Page 116 of Captive Ruin

Petrov is looking at me, not at the tool I’m holding, like he’s more focused on my words than what’s about to happen.

The little bastard. How dare he?

I grab his jaw, gripping tight, forcing him to look at me. “Are you thinking about my fiancée?”

“What?” His eyes flick away and back again, wild and crazed. “I wasn’t! I swear!”

“I don’t believe you.” I drop the hammer, grabbing the screwdriver and ramming it into his thigh. He yells, but not loudly enough. “Nobody thinks about her but me,” I growl, pulling it out and stabbing him in the other leg. So long as I don’t hit the femoral artery, I can keep doing this a while.

“I promise!” he gasps through the pain. “I promise I wasn’t! I was barely listening, I swear!”

“That’s a lie too, isn’t it?”

“No!” he whimpers. “Why would I lie to you?”

I pause. “That’s a good point. Why would you?”

He flinches as I pull out the screwdriver and throw it back on the tray, then he sags in relief.

I tilt my head, regarding him. Blood runs freely down his legs. Quite a lot of it. I don’t want him bleeding out before I’m done with him, so now we’re on a clock. I have to move things on. “Do you know, I still don’t believe you. I think you are lying.”

“I swear…” He coughs, jerking against his bindings. “…I swear I’m not.”

“All right. Dmitri Koval, then.” I pick up the long-nose pliers this time, clicking them open and shut before his face. “Where do I find him?”

“I’ve told you everything,” he says quickly. “I don’t know his location.”

“You can’t have told me everything,” I point out reasonably. “We’ve barely been at it an hour.”

Taking a fistful of his hair, I hold him still, then use the long nose of the pliers to clamp down on his eyelid.

“Please, no,” he whimpers. “Please.”

I pull slowly. Gradual is best; anticipation lets the mind do as much work as the pain.

Sure enough, he screams sooner than I would expect.

“I’m just a boyevik!” he garbles.

That’s a disappointing answer, and I don’t let up.

“Once!” he squeals. “I met him once!”

Slowly, his eyelid stretches and tears, the pliers slipping in the blood.

“Do better, or it’s going to be a long day,” I tell him, as I switch to his other eye, preparing to begin again. “I have plans this evening.”

“No! Please!” He clenches his eye tight, but that only makes it easier.

I ignore him, poking the eyelid out and twisting the pliers as I pull.

“Pavel Makarov!” he screams.

“Another boyevik,” I reply, “and I’ve met him already.” Serranto put me onto him, and he wasn’t at all helpful, save for some low-ranking names. “Last chance.”

“Don’t you understand?” he gasps. “If I tell you the names of Koval’s brigadiry, I’m as good as dead!”

I sigh. “Why do you all insist on using that excuse? Don’t you understand I’m going to kill you anyway?”