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“That was the wrong fucking answer.”
I’m sure the next few moves whiz past him in a blur. Gage knocks a table off the wall. It’s like an ironing board with restraints, slanted at about a twenty-degree incline. And that’s exactly where I toss Grischka’s limp body in less than a blink. Once he’s anchored down, I pull a cloth from my pocket and lay it over his screaming mouth. Gage hands me a pre-filled jug of water, and I pour, following through on my promise from moments ago. Celeste is fucking brilliant, so even though our typical methods are equally as effective and perhaps even faster, I find great satisfaction in incorporating part of my girl here.
Grischka gags, chokes, and sputters. It’s a continual sensation of drowning—lungs, windpipe, and stomach burning. If that isn’t enough, the darkness and the compulsion to vomit the torrent of bubbling lava are plenty to produce a self-preservation instinct. The key is not to kill him. Yet. His body convulses after about ten seconds, so I pause, allowing him to gulp several breaths. Then, I do it again.
But I also mentioned a competition of sorts, and I am a guy of my word. At least when it suits me. “Looks like you’re the proud winner of some severed fingers, Mischka.”
“We’ll start there,” Gage says, whipping out his pruning shears and directing them at the curled fingers bound above Mischka’s head. He stabs at them until the coiled fist opens involuntarily, wedging the clippers around them. “But only because I’m feeling generous. You already chose the snitch.”
My lips part to relay a smart-ass response, but Mischka wails, the screech ricocheting off the walls to devour the litany of croaks spewing from Grischka, whom I’m currently allowing to breathe. His eyes swing up to his partner’s fingers flopping to the ground. Four.
“That’s fucking low, Big Guy,” I yell over the monotonous blubbering. “Why don’t you just jump right to his dick, you goddamn cheater? Four fingers in one swipe.”
“It’s not cheating, dipshit,” he snarls, kicking the bloody digits aside. “You’re drowning your guy. You think cutting off a damn pinkie is equivalent to that? Not even Mischka would agree with that line of bullshit.” He backhands the fucker in his slashed and bloody chest. “Would ya?”
Mischka’s feet shuffle against the concrete, toes crooked, indistinct murmurs of expletives flowing through his grunts as Gage cauterizes his severed hand with a blowtorch to keep him from bleeding out too fast. There’s a lot of nerve endings in fingers and toes, but Mischka still has a jagged edge to his features.
I oscillate my gaze between the two cocksuckers. My money’s still on my guy. “Ready to cough up some of the answers you were paid to not know, Grischka, or would you prefer to choke on more water?”
His voice is froggy and strained, but he starts spilling all the same. “Probably a political promise.”
“Gotta give me more than that,” I say, dragging the rag across his face as my boot drums a taunting rap against the half-filled jug on the floor. “What kind of political promise?”
“I don’t … I don’t really …” His twitchy eyes sway back to his partner.
Ahh. Mischka knows more.
On the same wavelength as me, Gage yells, “On it,” as he squats on the floor and chops off the toes on Mischka’s right foot, following up immediately with the searing flame of the blowtorch.
Fucking hell. We need some earplugs or sound absorption in this godforsaken tomb. His screeches are grating. Not to mention the putrid whiff of burning flesh.
Jesus.
I waterboard Grischka for another ten seconds because I think he knows a little more, and my muscles itch from that incessant bleating.
Once both are wheezing for breath and drawing the conclusion that these are among their last minutes, I secure their attention with a two-second zap from the cattle prod.
“Listen up, motherfuckers,” I clip through a clenched jaw. “You will die here. You fucking deliver women to God knows who for God knows what, so don’t think I have an ounce of compassion for your sorry asses. And you picked the wrong fucking girl this time. But we can make this a weeklong endeavor, starve you so your body gnaws on itself, use drugs to keep you awake so you feel every goddamn excruciating twinge, or we can end it quickly. Your choice. Start fucking talking. What the hell is meant by a political promise?”
Mischka finally employs his mouth for something other than pussy sobs. “Higher politicians often use up-and-coming guys to bid their dirty work in exchange for support.”
Makes sense. The guys in power would own the rising puppets, assembling an army of indebted servants while also getting shit done.
But I need more. “Support in the way of money or position?”
“Both.” He spits foamy saliva, mixed with bile, and clears his throat. “Or blackmail.”
“Wasn’t blackmail,” Grischka offers, suddenly eager to have something to contribute again.
I tap him on the leg with the cattle prod without pressing the trigger, pleased when he jerks against the restraints. “How do you know?”
“We only spoke to him once,” Grischka heaves, terror swirling in his eyes. “I didn’t think too much about it, but he said the payoff was big.”
“He? Scott Filmore?” I ask for clarification. That fits. Everything I learned about that asshole showed he was eager to race to the top as fast as he could. When Grischka nods, I keep going. “Why does that mean it wasn’t blackmail?”
Mischka fields that one, the exhaustion and pain decidedly winning out as his body begins shuddering. “Blackmailed guys don’t see it as a payoff,” he supplies, but he’s holding back.
This isn’t about not wanting to give something up. It’s a simple instinct to prolong his life. When his information runs out, so do his numbered heartbeats. Gage snicks the shears open and closed in a metallic clink of warning until our guest relents.
