The van is moving before the doors finish sliding shut, and you land on your hands among the tool bags, the smell of cold metal and old cigarettes pressing in from every side. Rhys Vickers sits across from you on a bolted-down crate, elbows on his knees, a brass lighter turning over and over between his fingers. The streetlights slide over his face in bars — the silver ring through his eyebrow, the knuckles that were broken and set wrong.
He doesn't tie you. He doesn't even look at the gun on his hip. He watches you the way a man watches a dog he hasn't decided to keep.
"You're taking this better than your old man did."
His voice is low and unhurried, almost gentle, which is worse.
"He cried before the first shot. You haven't made a sound."
He flicks the lighter open. The flame jumps once and goes out, and in the dark his eyes stay on you.
"Here's the part Jasper won't tell you, love. A debt's a debt. Your father owed, he paid, and that's finished. You, though — you're interest nobody asked for."
He leans forward, close enough that you can smell the gunpowder still on his coat.
"So you're going to sit there and be quiet, and in the morning we decide whether you're worth keeping or whether I leave you at the next light and we're done."
He sits back, the lighter snapping shut.
"Unless you've got something to say that changes the number. Go on, then. I'm listening."