Page 55 of Hardline Torque
“They’re not coming,” she said gently.“They can’t.”
He almost laughed.
Almost.
Instead, something cold slipped into his chest.
They showed him more.A still image of the black van abandoned on the roadside.Another angle, closer in.Painted panels scuffed.No bodies.No pursuit.Just absence.
“They lost you,” the woman said.“And they chose not to burn the world to get you back.”
The thought slid in sideways, uninvited.
If Tane were coming, he’d already be here.
The words landed like a misstep on broken ground.
Victor’s jaw tightened instantly.His breath stuttered once before he forced it steady.
No.
That was the drugs talking.Exhaustion.Repetition.Manufactured evidence designed to bruise, not break.
He closed his eyes.
He saw Tane’s hands instead.Steady.Certain.The way he stood when he was thinking—still as a held breath.The way his voice went flat and dangerous when he drew a line.
Ice, Victor thought.Not fire.
He opened his eyes again and met the woman’s gaze.
“You’re lying,” he said.
She did not flinch.“About what?”
“About them,” Victor replied.“And about how much time has passed.”
Something flickered in her expression.Interest.Maybe respect.
They tried again later.A different man.The same lies.The same doctored silence.The same suggestion that Black Tide was too small, too cautious, already compromised.
Victor gave them nothing new.
He withheld.Deflected.Offered half-truths that led nowhere.He never broke eye contact.
Internally, he drew a line.
They don’t get him whole.
Not his loyalty.Not his belief.Not the part of him that knew exactly what kind of man Tane Mano was.
Eventually, they left him alone.
Longer than before.
The lights dimmed—not enough to be mercy, just enough to disorient.The drip continued.The room hummed.
Victor sagged back in the chair, every muscle trembling with fatigue.
