Dark. Not the kind with shapes in it. The kind that presses on your eyes.
The rope had chewed my wrists raw hours ago. My fingers were numb and stuck together with blood. My wedding band was still on — they'd left it, like it didn't matter anymore. I threw my weight sideways anyway. The chair didn't even wobble. Bolted down. Of course it was.
Footsteps. Slow, measured, coming straight at me. Not trying to frighten me. That was the frightening part.
"Who's there?" My voice cracked. "Please. Just tell me who's there."
The footsteps stopped directly in front of me. I held my breath until my lungs burned. Nothing but my own ragged breathing.
Click. A deadbolt. A heavy door scraping concrete.
A hand grabbed the hood over my head and ripped it free.
Light hit like a slap. I squeezed my eyes shut, tears spilling, then forced them open through the red glare.
A man stood there. Tall, broad through the shoulders, dark shirt, short hair, stubble along the jaw. He looked at the ropes, the blood, my face — in that order. Like checking items off a list.
Not cold. Worse than cold. Interested. The way a surgeon looks at a problem.
He dragged a metal folding chair across the concrete, set it two feet from my knees, and sat. Forearms on his thighs.
"Comfortable?"
It took me a second to realize it was a joke. His face hadn't changed.
"No."
"Good." He paused. "What did Marcus tell you?"
"Marcus who?"
"Don't." It was the first time his voice had any weight at all. "Marcus who is how this gets longer."
My stomach knotted. "Nothing. I swear to God, he didn't tell me anything."
He glanced at my wrists. "You've been in that chair for six hours. Give or take ten minutes." He waited. "Let's save each other some time."
"I told you, I don't know anything. If I did, I'd have said it by now."
"Then we'll take the long way." He folded his hands. "Your call."
"Where is the account?"
The air left my lungs.
He watched me not-breathe for a while. "You're going to tell me," he said, the way you'd tell someone it was going to rain.
I shook my head. "No. I'm not doing this."
He considered that. "That's unfortunate."
"I mean it. You can leave me in this chair all night. It won't change anything."
"I know." He didn't move. "That's what makes it unfortunate."
He never raised his voice. That was the thing I kept coming back to later, when I could still think. He asked, I lied, he waited. He asked again. The silence between was worse than the pain — I started talking just to fill it, then hated myself for it.
Once he asked for a name I'd already given him. Not because he'd forgotten it. He wanted to see if I'd say it the same way twice.
I gave him a real address first. A storage unit. He nodded like I'd told him the weather. So I tried a fake one. He stared at me for maybe five seconds.
"That's a laundromat."
I froze.
"I checked." The closest thing to irritation I'd seen from him. "Don't do that again."
"Okay." The word came out too fast. "Okay, I won't. I'm sorry."
"Say it."
"I won't do it again."
"Good." He settled back. "Continue."
So I stopped. Names, accounts, drop locations — everything I'd sworn I'd die with. It came out in a dry whisper and I couldn't stop it. He wrote nothing down. He just listened, and nodded, and once corrected a routing number from memory.
He thanked me for that one. The routing number. The way you'd thank a man for passing the salt.
I told him about the second account before he even asked. That was the worst of it. Volunteering.
When there was nothing left, he stood, checked his watch.
"That's everything?"
"Yes." My voice was gone. "I swear. There's nothing left."
He studied my face a long moment, then nodded. He turned for the door.
Relief hit so hard I almost laughed. "Wait. Wait — you're just leaving me here?"
"Yes."
"That's it? After all that, that's just... it?"
He looked faintly puzzled. "What were you expecting?"
I didn't have an answer.
"Who the hell are you?" I said.
He paused in the doorway. For the first time, something like amusement touched his eyes. "Tonight? Your worst problem."
He stepped into the corridor. The door started to swing shut.
And that's when it landed — the way he'd never threatened, never hurried, never enjoyed it. I'd heard stories, everyone had, about a man who didn't meet clients, didn't leave witnesses, didn't have a name that stayed the same twice. Some called him a myth.
Some called him the Ghost.
The heavy door slammed shut.
Clang.
For a few seconds I just sat there, staring at the steel.
Then the floor hummed.
I jerked against the ropes. "Hey — HEY!"
Heat brushed my face. The doorframe was already warm to look at.
"No. No, no—" I threw myself sideways. The chair didn't move. "LET ME OUT!"
The air turned thick. I tried to think of who knew where I was, who would come looking, and couldn't make a single name stick. My wife thought I was in Cleveland. A conference. She'd asked me to bring back—
"Please—" It tore out of me. "PLEASE!"
Then the heat took the words too.
* * *
Corbin paused at the end of the hall and checked his watch. He thumbed the small device in his palm.
Behind him, the screaming peaked, thinned, stopped.
He slipped the device into his pocket and kept walking. He didn't look back.