Zadie’s POV
I don’t know what time it is, or if how many days have passed.
I woke to the sound of footsteps and metal, echoing off the cold concrete like a countdown. The door creaked open. Luca stood there, holding a ring of keys. He didn’t say a word, just walked over and unlocked the chain from my wrist with a clink that made my stomach twist.
I didn’t ask where we were going. I already knew. He led me down a narrow hallway lit by flickering fluorescent lights, my bare feet dragging against the icy floor. Every step scraped against the silence between us, but Luca remained expressionless, unreadable as always. He didn’t have to say it. I was being delivered… to Lazaro.
The moment the interrogation room door opened, my breath caught. Lazaro was already there. He sat alone at the table, shadowed under a single hanging bulb. His suit was still sharp, still crisp… but something about him looked undone. His jaw clenched. His fingers were curled tight against the table’s edge. Eyes that once softened when they looked at me now burned with cold fury.
Luca shoved me forward and closed the door behind me. The air inside was different. Thicker. Suffocating. Lazaro didn’t speak at first. He just looked at me, like he was trying to reconcile the woman standing before him with the lies he'd uncovered. The silence between us stretched so long, I thought it might snap. Finally, he leaned forward.
“Zadie or Marina? Which name should I call you?” he smirked.
“Hmm I prefer Zadie. I hate that name. What a manipulative liar.” I looked away, his words hitting me even though I knew he was right.
"So you don’t have to keep digging... I’ll tell you who I am." He took a step closer, eyes sharp, voice like velvet laced with steel.
"I’m Lazaro Saventino. A part of the mafia, you can interpret what it means. Governments pay me to clean up their messes. Criminals pay me to make their problems disappear. I don’t ask questions. I just delivered." He tilted his head slightly, lips curling into a cold smirk.
"Now tell me, Agent Hollis… are you satisfied?” I didn’t open my mouth to talk.
“Who’s your handler?” His voice was flat. No warmth. No trace of the man who once whispered my name like it mattered. I stared at the floor, my heart pounding hard enough to echo in my ears.
“Zadie,” he growled. “Don’t make me ask again.”
I lifted my head slowly, meeting his gaze. “I can’t give you that.” Wrong answer.
Lazaro shot up from his chair so fast it scraped hard against the floor. He slammed his fist down on the table and leaned in, face inches from mine. “I trusted you,” he hissed. “You were in my bed. In my fucking home.”
I didn’t flinch, but my chest cracked open with guilt. “Because you were stupid for trusting me,” words felt sharp like a knife but it is better than saying my real feelings. What I really wanted to say. I’m already a traitor then my loyalty is still in my agency. He is still a criminal. “You should surrender. Criminals like you should be in jail.”
He laughed, a short, bitter sound and turned away, dragging both hands through his hair like he was trying to tear the memory of me out of his skull. “What did they tell you, huh? Criminal?”
“You are behind every killing that has happened in the past months. You are a monster.”
“What? Killings?” He creased his forehead like it confused him.
I creased my forehead as well. “Yes. Don’t play innocent.”
“Why are you accusing me of something I haven’t done?”
“Huh?” I asked, confused.
“I had…you know dirty businesses, but killings? I don’t trample on people unless they are devils. Did you gather evidence of my killings huh?” I just parted my lips. Didn’t know what to say about that.
“Hmmm…I guess, your handler wants to take me down as well.” He smirked but eventually disappeared.
“Back to the business. Tell me who the hell you’re working for? Give me their name.” I stayed silent.
Because if I said it, if I gave up the chief, it wouldn’t just end my mission. It would put targets on backs I couldn’t protect. People who believed in the law, in doing the right thing, even when it cost them everything.
So I stood there, wordless. Lazaro's patience snapped. With a roar, he grabbed the chair and hurled it against the wall. It crashed into metal and fell in pieces, the noise ringing through the room like a gunshot. His chest heaved. His eyes found mine again, and this time, there was something else in them. Something colder.
“If you’re the reason we’re bleeding from the inside…” he said, voice low and raw, “I’ll end this myself.”
For a long second, neither of us moved. I felt the weight of every decision that led me here press down on my shoulders. I wasn’t sure if he meant he’d kill me, or if he meant he’d kill what was left between us.
But I knew one thing: I was running out of time. And he was running out of mercy.