He's never getting up.
There's blood everywhere. On the wall behind him in a pattern that looks like someone threw paint. On the carpet, spreading in a dark pool. On his shirt, his face, pooling under his head.
That's his brain. Oh God, that's pieces of his brain on the wall.
My stomach heaves, and I gag, bile burning the back of my throat. The hands holding me don't let go.
My father… My father is dead.
"Valerie Novak." Patrick's voice cuts through the screaming, calm and precise as a scalpel. "Twenty-two. Just graduated from Columbia with a degree in English Literature. Came home to rest before job hunting."
How does he know my name?
"Bring her here."
"No—NO!" I twist violently, trying to wrench free, but the men dragging me forward might as well be made of stone. My feetskid through something wet and warm, and I look down, and it's blood, it's my father's blood on the floor, and I'm stepping in it—
I vomit. Right there, still being dragged forward. It comes up in a violent heave that empties my stomach across the carpet, mixing with the blood, and I'm sobbing now, can't stop, can't breathe—
"Kneel."
"Fuck you," I choke out through tears and bile.
Patrick doesn't even blink. He nods at one of his men, and suddenly there's a gun pressed against Ethan's temple, and my baby brother goes completely still, his eyes so wide I can see white all around them.
"Kneel," Patrick repeats, "or I put a bullet in his brain too, and you can watch him die the same way."
I drop.
My knees hit the carpet and the impact sends a jolt through me, and the wetness underneath soaks through my jeans immediately, hot and thick andwrong. The smell hits me then, really hits me, copper and something sweet-rotten underneath, and I gag again but there's nothing left to come up.
I'm kneeling in my father's blood.
The thought repeats in my head like a broken record.I'm kneeling in my father's blood I'm kneeling in my father's blood I'm—
My hands are shaking so hard I can barely keep myself upright. When I look down, there's blood on my palms, slick and warm between my fingers, and I can't tell if it's from the carpet or from wiping my mouth and oh God oh God oh God—
Patrick crouches in front of me, and now we're eye level. He sinks his right thumb into the carpet and lets the blood drench it.
This psychopath is literally staining his hands with his victim’s blood.
He smells like expensive cologne, something clean and woody that doesn't belong in this room with my father's corpse and my vomit and the metallic reek of blood.
"Your father was my informant," he says, conversational. Like we're discussing the weather, not the body three feet away. "For three years, he fed me information about Lev Volkov's organization. Tonight, he failed me. Do you understand what that means?"
I can't speak. Can't think past the roaring in my ears, the way my whole body is shaking, the warmth of my father's blood seeping through my clothes.
"It means I need a replacement." His hand reaches out, and I flinch, but he's too fast. His thumb drags across my cheekbone, and when he pulls it back, it's red. Dripping. He shows it to me like it's a gift. "Congratulations, Valerie. You just got hired."
"No." The word comes out as a sob. "No, I can't—I don't know anything about—"
"You'll learn." He wipes his thumb on a white handkerchief from his pocket, slow and deliberate, and the red smears across the white fabric. "You have three months to infiltrate Lev Volkov's household, gather intelligence on his operations, and report back to me. At the end of three months, you give me everything I need to kill him."
“I’m not brave enough for this, I'm not—I don't— I can’t…"
"You will." He nods toward my mother and Ethan. Mom's rocking back and forth now, arms wrapped around herself, that awful wheeze still coming from her throat. Ethan's crying silently, tears streaming down his face. "Or I kill your mother first. Slowly. Then your brother. I'll start with his fingers—one per day. Then his toes. Then other parts. And I'll make you watch every second before I kill you too."
The casual way he says it makes it real. Not a threat. A promise.