The Basement Wolf

Chapter 20. The Quiet Knife

The night smelled of rain and roses gone to rot. Sandra stood in the hush outside Malcolm’s townhouse, fingers tight around the hilt of a blade that glinted only when the streetlight turned its head. She counted the windows—three lit upstairs, one dim like an afterthought in the kitchen. He was home. He was alone. She’d timed it that way.

The back door was laughable. For a man fattened on other people’s fear, Malcolm was lazy about locks. Two pins, a tilt of metal, and the house sighed open to let her in. She slipped through like smoke, silent on tile, her breath a ghost she didn’t have time to fear.

Inside smelled rich—cologne, old bourbon, leather. The kind of house that bragged without raising its voice. A clock muttered on the wall. Somewhere upstairs, floorboards whispered under slow feet. Then silence. Then the groan of a bed welcoming a body heavy with drink.

She waited.

The minutes were knives. One by one, she let them cut her until she heard it: the shift of weight, the pad of bare soles on polished wood, the low sigh of a man who’d woken with thirst and the brittle arrogance of safety. The staircase creaked in a minor key. Sandra stepped back into shadow and let the dark close over her like a second skin.

Malcolm came down shirtless, belly soft under a scatter of gray hair, silk pajama pants whispering against his ankles. His hair was a ruffled crown of sleep and sin. He scratched his jaw with thick fingers and padded into the kitchen, yawning like a man who believed in tomorrow.

The fridge door opened with a soft suction pop. Light spilled blue on tile, painting his shape in slices. He reached for a bottle of mineral water, slow and stupid, throat arching as he drank.

Sandra moved.

The blade kissed his throat before the swallow finished. His grunt strangled into silence as her other hand clamped over his mouth. She drove him forward into the chair by the breakfast island, slammed him down so hard the wood squealed. The water bottle rolled, spilling its ghost across marble.

“Make a sound,” she murmured, “and I cut out the part that makes it.”

His eyes ballooned, sweat beading already on his brow. She yanked nylon cord from her jacket pocket—fast, tight, merciless. Wrists to armrests. Ankles to legs. A final loop around his chest until the chair groaned like it wanted to confess.

When she peeled her hand from his mouth, he gulped air in ugly bursts. “You’re out of your—”

The blade bit his cheek just enough to whisper blood. His voice strangled on the end of its own sentence.

“Talk later,” Sandra said softly. “Listen now.”

His pulse beat frantic under the knife when she pressed it to his throat again, slow enough for him to feel the future yawning. “Where does Stefan keep his money?”

Malcolm’s laugh was a brittle thing, scraping out of a throat too dry for courage. “You’re insane.”

Her eyes were glass, catching nothing, giving nothing back. “Answer.”

“You think this is a game?” He tried for bravado, but his voice was trembling scaffold. “You steal his son, and now his money? He’ll peel you alive. He’ll make you beg for—”

The knife drew a red smile on his chest, shallow but singing. His breath hitched into a squeal he barely bit down on.

“Wrong answer,” Sandra said, her tone a lullaby that could put graves to sleep. “Next time, I carve deeper. Next time, I stop aiming for places you can hide under a shirt.”

Malcolm’s jaw worked, grinding teeth like prayers. “You don’t know what you’ve done,” he spat. “Taking that boy—taking Liam—” His eyes flickered wide with something that almost looked like pity. “You think Stefan was dangerous before? You just turned him rabid.”

Sandra leaned close enough for her breath to ghost his ear. “Then I’ll cut out his teeth.”

Malcolm jerked, cords biting flesh. “You’re not hearing me. He won’t just hunt you. He’ll salt the earth where your name was. He’ll make art out of your screams.”

“Then he’d better frame it,” Sandra said, voice iron-flat. “Because I’m burning his gallery.”

Her fist knotted in his hair and wrenched his head back until his throat arched white. “Where. Is. His. Money.”

Malcolm’s breath came sharp, ragged, but his lips stayed shut. So she made them open. A neat line across his forearm this time, the sting blooming like fire. He hissed, teeth bared, face chalking with pain.

“Stop—”

“Wrong word.” Another cut, kissing his ribs.

His breath broke into a wet sob. “Jesus—”

“He’s not here,” she said, eyes black glass. “Only me. Only the knife. And your choice about how much skin you want to keep wearing.”

The kitchen clock ticked, smug with seconds. Blood ran thin red roads over silk, dripping onto tile in delicate taps.

Malcolm swallowed what was left of his pride with a grunt that tasted like fear. “Vault,” he rasped. “Offshore routing through Zurich. But the real pile—he keeps pieces here. Tangible. Gold, art, stones. Liquid things he can move when the floor catches fire.”

“Where?” Her voice didn’t rise, but the blade did, glinting like a question that didn’t believe in wrong answers.

“Wine cellar,” Malcolm choked. “Behind the third rack—Merlot from ‘72. There’s a panel. Thumbprint and code. Code changes every three days. Tomorrow at noon, it flips.”

Sandra’s eyes didn’t blink. “What’s today’s?”

He wheezed a string of numbers that she repeated under her breath until they sounded like survival. Her knife hovered one heartbeat longer—enough for sweat to bead and tremble on his lip—before it slid away.

“You should’ve asked for mercy,” he panted, sagging into his bonds. “Would’ve been easier.”

Sandra smiled, slow and cold. “Mercy’s Stefan’s word. Mine is math. You hurt me, I subtract.”

She leaned close, letting him taste the chill of her calm. “If you lie, I’ll come back. And next time, I won’t start with your arms.”

Malcolm flinched, breath coming in shallow cuts. “You won’t get out of this city alive.”

“Watch me,” she said, and gagged him with a dish towel before he could wind his courage into another threat.

The kitchen smelled of blood and citrus now, a cocktail for ghosts. Sandra wiped the blade on his silk pajama pants like punctuation, then slid it back into the sheath at her spine. She stood over him one second longer, watching the sweat glisten on his temples, the ropes biting his skin, the look in his eyes—a cocktail of hate, fear, and something almost like awe.

Then she melted back into the dark the way she’d come, leaving only the clock to tick the story of a man who’d thought midnight belonged to him.