Page 61 of Break For Me
I test the chain again. Link by link. I am methodical. Patient. It is the patience of a man who has nothing left in the world except the absolute refusal to stop pulling.
Four feet. That's enough. Four feet of movement is enough to reach a man's throat when he comes close enough to set down a piece of stale bread.
I wait.
The light through the ventilation hole shifts from grey to black. Another day bleeds away into nothing. My world is measured in the scrape of boots on concrete outside, the rumble of a distant truck, the metallic taste in my own mouth.
I sleep in short, violent bursts. I dream of the explosion. The white heat. The feeling of being airborne. The boot on my chest. The blond Russian’s voice asking Where is the doctor? over and over again, the words a hammer against my skull.
I wake up with my heart hammering, the chain pulled taut, my good hand gripping the cold steel. The dream is always the same. It always ends with the boot pressing down and the world going dark. But in the dream, I give him up. In the dream, I break. I wake up tasting the lie on my tongue, the shame of a failure that never happened but feels more real than the chain on my wrist.
I do push-ups. One-handed. My right arm burns, the muscles screaming from the repetitive strain. I do them until I can’t lift my own body weight off the cold floor. The pain is a distraction. It is a language I understand.
My left hand is a foreign country. The swelling has traveled past my wrist, creeping up my forearm. The skin is tight, hot, and angry red. If I press on the bandage, a thick, foul-smellingfluid weeps through the gauze. Adrian would lance it. He would drain the pressure. He would look at the wound with his cold, analytical eyes and see a series of mechanical problems to be solved.
I see a liability. A timer counting down.
The door rattles.
The slot at the bottom opens. The plastic tray slides in. Water. Bread.
This time, there’s something new. A man stands in the doorway. He is silhouetted against the harsh light of the warehouse beyond. He is smaller than the usual guards. Compact. He wears a suit.
"Rocco Falcone," he says. His voice is calm, accented. Calm, accented. Used to giving orders. "They call you the Hammer."
I don’t respond. I stay seated against the far wall, the chain slack at my side.
"A crude nickname," he continues, stepping into the container. "A hammer is a clumsy tool. All force, no precision. You break things. You are not built to create."
He closes the door behind him. He is not afraid of being in here with me. That is a mistake.
He turns on a small flashlight. The beam cuts through the dark, landing on my face. I don’t flinch.
"My name is Dmitri Volkov," he says. "I believe you have something that belongs to me."
Dmitri. The name from the clinic. The man who owned Adrian. The man whose men I killed in the hallway of a New York apartment.
"I don't have anything that belongs to you," I say. My voice is a rough rasp.
"You have my surgeon," he says, the beam of the flashlight moving from my face down to my bandaged hand. "A very expensive, very specific tool. And you seem to have broken him."
The words hit me like a physical blow. Broken him.
"Is he alive?" The question escapes before I can stop it. The door to the room I refused to enter is suddenly wide open.
Dmitri smiles. It is a thin, bloodless expression. "He is. For now. He is a very resilient piece of equipment. But he is damaged. Uncooperative. He seems to have developed a misplaced sense of loyalty. To you."
The relief that floods through me is so vast, so overwhelming, that it leaves me light-headed. Adrian is alive. The thought is an anchor in the storm that has been raging inside me for days.
"He wants to trade," Dmitri says. "Him for you. A foolish, sentimental gesture. A surgeon does not trade himself for a hammer."
He takes another step closer. He is two feet from the end of my chain. Close enough.
"But I am a reasonable man," he says. "I am willing to consider the exchange. On one condition."
He holds up a pair of pliers. They are long-nosed, industrial grade. The kind of tool you find in an engine room. The steel gleams in the flashlight beam.
"My surgeon has value because of his hands," Dmitri says, his voice dropping to a conversational murmur. "You have no such value. Your hands are for breaking things. For hurting people. They are a liability. I am going to remove that liability. And then, perhaps, we can discuss the terms of the trade."
