With This Ring

It was indeed Boris Arakas, just as Levan had suspected.

He was a short, bulky man with the face of a bulldog. In his eyes was a bitterness I could almost taste. The other men quickly and quietly moved to the edges of the room, while he dragged a chair and sat across from me.

He watched me for the longest time before his ugly face split into a smile. From a simple smile, it grew to a full out grin, until he could no longer contain himself and he broke into uproarious laughter. When he was done, he rose to his feet, his hand on the chair, and with a deafening roar of rage swung it at me.

I shut my eyes as I awaited the impact. The metal chair smashed against my head and threw me to the ground. The pain was soul splitting.

Everything around me began to darken, but before I could catch my breath he rained me with kicks. His heavy boots slamming into my body while he cursed me.

“You. Fucking. Bastard. You’ve. Ruined. My. Life. Every. Fucking. Thing. Around me.”

He stopped to catch his breath, and I shut my eyes to contain the strength I still had in me. With a cry of rage he rolled me over on the floor so I was flat on my back and then slammed his feet into my wound.

I roared out at the pain, and prayed to God that Levan was on the way.

Then he calmly picked the chair back up and then sat on it in front of me. “Do you know me?” he asked.

I was so close to passing out even the sound of his words were becoming faint to me, but I could still grasp some of what he was saying. I knew if I blacked out, I would truly be finished, so I held on as long as I could.

It was just as Levan had discovered. It was revenge for the death of his brother and the way his life had fallen apart after that. I had destroyed him and now he wanted to return the favor.

However, he had his demands.

He grabbed my shirt and pulled at me until I was almost sitting up. My head was drooping low from the torture and exhaustion. With one hand around my neck, he held me up till I was at face level with him.

“Open your eyes,” he ordered.

I managed to do so because I wanted to remember him. To commit every feature of his to memory.

“Marlow! Marlow!”

The Albanian stepped forward.

“Bring the gas!”

My breathing quickened.

A red can was brought in, and through the blood dripping down my eyes, I watched him uncap it. He brought the red can to my nose, and forced me to inhale.

“Do you smell this?” He cackled like a demented man. “I am going to fucking burn you alive.”

He began to squirt the gasoline all over me, even into my mouth. He raised it over my head, and I was doused with it until I was drenched from head to toe. I heard laughter both in the distance and in my ears.

Afterwards he threw the empty can aside and asked for a cigarette.

I spat out the gas that had gotten into my mouth, and tried to open my eyes, but the mixture of blood and gasoline as it dripped down my face and into my open wound, stung with unimaginable pain. I wasn’t certain how long I’d be able to hold much longer. I felt myself hanging on by a thread.

I watched as with a wicked laugh he lit the cigarette in his mouth. He took a long puff and then came forward to blow it into my face.

“How does it feel?” he asked. “Being so close to your end? You don’t deserve to live Maxim… the things you’ve done… so ruthlessly, so selfishly.”

“To save your brother you kill another’s, to fill your pockets, you empty another’s?”

He inhaled deeply again.

“You have behaved like a monster, but I just might spare you,” he said, “after all every man deserves another chance. Do you think you deserve another chance, Maxim?”

I found I didn’t want to nod. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

He frowned with irritation. He had expected me to beg him for another chance. He pulled out his phone from his pocket.

“This is what you’re going to do,” he said. “You’re going to dial your brother, and you’re going to tell him to admit to every crime your family has ever committed. The murders, the thefts, the bribery, the fraud. Everything. Within three days. I want it all in writing. That is the only way, that I’ll let you go.”

He held out the phone to me “Are you ready to speak to him?”

I looked him in the eye, and managed a crooked smile. If he asked, no doubt Levan would do whatever was required to save my life. Even to the extent of harming himself and the conglomerate we had given our whole lives to. But after all that I would still not be spared. Because they all knew I would not coexist in the same world with someone who debased me to this extent. I had no interest in life if that was the cost.