​Intermission 7. Damian

When the elevator doors closed behind her without a sound, Damian still stood frozen in the same pose in the middle of the luxurious, hushed restaurant. He restored his familiar mask of composure. Then, with the same precision with which he crushed currencies, he took his glass of eighteen-year-old whisky and crushed it in his fist.

Crystal bit into his palm, amber liquid mixed with blood, dripping onto the pristine white tablecloth. The waiters and security guards froze, afraid to move. Ignoring them, he turned and walked toward his private elevator, leaving behind a trail of tiny sparkling shards and dark droplets on the floor.

He ascended to the penthouse, to his office — a sanctuary of glass, steel, and leather. From here, at the top of the world, Boston looked like a map, a collection of assets he controlled. He approached the panoramic window.

Nonsense. Blackmail. A psychopath who’d stumbled onto some rumors.

He’d built himself. Asset by asset. Deal by deal. He was smarter, faster, more ruthless than all of them. Without breaking the law — he used it. He saw how fear and greed governed the world, and he directed those currents where he needed them. He didn’t create catastrophes; he was simply the only one prepared for them. “Money is the blood of the modern world. I make sure that blood flows where it’s needed.” Those were his words. His truth.

And she... she was nothing now but a former cop, a nobody. She wouldn’t be hired even as a waitress — he’d make sure of that.

But her quiet, assured voice echoed in his head, piercing through the wall of Harvard logic.

London, eighty-seven. A dingy flat in Islington.

Memories he hadn’t touched in thirty years surfaced with nauseating, sickening clarity. The smell of damp and coal. Cold. Darkness — no money for utilities. And he, Damian Lanier — not a master of the world but a broke, ruined broker — was sitting on the floor, staring at numbers that had wiped out everything he had. And he remembered how, in utter despair, he had said: “I’ll give anything. Just give me one chance, one chance to bring this world to its knees.”

She knew.

But she couldn’t possibly know that. It was impossible. That evening in Islington had been left behind with the broke young broker he’d been thirty years ago. No records, no witnesses. Nothing.

So she guessed. Invented it.

In some book about interrogation techniques, he’d read about induced memories — he thought that’s what it was called. You feed someone a detail, a phrase, and their own mind obligingly builds the rest, accepting your fabrication as their own long-forgotten memory.

Of course. He hadn’t said those words back then. “Bring this world to its knees.” What a vulgar melodrama! Some cardboard villain out of a movie.

No. He’d said something else — more mundane, desperate. And now, after she had voiced his alleged thoughts — these theatrical, almost biblical phrases — he found himself recalling them in her wording.

It had been manipulation. Very artful, very precise — but nothing more than manipulation. She’d found his weak spot and struck it. Mastery — impeccable. Even he, three times her age, had believed it and lost his temper. But worse for her. People like that are best nipped in the bud.

His bloodied hand throbbed, but it was nothing serious — just a couple of cuts. He needed to control himself better. This wouldn’t happen again. He was Damian Lanier. And she was a clever, dangerous woman who overplayed her hand today, and tomorrow she would be put in her place.

At that moment, the desk phone rang — not the sharp business tone, but a soft, melodic chime. On the screen, the name “Lucy” flashed. Damian froze for a second, pressed a napkin to the wound, and answered the call. His face changed instantly. The rage vanished, replaced by tenderness.

“Yes, darling,” he said in a tone with no trace of anger left.

“Will you be home soon?” came a quiet female voice through the speaker. “The boys won’t go to bed, they’re waiting for you. Pierre says you promised to finish the story for him.”

The clock on the wall read 9:11 p.m. He was late today.

“Yes, of course, darling. I’m leaving now,” he said. “Kiss John for me. Tell them Daddy will be home in half an hour.”

He ended the call, and the half-darkness of the office froze around him, pressing down. He walked to the window and looked out over the lights of the City. Down there, in another house, warm and real, his family was waiting for him. His sons, Pierre and John. Everything he had built. Everything he had to protect. For them, he was ready to bring more than one world to its knees.

He pressed the intercom.

“Bring the car to the entrance. I’m going home.”

The car slid noiselessly along the night highway, carrying him away from the shining center into the quiet, respectable suburbs of the City. He was going to Weston — an enclave for those who had won in life. Here, behind tall fences and manicured hedges, slept people whose fortunes rivaled the budgets of small countries.

The road sank into darkness, the city lights left behind. He thought about Dahmer’s words. Nonsense. Manipulation. He would crush her. Tomorrow. The police chief would grovel before him. “Yes, of course, Mr. Lanier! We’ll resolve this matter immediately.”

The car turned toward the gates. The tall wrought-iron gates slid apart without a sound, letting him through. The car rolled over the gravel.

Damian frowned. No guards at the entrance. Martin always greeted him personally.

A sharp pang flashed in his chest.

He entered the house. Silence. A tense, wrong silence. No sound from the TV, no children’s laughter.

“Lucy?” he called. His voice sounded too loud in that stillness.

No answer.

The living room was untouched, everything in its place, perfect order. But on the floor, near the staircase leading to the second floor, lay a plush bear. John’s favorite toy. And next to it, on the pale carpet, a spreading dark stain.

Damian rushed to the staircase. On the marble steps, lying in a pool of blood, was Maria, their housekeeper. He leapt over her body without stopping. Flying upstairs, he ran down the hallway. He tore the bedroom door open — and what he saw burned him from the inside out.

The room — their room, warm, with cream wallpaper and the soft light of a floor lamp — had become a slaughterhouse. Lucy lay by the bed, her blonde hair, always neatly arranged, now splayed across the floor, soaked in blood, black as oil. Her pajamas, blue, expensive silk, were torn across the chest, where three precise wounds gaped. Beside her — Pierre, small, fragile, curled at her feet as if trying to hide. His dinosaur pajamas, the ones he wore despite his brother’s teasing, were dark with blood. A bullet had left a small dark hole in his forehead, from which a thin trickle had run, already drying into a brown crust on his pale skin.

John lay a little farther away, near the window, his body frozen in an unnatural, broken pose. His throat was cut — a deep, ragged slice, blood pooling on the carpet, seeping down into the oak floorboards beneath. The smell of iron and moisture — thick, suffocating.

The bed was splattered with blood. On the floor — signs of a struggle: an overturned nightstand, shards of glass, a Harry Potter book lying open in the middle. An unfamiliar gun — black, heavy — lay near Lucy. Her fingers touched it but did not hold it.

Damian’s legs gave out. His knees hit the floor; pain shot through them, but he didn’t notice. His heart hammered like a mallet, a roar filled his ears, drowning out his ragged breathing. Blood pulsed at his temples, each beat thudding in his chest as if someone were pounding from the inside.

Then nausea surged, the sour taste of bile mixing with the metallic scent of blood hanging in the air. His skin burned, sweat trickled down his temples, cold and sticky, mixing with the blood from his own hand, where shards of crystal had left jagged cuts.

He picked up the gun for some reason, as if that could help. His breath tore out of his chest, his lungs compressed, every breath like a knife — short, rasping. His stomach clenched into a tight knot. He sat down on the edge of the bed beside Lucy, careful not to step on her hair. His shoes squelched in the blood.

He had no sense of how long he sat like that. A few minutes? An hour? Time stopped existing, collapsing into one point — this blood-soaked room.

Then came a sound. At first distant, like an echo — the wail of sirens. Then closer — the pounding of heavy boots on the stairs, muffled, tense voices. None of it mattered. It was happening somewhere in another world, beyond the borders of this hell.

The footsteps stopped at the door, and two figures entered the room cautiously. Police uniforms, weapons drawn.

“Police! Drop the weapon!” shouted one of them. His voice was young, trembling with adrenaline and terror. The officer — barely more than a boy — looked from Damian to the children’s bodies, and his face, under the brim of his cap, turned deathly pale. “Weapon on the floor!”

The second officer, older, also kept Damian in his sights; there was trained precision in his movements.

“Hands up! Slowly!” he barked. “Don’t move!”

Damian didn’t understand what they wanted. He stared at them — at their weapons trained on him, their faces twisted with alarm. His brain refused to process their words. A weapon. For some reason, his hand was holding a gun. He didn’t remember picking it up.

“I repeat, drop the weapon!” the young cop shouted again, his voice cracking into a shriek. “Hands up!”

Slowly, as if in a dream, Damian raised the hand holding the gun.

And the young officer fired.

The blast stunned him; Damian felt not the pain but a sharp, brutal impact to the chest that knocked him off the bed and onto the floor. He fell beside Lucy. The gun slipped from his hand.

The world blurred, dissolving into a dark, murky smear. The last thing he saw was his wife’s face, so close, so familiar. He reached for her; his blood-soaked fingers brushed her cold cheek.

The void swallowed everything.

And the call tore it apart.

A sharp, melodic chime from his desk phone. On the screen — a name: “Lucy.”

Damian stared around in shock.

His own office, in the penthouse at the top of the world. His palm still throbbed from the shattered glass. Outside, nighttime Boston glittered.

The clock read 9:11 p.m.

A dream. A vision. A hallucination brought on by stress, alcohol, and that insane conversation. He lifted his bloodied hand, pressed a napkin to it. The pain was real. But everything else... no. It couldn’t be.

Swaying, he pressed the answer button.

“Yes, darling,” he said, his voice coming out hoarse and unfamiliar.

“Are you on your way?” came the soft female voice from the speaker. “The boys won’t go to bed, they’re waiting for you. Pierre says you promised to finish his story.”

Damian could still see Pierre’s face, his dinosaur pajamas, the tiny black hole in his forehead. It was a dream. It had to be a dream.

“Yes, of course, sweetheart. I’m leaving now,” he said. “Kiss John for me. Tell them Dad will be home in half an hour.”

With a trembling finger, he pressed the intercom button.

The drive home became a pilgrimage to the site of his own execution. Every turn, every familiar streetlight on the road to Weston, was a step deeper into the vision that had scorched his soul in that bedroom. He clung desperately to the idea that it was a dream, a hallucination brought on by stress. But that was a lie.

The car turned toward his gates. They were open, no guard in sight. The first sign.

A sharp pang twisted in his chest. He entered the house. Silence. A tense, wrong kind of silence.

“Lucy?” he called, and his voice sounded weak, rasping. No answer. The second coincidence.

He stepped into the living room. On the floor, by the staircase leading to the second floor, lay John’s plush bear. Beside it, on the pale carpet, a dark stain spread.

The third.

Slowly, like a condemned man, he began to climb the stairs, already knowing what he would see. On the pristine white steps lay Maria, their housekeeper, curled in a pool of blood. He didn’t leap over her this time — he carefully stepped around the body, afraid to disturb the order of this horrific, predetermined scene.

He approached the door to their bedroom, placed his hand on the handle and pressed down.

Everything was in its place. Every object, every drop of blood, was exactly where he had already seen it.

Damian stepped inside, and his legs did not give way. The shock had passed; panic was gone. In their place — an endless, icy emptiness. He was no longer a player, but a piece on a board moved by an unseen hand.

Staggering, Damian walked to his wife. He knelt down, careful not to step on her hair, reached out a trembling hand and touched her cheek. Ice-cold. Real.

And then his world collapsed again. Damian Lanier’s rational world — built on logic and control — erupted from within, leaving behind raw, primal terror. He did not scream. His mouth opened, and a strangled, soundless moan forced its way out. He looked at his wife’s body, at the gun lying beside her, but he didn’t touch it.

He sat on the floor — minutes, an hour; he didn’t know.

Then came the noise. Sirens. The heavy stomp of boots on the stairs. Two officers burst into the room: police uniforms, weapons drawn.

“Down on the floor, face down! Hands behind your head, now!” one of them shouted. The voice was young, shaking with adrenaline and horror. A police officer — barely more than a boy. “On the floor! Hands behind your head! I said hands behind your head! Keep your hands where I can see them!”

Damian didn’t understand what they wanted. He stared at them, at the weapons pointed at him. His mind refused to process the words.

“Hands behind your head! Immediately!” the young cop screamed again, his voice cracking into a shrill, panicked shriek.

Damian awkwardly lifted his blood-covered hand to place it behind his head.

At that moment, the young officer’s gaze darted to the black pistol lying on the floor just a couple of feet from Damian.

“Gun!” he shouted.

And he fired.

The blast deafened him, and Damian didn’t feel pain — only a sudden, brutal impact to the chest that hurled him to the floor. He fell beside Lucy. The world dissolved into a dark, blurry smear. The last thing he saw was his wife’s face, so close and familiar. He reached toward her, his bloodied fingers brushing her cooling cheek.

The void swallowed him — and then he heard the sharp chime of the phone.