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I press the blade to Levi’s throat, just beneath the jawline, where the pulse flickers frantic and wild. I can feel it through the steel, his terror like a trapped bird fluttering against the edge of the blade.

And then something strange: my own pulse, matching his.

Rhythmic. Controlled. Like my body already knows what to do.

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe. His eyes, wide and wet, lock onto mine like he’s trying to find something inside me worth pleading to.

“Do you think I haven’t done this before?” I whisper, leaning in until the scent of his sweat mixes with the metal. “You think you’re special? You’re not special.”

His lips part. A dry noise slips out.

“You’re just the next one.”

His entire body sags like something inside him has already given up.

But then he whispers, “Wait. Please. Let me talk. Let me give you something.”

I pause.

I reach into my jacket and pull out the straps. Leather. Dark with age.

His eyes grow wide as his face drains of color. I knew I wouldn’t have to say a word. I know exactly when realization dawns on him. “Where did you—”

“My father’s cellar.” I cut him off. “You must have left them behind.”

I bind his wrists to the headboard. He doesn’t resist. Maybe he understands he owes me that much.

My hands aren’t steady the way they should be.

The leather is old. Supple in the wrong places. Worn down by use, broken in by someone’s wrists. Mine. My fingers curl around the strap and for a moment I’m not standing over him. The smell of the leather hits me before the thought does…

I’m on the floor.

Cold wood beneath my knees. The same smell filling the dark like a living thing. Levi’s hands moving sure and practiced above me, the strap threading through the iron loop with a sound I heard so many times I stopped trying to count…

Somewhere outside, gravel shifts. It pulls me back.

I blink.

He’s still here. Older. Smaller than he was. His wrists tug against the headboard, slack until I cinch it tight.

I don’t know how long I stand there. Which hands are mine and which are is. The line blurs between present and past. Child hands in the dark bleeding into hands, now, and I can’t locate the difference between the one doing the tying and the one tied. Between then and now. Between him and me.

My stomach turns.

I take a step back.

I’m not him.

CHAPTER

FORTY-THREE

“I’m listening.” I speak.

He swallows. His wrists strain against the leather as I press the blade beneath his jaw.

“Your father… he wasn’t acting alone. I’m sure you’ve gathered that by now.” He pauses. “There were others. Always others.”