The pressure shifted in the small room. Ivo almost wished Davi hadn't said anything.
In the moment when he'd thought the hail of bullets was unavoidable, his panic had vanished like fog, leaving behind only the clarity of inevitability.
Now the cold creep of uncertainty was once again crawling its fingers up his spine.
Alina was visibly taken aback by Davi's suggestion, but she couldn't contradict him without exposing them all. "I've been paying you to do nothing for days on end," she sighed with a disaffected shrug of the shoulder, "I guess you might as well make yourself useful."
Kuroda gestured Davi forward with the handle of the whip. "Come here." Davi walked up to him unhurriedly. "Strip down to your underwear and kneel."
There was no hesitation to Davi's movements. Of course Kuroda would tell him what to do, and of course he would obey him. Ivo felt like the was watching the scene play out from a great distance.
