Page 108 of Ruin
"Walls are poured concrete, not block," Marco adds. "That's older construction. Pre-eighties, at least."
"The chair is bolted to the floor." Selene's voice is quiet, but it cuts through the room. Everyone looks at her. "There are anchor points on either side. That room has been used for this before. It's not improvised."
"His interrogation facility," Vincent says.
"Where?" Selene turns to him. "Where does Zhukov have a permanent facility like that?"
"Three possible locations. The warehouse complex by the waterfront. A converted factory in Sunset Park. And a commercial building in Brighton Beach that?—"
"Can we narrow it?" Selene looks at me, then back at Vincent. "Property records, utility filings, anything that would show which of those three is active. I can trace the ownership if someone gets me the addresses."
Vincent rattles off the three addresses.
Selene is already reaching for Marco's laptop, pulling up databases I recognize from her work tracing the shell companies yesterday.
Her fingers move across the keyboard with the focused speed of someone who knows exactly where to look and what to look for. This is her territory. Not pipes and concrete—paper trails and corporate filings and the digital footprints that men like Zhukov think they've hidden.
"The factory in Sunset Park," she says after a minute. "It's held through a shell company that traces back to a Brighton Beach LLC. Same filing patterns as the other entities in these documents." She taps Marco's financial summary. "I can dig deeper into the ownership chain, but this is the strongest connection to Zhukov out of the three."
Selene turns to me.
Her eyes are dry; her hands aren't shaking.
The collar sits at her throat like it belongs there, and in this moment, in this room full of people who've done things she can't imagine, she looks like she belongs at the table.
That's what unsettles me.
"That's my best friend," she says. Quiet. Controlled. Barely holding. "They took her because of me. Because of you. Because of what we are to each other."
"Yes."
"If we don't get her back, they'll kill her."
"Yes."
"And then they'll come for me."
"They'll try." The distinction matters. To me, at least.
She holds my gaze for a long time.
The room watches us the way you watch a fuse burn, waiting for the explosion, not knowing which direction the blast will go.
She holds my gaze for a long time.
"I'm goingto get her back," she says. Not a question. Not a request for permission. A statement of fact delivered with the same certainty I use when I tell people how things are going to be. "Whether you help me or not."
"I know." And I do. She'd walk into that factory alone with a kitchen knife and her bare hands if she had to. "But you're not doing it alone. And when this is over, things change."
"Change how?"
"Full partnership. Not a title, not a desk, not a collar with a key you keep in a drawer. Equal say. Equal power. Your name next to mine on everything that matters."
Something shifts behind her eyes.
Not softening. Not trust.
Something closer to the expression of a woman being told what she already knew but needed to hear said out loud.
