His (Ties That Bind 2)

I arch an eyebrow at him. “I am worthy,” I assure him. “But I’m willing to prove it if that hasn’t already been made clear.”

“You’re a cocky son of a bitch.” He narrows his eyes. “I’m sure I don’t have to remind you what he did to Kat.”

“No, you don’t.” My voice hardens. “I remember it clearly.”

Gleb closes the door behind us and leads us back to the stairs. “Then make him pay for it. I want to see exactly what she means to you.”

* * *

I doubt anybody would suspect that in the basement of one of New York’s most exclusive clubs is a room that could easily rival a torture chamber. I’ve never been a real creative guy, but as I look around at all the instruments at my disposal, my pulse thrums with possibilities.

Gleb is parked in the corner, vodka in hand, watching me as I make my first selection. It’s a sanding machine in an alternate universe, but in ours, it’s better known as a human meat grinder.

“First order of business.” I set the grinder down on the table beside Andrei’s hospital bed and grab a pair of scissors. “I want to see what we’re working with here.”

I cut the hospital gown away from his body in bits and pieces, leaving him stark naked and shivering. He can’t move an inch, his arms and legs bound to the rails of the bed, but his eyes are free to roam over my face as I examine the nub where his dick used to be. There are still stitches along the skin they’ve managed to piece together, and it’s a gruesome sight to behold.

“Ouch.” I shudder. “Did quite a number on you, didn’t I, Andrei?”

He mumbles something beneath the duct tape, but I shake my head and tap his face.

“I’ve heard quite enough out of you over the years. And I’m long past giving a fuck what you have to say.”

I reach for the grinder, and he starts to squeal as I look around his body for an area that will bring maximum pain. There are a lot of different nerves in the body, easily provoked, but I think the easiest route is the still healing bullet wound in his shoulder.

“This is for Kat.” I meet his gaze as I flip the switch, and despite his mouth being covered, Andrei manages to scream like a banshee as blood sprays across both of our faces. I don’t stop until I see bone and his blood is mixed with the salt of his own tears.

When I’m finished with his shoulder, I move onto his face. The face he always thought so highly of. I know this will hurt him the most. Apart from his own dick, I would say it was his most valuable asset.

But even as his blood drips down my wrists, it doesn’t give me the satisfaction I’d hoped at seeing him cut up like a pig at a butcher shop. Because in my mind, I can still picture Kat, lying on the floor of the safe house with her pants pulled down around her knees. Face bruised, tears streaking her cheeks, while my son screamed upstairs, terrified.

My blood pressure rises as I toss the grinder aside and reach for a hammer, starting in on the small bones first. Fingers, wrists, feet. I smash them all until they are so deformed, he’d never be able to use them again, if I was kind enough to let him live. But this fuse has been lit for a long time. I’ve wanted to put Andrei down for years, before I even knew the full extent of what he was capable of. It isn’t difficult to recall all the faces of the people he’s destroyed. The lives he’s fucked up. The pain he’s caused.

Somewhere along the line, those faces bleed into my mother, and his words come back to haunt me. How he touched her. How she vomited. I want Andrei to feel that pain. I want him to feel as sick as I do every time I think about it.

Gleb shoots me a curious look when I reach for the broom and pry Andrei’s legs apart. At some point, while I was torturing him, his screams turned to faint moans. But he manages to find the energy for another horrific yelp when I shove the broom handle up his ass.

“I bet that medicine is bitter.” I lean down into his face and impale him again. “I bet it fucking hurts, doesn’t it? Is that what my mother said to you? Did you even listen? Did you even care?”

His eyes roll back in his head, and I know he’s on the verge of passing out. Too much of a pussy to take what he’s given so freely in this world. I grab him by the face and slap him around a couple of times, forcing him to wake up.