News cycles had feasted on it. Commentators. Think pieces. Armchair analysts. Trauma porn with ads.
Dmitri's death couldn't be a footnote buried in a classified report that three bored analysts skimmed before lunch.
It had to be loud.
Public.
Impossible to ignore.
An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth.
Except there was a problem.
The CIA would never release that information willingly.
Admitting that a high-value international criminal had been killed in their custody—days after arrest, inside a supposedly airtight facility—would be an institutional nightmare. Questions would pile up instantly. Security failures. Internal corruption. Whether their black sites were fortresses or just expensive waiting rooms where people conveniently died.
And Dmitri wasn't some nobody. He was connected—oligarchs, politicians, entire shadow economies that spanned continents. His death in American custody would ripple outward, diplomatic fallout guaranteed.
