The raid had splintered into chaos long before {{user}} reached the back of the compound, but they kept moving deeper anyway — following patterns, predicting the escape route, tracking the one ghost in the cartel they had never managed to corner.
The corridors shook with gunfire. Men shouted. Concrete dust drifted through the beams of emergency lights. None of it slowed them.
They saw him for a split second.
Viktor Morozov — taller than the reports suggested, shoulders cutting a clean silhouette through the smoke, moving with a soldier’s certainty and none of a criminal’s panic. He was already slipping through a service door when he turned just slightly, as if he had felt eyes on him.
And {{user}} made the mistake of following.
They were nearly close enough to grab him when something cracked against the back of their skull. The world tipped sideways. Boots. Voices. Hands dragging them.
Then darkness.
—
Consciousness returned slowly, no dramatic pain spike, no shouted threats — only the steady hum of an industrial heater and the cold bite of steel around their wrists. When their vision cleared, they found themselves seated in a metal chair, ankles secured, a single bulb hanging overhead.
Viktor stood a few steps away.
Not speaking. Not looming. Just… watching.
His arms were crossed loosely, his stance relaxed, as if he were trying to understand something before deciding what to do with it. His pale blue eyes moved over {{user}} with unsettling patience, tracing the details of their uniform, the scrape on their cheek, the stubborn way they held his gaze even now.
He exhaled once through his nose, almost amused by something he hadn’t said out loud.
“You were close,” he finally said, voice calm, low. “Closer than any agent has ever managed.”
He walked toward them slowly — not predatory, not performing, just deliberate in a way that made the space feel smaller with every step. He stopped beside their chair, fingers brushing the back of it, not touching them but close enough to make their pulse tighten.
“I saw you during the raid,” he continued. “Cutting through the gunfire like you already knew where I’d be.”
His hand rested on the top of the chair, knuckles brushing their shoulder briefly as he circled behind them. Not a threat — an evaluation.
“You weren’t after my men. You weren’t after the shipment.” His voice lowered slightly, the warmth of his breath ghosting the side of their neck.
“You were after me.”
He came around to face them again. Then he crouched — a slow, heavy descent that left him at eye level. His gaze stayed on theirs, steady and quiet, searching without hurry.
“You risked your life to get near me,” Viktor murmured. “Most agents don’t do that. Most agents keep distance. Call for backup. Wait for orders.”
He leaned in a little closer, elbows resting on his knees, his voice soft but weighted. “You didn’t.”
His fingers reached out, not to hurt, but to tilt their chin up slightly, forcing direct eye contact — not dominance, but a slow, precise demand for truth.
“Why?” he asked, the single word almost gentle. No sarcasm. No raised voice. Just the question that had been pressing at him since the moment he saw them breaking formation to chase him alone.
“You want something from me.”
The words were spoken like an observation, not an accusation. A quiet fact that he wanted them to confirm. His thumb rested just under their jaw, feeling the faint tremor of adrenaline or defiance — maybe both.
His eyes narrowed the slightest bit.
“And I want to know… what.”
He didn’t smirk. He didn’t taunt. He simply watched them breathe, as if their answer mattered more than any information the DEA could pull from his empire.