In the hands of the boss

The rain hammered furiously against the kitchen glass, a curtain of icy water that seemed intent on washing away the very foundations of the house. But the sound that made Sofia’s blood run cold was not the thunder, nor the wind howling through the pines in the garden. It was the sound of the wooden front door giving way with a sharp crash, the sinister lament of a lock exploding under brutal pressure.

There were no warning shouts. Only heavy, measured footsteps, the unmistakable sound of muddy boots on the parquet floor her father had just polished, a detail of domestic banality that made the intrusion even more surreal.

«Daddy?» Sofia whispered. The word escaped her lips like a thread of smoke, frail and trembling. She stepped out of the hallway, her heart drumming against her ribs with a violence that made her fear it might collapse her lungs.

She found her father, Fausto, in the entryway. He was cowered against the wall, his hands raised in a gesture of supplication that made her ashamed for him, a humiliation that burned her eyes. Before him, two men who seemed made of granite and smoke stared at her with emotionless eyes, two shadows that had taken human form to come and collect the debt.

«Where’s the rest of it, Fausto?» growled the taller man. «Nathan is not a patient man. You know what happens to those who keep him waiting.»

«I beg you... just two days! Only two days and I’ll have everything!» her father’s voice was a pathetic whimper, stripped of all dignity.

The larger man exchanged a look with his companion. His gaze slid slowly over Sofia, like the laser sight of a weapon seeking a target. He sized her up as if she were an object in a catalog, lingering on the line of her neck and the legs exposed by the short shorts she wore around the house. It was a dirty look, one that made her wish she had armor on.

«Two days are too many, Fausto,» said the man, a slimy smile splitting his lips to reveal teeth yellowed by smoke. «And we have no intention of returning to the Boss empty-handed. Not if we want to stay alive.»

«What do you want to do?» Sofia took a step back, but her back met the cold wall. The chill of the plaster seeped into her spine, a warning that reality was shifting its shape.

«We’ll take a down payment,» replied the other goon, a giant with a square jaw, grabbing her arm with a strength that stole her breath away. The man’s fingers dug into her skin like steel talons.

«No! Let her go! Sofia has nothing to do with this!» yelled Fausto, but he remained rooted to the spot. He did not move. He did not take a single step forward, did not try to tear her from those brutal hands. His hands remained suspended in mid-air, useless, terrified.

Sofia struggled, struck the man’s chest with her fists, but it was like hitting concrete. Every muscle in her body screamed in rebellion. «Daddy! Help me! Daddy!»

Her father’s gaze fell to the floor, fixing on the parquet scratched by their boots. That was the moment something inside her shattered. More than the terror of these strangers, her father’s silence destroyed her. He was letting her go. He was trading his daughter for his own skin.

«Be good, sweet thing,» the goon whispered in her ear, the scent of tobacco, rain, and cheap aftershave invading her senses. «You’ll see that Nathan will like the way you pay off your father’s debt.»

She was dragged outside toward a black SUV waiting with its headlights on under the storm. The air was thick with electricity, the rain lashing her face like whips. The last thing she saw, before the tailgate was closed with a dull thud that sounded like the lock of a cell, was the silhouette of her father behind the window. He was not calling the police. He was just watching the darkness, immobile, a man who had just sold his future for an illusion of survival.

The journey was a succession of blurred images, the outside world rushing away while she remained enclosed in that cabin that smelled of leather and malice. The man at the wheel did not say a word, focused only on keeping the vehicle on the road made slick by the rain. Sofia, huddled in the back seat between the two giants, felt the heat of their bodies pressing against her, an intrusive contact that made it difficult even to breathe.

She looked at her hands. They were trembling. The memory of her father, the man who had taught her to ride a bicycle, who tucked her in during stormy nights, turned against her like poison. She had always thought he was a weak man, but she had never believed he was capable of such abjection.

“Why?" she asked herself. But the answer was obvious, brutal, irrefutable. Fear is an acid that dissolves the bonds of blood faster than time does.

After nearly an hour of travel on back roads that climbed toward the hills, the SUV slowed down. The headlights illuminated an imposing wrought-iron gate. They passed down a long tree-lined avenue where the branches intertwined above them, obscuring the moon and leaving them in absolute darkness, pierced only by the beams of the headlights.

The villa, or what remained of it, stood out against the stormy sky like a warning. It was an ancient structure of gray stone that exuded a sinister decadence. The engine shut off. The silence that followed was worse than the roar of the rain.

«Get out,» ordered the goon with the scar.

He pulled her out of the vehicle with a violence that made her legs wobble. Sofia found herself in the mud, the cold penetrating through her light shoes. But she had no time to recover. She was pushed toward the entrance.

«Nathan is waiting,» said the man, pushing her toward a door at the end of the hallway.

Sofia hesitated. Her heart hammered with such vigor that she feared a rib might break. Fear was no longer just terror; it was a raw energy, a desire to break that chain, to run until her lungs gave out. But before her, at the end of the hallway, lay the unknown.

The man opened the door. The room was vast, illuminated only by the reddish glow of a fireplace that spewed smoke and ash. In the center, seated in a leather armchair, a figure with its back to them was watching the fire.

«We have the compensation, Boss,» said the man, bowing slightly.

The figure in the armchair did not turn around immediately. Time seemed to stretch, every second elongating like chewed gum. Sofia tried to escape, to take even a single step back, but she felt the man’s heavy hand on her shoulder, an immovable blockade.

Then, with a calculated slowness, the figure in the armchair began to rotate.

Sofia held her breath, bracing for the worst, for a face marked by violence, for a gaze that would confirm her condemnation. But what she saw paralyzed her in a different way.

It wasn’t a monster she was looking at. It wasn’t a man with brutal features or marked by scars. Nathan was sitting there, dressed in an impeccable suit, a crystal glass between his long, tapered fingers. He had a clean, almost ethereal face, and eyes of a chilling lucidity, which seemed to look not through her, but inside her, analyzing every fear, every memory.

He stood up. He was tall, slender, and every movement was fluid, predatory. He approached her, slow, without haste, savoring her terror as if it were a fine wine.

Sofia felt the ground vanish beneath her feet. She tried to back away, but her feet seemed glued to the floor.

He leaned down toward her, whispering in her ear with a voice so low only she could hear, while his left hand slid slow, almost imperceptibly, toward the inner pocket of his jacket, extracting something cold and metallic.

«Do you know what happens when someone tries to play games with me, Sofia?»

Sofia’s heart skipped a beat. Nathan pressed the cold object, the grip of a handgun, against her side, while with his other hand he lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him.