Chapter се(Patreon): Morality Is Expensive

The basement was one of those places that didn't ask questions.
It only accepted answers.
A single crooked lamp hung from the ceiling, casting light like a bad mood. Richard Marchenko sat across from the man and said nothing. Long silences were always more expensive than words.
"Are you going to talk?" the legionnaire asked calmly.
The man swallowed. He smelled of sweat, fear, and bad decisions.
Richard sniffed lightly and said,
"I'll twist your nose so the holes point upward - you smell like sweaty grandmothers and poor life choices."
Ghost glanced up from his tablet. "Verb temperature is dropping. That means we're still safe."
"The more complex the sentence, the lower the verb temperature," Richard replied. "When it gets short - it gets personal."
The man tried to laugh. What came out was somewhere between a wheeze and a confession.
"I don't understand..."
Richard looked at him like a clueless little kitten.
Nothing going in. Nothing coming out.
"It's like asking me about the differential brain development of a cell," Richard said. "My reaction is standard."
The legionnaire leaned against the wall.
"An empty barn can't hold a roof," he muttered.
"If you want to insult a man - that's how.
If you want to compliment him - you say: a smart head doesn't keep hair for long."
The man blinked. "What... what do you want?"
Richard leaned forward. "The truth. It's cheap."
"And if I don't give it?"
Richard stood up.
"With my left hand I can kill a man.
With my right hand - even I'm afraid."
Silence dropped heavily. The lamp creaked, as if it didn't want to be involved.
"You know," Richard continued, "violence is expensive. Imagination is free. But morality..."
He paused.
"Morality is expensive."
Ghost slid the screen toward him. Names. Routes. Photos. Everything neatly arranged like accounting.
"As we say back home," the legionnaire added,
"what can't be bought with money,
can be bought with a lot of money."
The man broke. Not dramatically. Practically. He started talking the way people talk when they want to reach the end of a sentence alive.
When he finished, Richard put on his gloves.
"That's it?" Ghost asked.
"That's it for today," Richard replied. "Verb temperature is dropping again."
Outside, the night was quiet. Too quiet for someone who thought he controlled the game.
In another part of the city, a man with an old scar across his face watched the monitors and smiled. The bait had been left on purpose. Not for information - for character.
"Cobra," he whispered. "Interesting."
Someone behind him asked, "What do we do?"
The man touched his scar. "We wait. They're calm. That means they're still thinking."
The screens went dark.
Somewhere between night and dawn, Richard stopped, turned to the team, and said:
"When the sentences get shorter - we move."
The legionnaire smiled. "Where to?"
Richard looked up.
"To the place where morality has already been paid for."
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