The wet, heavy crack of bone breaking against knuckles echoed off the floor-to-ceiling glass.
Blood hit the pristine white wool of the rug in thick, heavy drops. The room smelled of expensive leather, sharp cologne, and the distinct, metallic reek of copper.
"Speak now," a man in a tailored grey suit said, his chest heaving as he grabbed a fistful of the kneeling man's hair, yanking his head back. "Or your family won't even get your corpse."
The man on the floor didn't answer.
His left eye was swollen shut, the skin split across his cheekbone. He just breathed through his teeth, letting a thick string of red saliva drip from his chin onto the carpet.
The man in the grey suit released the hair with a disgusted noise. He wiped his knuckles with a handkerchief and turned toward the massive mahogany desk at the far end of the room.
Behind it, a high-backed leather chair sat facing the glass, looking out over the glittering grid of nighttime Manhattan.
