受信箱

[newpest]

武 Лев Ковач

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[newpest]

"Yeah... for the best. What's the public gonna do? Starve on marble floors?"

He keeps walking, watching the tonality of his voice, the way it reverberates. "Nice of him, though."

He can't escape that.

[hiddenblade]

A cynic just the same. There are many in Ezio's social circle, of course, but a new one always presents new challenges: the contours of their doubt, the seeds planted deep within them.

"The villa is a safe shelter in times of war, and when Monteriggioni fell, we evacuated the people through here," Ezio replies, amiably. "But it could have served better uses."

He beckons Kovacs to follow him into the adjoining room, a bedroom with a two-person table set up with chairs. The room is much warmer than the white marble foyer, with plush bedding and ornately carved furniture, but it is pristine and untouched, the curtains drawn.

[newpest]

The furniture is inviting, the decor is lovely, Kovacs really hopes he's not about to be propositioned.

"You a solider?" He leans like a crane above the table. "Or a rich boy caught up in it?"

[hiddenblade]

The setting is unremarkable to Ezio; entertaining guests in a room like this does not strike him as odd at all. It's more hospitable than any other room in the place. Fit, he thinks, for someone he is meant to work with so closely.

But in light of the week he's had, it feels like an overcompensation.

"I grew up wealthy," he confirms, and he sets about setting the table. "I have had some training here, but I have done a little bit of everything. A bodyguard, a consultant, a financier, a teacher..."

A shrug, a little flippant.

"I would get bored if I was just a soldier."

[newpest]

Kovacs watches everything with the bland expression of a man taking in information and giving none. If he's going to be stabbed with cookery, he'd prefer to know in advance.

"Don't underestimate soldiering. If you like killing civilians, you can fill up a lot of hours."

[hiddenblade]

Ezio pauses and fits Kovacs with a raised eyebrow.

"I do not kill civilians," he replies crisply. "Under any circumstance."

[newpest]

There. Got him.

"We got paid by headcount." A shrug, like what can you do.

[hiddenblade]

Ezio sets a pair of wine glasses down, and not for the first time, he thinks of Larry, and how stark this difference is. He rounds the table, finishing up.

"If you are looking for judgment, you will have it," Ezio replies. "But I doubt it was money for you."

Soldiers are not paid that well, and Kovacs' disdain feels too sharp for that.

[newpest]

Kovacs sneers. He's learned to use this face, and its flattened ugliness. The eyes, venal, the mouth, sharp.

"You got a read on me already?"

[hiddenblade]

Ezio just gestures at the room around them. He's relaxed even as Kovacs flares up.

"You would sooner burn this to the ground than live in it. It would make you a hypocrite –– perhaps a worse than you already are."

[newpest]

Kovacs doesn't move. He just stares studying the man before him. Smarter than most he's dealt with in the last few weeks, but that's like giving him an award for not sticking rocks up his fucking nose.

"We're all hypocrites. It one of the wonderful things that unites all humanity."

It's fun, quoting Quell at times like these.

[hiddenblade]

"So what? We are not talking about all of humanity," Ezio replies, shrugging. "We are talking about you. What you have done. Would you willingly be one over something you feel so strongly over?"

[newpest]

Hackles raise on Ryker's face. Kovacs glowers, a primal show of teeth.

"Have you read my file? I got one, right?" That's how shit works around here, isn't it?

[hiddenblade]

It's easy to be calm, in his own cabin, armed, all-too assured of his own skills. He is certain it could be frustrating. Salt in the wound. He carries himself as such anyway. Tenacity matters more.

"I have it," he confirms.

He's paged through it, taken in the broad strokes. He'd given Larry weeks with his to absorb it first, in the name of respect for his privacy, but he hasn't yet decided if that's needed here. From Kovacs' anger, perhaps not.

"I wanted to know your mind first. Would you like to read it yourself?"

[newpest]

"Then you know the fucking answer to that question," Kovacs growls. "You get off making me dangle like that?"

How absurd-- hypocritical-- to play the wounded party, when he'd courted it. Yet he still feels ill used. Will he ever not? It's been a very long time, and the feeling's never stopped.

[hiddenblade]

"The file does not express your motives or feelings on what you have done," Ezio replies, with a dismissive hand wave. He repeats: "Would you like to read it yourself, Kovacs?"

[newpest]

"With a ch, motherfucker. Kovach." Now he's just being petty. He holds out his hand for the file. Give it up.

[hiddenblade]

"Kovach," Ezio confirms, and he strides across the room to take the file from a drawer. He hands it over.

[newpest]

Kovacs scans it quickly. He doesn't really want to see what it has to say on him. Yet, for the image needing to be broadcast, he lets out a petty snort. "Forgot about that," he murmurs, before handing the file back.

"It's accurate."

[hiddenblade]

Ezio picks up a bottle of wine out of a cabinet and takes a seat in one of the chairs while Kovacs reads, pouring them both a liberal glass.

"Va bene," he replies, and despite Kovacs plucking at him, he adds, with a hint of humour: "The Admiral should have added that you would enjoy trying my patience."

[newpest]

Kovacs drinks the wine in one shot, as though it were vodka. He only just stops himself for slamming the glass down for the hell of it. Play nice for now. Get violent later.

"This is all it takes?"

[hiddenblade]

Ezio's eyes narrow slightly.

"You implied you eagerly killed civilians for money you scorn," he replies. "It should test me. But do your worst! You will find me hard to break."

He gets up to fetch dinner from the other room.

[newpest]

"So, scorn makes it okay?" He holds out his unsmashed wineglass. More? "I'm not here to break you."

[hiddenblade]

Ezio seems genuinely puzzled by that leap, but he pours more wine. For now, anyway. He looks hardy enough to hold it.

“You can pick out all the words you would like,” he replies. “Rip them from their arguments. Would you rather fight? You are spoiling for one.”

[newpest]

Kovacs' body language changes, going from rigid to languid. He takes the wine and drinks it, thinking. This is obviously a trap.

Sometimes, the best way to disarm a trap is to walk into it.

"You're on."