with surgical precision, cutting into flesh, severing tendons. The man’s cries turn into desperate sobs.
“Tell me.”
His body jerks against the restraints as if he’s trying to escape the agony, but there is no escape from Ollie.
I force myself to watch the way Ollie’s hands work—steady, controlled—as if he’s done this a thousand times before, and his hands function on sheer muscle memory. The way he twists the knife and lifts it before inserting it again is almost surgically clinical.
This isn’t just about getting answers, it’s about making sure this man suffers as much as possible in the process.
“Ollie,” I whisper. My voice breaks. He doesn’t hear me, or maybe he does, and he just doesn’t care. He’s too far gone, too dedicated to the work in front of him.
The man finally breaks, sobbing out names, places, anything to make it stop. But Ollie doesn’t stop. He doesn’t even slow down. All I can do is stand and watch, sick to my stomach, as the man I love turns into a monster before my eyes.
I try to close my eyes and block it all out—the sickening noise of flesh being destroyed, the slosh of blood, the man’s screams—but I can’t. This is who Ollie is. This is the man I love. And no matter how gently he touches me or how soft his caresses, no matter how lightly he whispers my name, this is the side of him that will always haunt me.
He turns to me and must see the nausea or fear because his demeanor softens for a moment. He wipes his hand, the mask slipping enough to let me see the man beneath the killer. “Are you alright, Renata?” His voice is soft, but his eyes are again hardened steel, a reminder that this violence is an irascible part of who he is.
“Yes,” I whisper.
