Chapter 16: Beneath The Innocence

ERDEM

The estate was quiet when we returned.

Very quiet.

There was blood on the tires of the vehicles, blood on the sleeves of my men, blood drying in the seams of Hendrix’s coat. The warehouse raid had ended, but the violence had followed us home like a second convoy.

Men moved through the entrance hall, speaking in low voices while security sealed every door and searched every vehicle that had left with us. No one wasted time. The attack on the estate had already made the household nervous.

I ignored the movement around me.

My attention remained on Hendrix.

He stood beneath the entrance lights, pale-faced and silent, his hands hanging loose at his sides. Anyone looking at him without understanding would have seen a frightened young man who had survived a gunfight by luck.

I had watched him kill.

The dead man’s last words kept returning to me.

Ash.

He had killed the man because he knew what came next.

Then he had hidden the blade as though it had never been there.

"Take him to the interrogation room," I said.

Hendrix's eyes rose to mine.

Only for a moment.

Then he lowered them again.

There it was.

The performance.

He wore it well enough that another man might have mistaken it for obedience.

I no longer did.

The guards moved toward him.

"Don't touch him," I added.

They stopped.

Hendrix looked at me again, and something flickered behind his eyes. Confusion, perhaps. Or calculation.

I did not care which.

He walked ahead of me through the corridor.

I followed close enough to watch his back.

The estate had become familiar to him. I could see it in the way he moved.

He no longer looked at every doorway as if it were a threat. He knew where the cameras were, he knew which guards watched him and which pretended not to.

He had been in my house long enough to learn its habits.

The interrogation room door opened.

Hendrix entered. I went in after him and closed the door.

No guards.

No witnesses.

Only the camera in the corner, the metal table, and the drain in the floor.

He stopped beside the table.

"Tell me what happened in the warehouse," I said.

He stared at me with an expression carefully emptied of emotion.

"We were attacked."

"That is not what I asked."

"The raid became chaotic."

"Still not what I asked."

I moved around the table slowly.

"What did the soldier call you?"

His gaze shifted toward the floor.

"Ash."

"Who is Ash?"

"No one."

The answer came too quickly.

I stopped.

Hendrix seemed to realize the mistake and lowered his eyes further.

"He was confused," he added.

"Was he?"

"He was wounded."

"That didn't stop him from recognizing you."

"He thought I was someone else."

"Who?"

"I don’t know."

I studied him for some time.

"You killed him before he could explain."

"He was armed."

"He had not drawn his weapon."

"But he was reaching for it."

"You didn't wait to see."

"I didn’t have time."

"You had enough time to look at him."

His eyes lifted.

For the first time since we entered the room, something direct showed in them.

"He knew me."

The words were quiet.

But they carried more weight.

I stepped closer.

"Then you admit it."

"I admit he recognized me."

"By another name."

"People are mistaken."

"Not usually twice."

Hendrix said nothing.

"What did he know?" I asked.

"I don't know."

"What was he going to say?"

"I don’t know."

"Why did you kill him?"

His mouth parted slightly.

Then he gave me the answer I had been expecting.

"Instinct."

I almost smiled.

"Instinct."

"Yes."

I moved before he could prepare himself.

One hand caught the front of his coat. The other struck the table beside his hip as I drove him backward.

His spine met the metal edge.

The sound was quiet, but his breath escaped sharply.

I kept him there.

His body was tense against mine, every muscle prepared to resist without quite daring to do so.

"You call murder instinct?" I asked.

His eyes met mine. "I call surviving instinct."

"You survived very efficiently."

"He was going to expose me."

The words came out before he could stop them.

I tightened my grip on his coat.

"Expose what?"

"Nothing."

I leaned closer.

Hendrix’s breath caught.

He smelled of rain, smoke, and the bitter soap used by the estate servants. His face was close enough that I could see the faint tremor at the corner of his mouth.

He was frightened.

But fear was not the only thing moving through him.

That interested me.

It also irritated me.

"You killed him because he knew your name?"I said.

"Not mine."

"Then why did you care?"

He tried to push me away.

I caught both his wrists and forced them against the table behind him.

The movement pulled at my shoulder. Pain flashed through the wound, but I did not release him.

His pulse beat beneath my thumb.

"Let go," he said.

The softness had left his voice.

I looked down at his wrists, then back at his face.

"Your voice changes when you're angry."

"You're imagining things."

I pressed him more firmly against the table.

My gaze dropped to his throat.

"You're afraid of me," I said.

"Yes."

"But not enough to stop lying."

"I'm afraid of dying."

"That isn't the same thing."

His eyes met mine.

His body was tense beneath my hands, and I could feel the effort it took for him not to struggle. He was measuring me and the position of my injured shoulder.

I understood then that he had not lost control in the warehouse.

He had been controlling himself.

"You are not innocent," I said.

His lips parted.

For a moment, I expected another lie.

Instead he whispered, "I never said I was."

The answer pleased me more than it should have.

I studied his face.

He looked young when he was silent. Too young for the violence in him. Too soft for the way his hands had closed around a blade.

I released one of his wrists and touched his chin, turning his face toward the light.

"Your lie is beautiful," I said.

His expression changed.

Not much.

"Beautiful? I'm telling you what happened."

"Are you?"

"Yes."

I smiled faintly.

"Don't ruin it."

Anger flashed through him.

"You want me to confess to something I'm not?"

"I want you to confess to what you are."

"I'm Hendrix Vale."

"That is what you call yourself."

"It's my name."

"Is it?"

His breathing became uneven.

The change was small, but I felt it.

The name mattered but the other name mattered more.

Ash.

A dead soldier's recognition.

A hidden blade.

A boy who had entered my world wrapped in fear and had already begun searching for something inside it.

The pieces were no longer separate, they were beginning to form a shape.

I wanted to know what that shape was.

I wanted to take it apart.

"You've been lying since the day you arrived," I said.

His eyes hardened. "You bought me knowing I was an informant."

"I bought a frightened little thing who later claimed to know how rival crews moved information."

"I told you what I knew."

"You told me what you wanted me to hear."

I leaned close enough that my lips brushed the side of his face.

"I will peel this apart."

A shiver moved through him.

I felt it.

His wrists tensed beneath my hand.

"Layer by layer," I said. "I know you want something from this house."

He stared at me.

"Maybe I want to leave."

"If that were true, you would have tried harder."

"I tried to escape."

"Oh now, did you? You should be grateful," I said.

"For what?"

"For still being alive."

I held him there a moment longer.

Then I released him.

Hendrix remained against the table, breathing hard, his wrists marked by my fingers.

The sight of those marks disturbed me more than it should have.

I turned toward the door.

Behind me, he said, "Was all this supposed to make me tell you any truth about me?"

I stopped.

"No."

"Then what was it?"

I looked back at him.

"To make sure you understood that I'm not fooled."

His face had gone pale again, but the anger remained bright beneath it.

Then I opened the door.

Before leaving, I added, "And if I hear that name again, I'll find out who gave it to you."

That was enough of an answer for now.

I left him in the room and locked the door behind me.

HENDRIX

The lock turned.

The sound went through me like a final insult.

I stood with one hand braced against the interrogation table while my breathing slowly returned to normal.

"Fuck, I almost screwed up."

My wrists hurt where Erdem had held them and my back hurt where the table had struck it.

Neither pain mattered as much as the heat still trapped beneath my skin.

His words repeated in my head.

Your lie is beautiful.

I looked toward the camera in the corner.

It was probably still recording or not.

I straightened. Slowly.

My hands were still trembling, so I closed them into fists.

If Erdem discovered who I had been before Hendrix Vale, then the entire reason I had entered the estate would be exposed.

He would find Vera and everything else.

Eventually, he would find Liora.

I could not let that happen.

Not yet.

I touched the red thread beneath my cuff.

It was still there.

A private reminder of everything I had lost.

I looked down at the marks Erdem's hand left around my wrists.

The memory of his body close to mine came back with humiliating clarity, the heat of him.

My pulse betrayed me again.

I slammed my palm against the table.

Pain flashed through my hand.

I held it there until the sting drowned out everything else.

I had not come to this house to want anything from Erdem.

I had come for the Red Ledger.

For the names.

For the evidence.

For Liora.

I pushed away from the table and stood upright.

Erdem thought I wanted something hidden beneath his house.

He was right.

He thought I was a liar.

He was right about that too.

But he had made one mistake.

He believed that if he pressed hard enough, I would break and give him the truth, he did not understand that I had already broken once.

When Liora died.

Everything after that had been built from the pieces.

I touched the red thread again and whispered her name.

"Liora."

The room gave me no answer but her memory was enough.

I would survive Erdem's questions, I would survive his hands, I would survive the way my body reacted to danger, to closeness, to the terrible attention he gave me.

And when I found what I had come for, I would make sure he understood the difference between a toy and a weapon.

A toy breaks when someone applies enough pressure but a weapon waits.

I looked toward the locked door.

Then I smiled without warmth.

"Peel away," I whispered.

"You'll only find the knife underneath."