But as I throw the first punch and it snaps against his jaw, my chest tightens.
I thought this would be fun in some sick and twisted way.
I thought it would be satisfying to see him helpless and hopeless.
I throw another punch, angry because it isn’t giving me any of the relief I was hoping for all this time.
Misha spits blood and blinks against the pain.
“Are you going to ask me anything?” he mutters through a swollen, bleeding lip.
“Just warming you up first,” I snap. “Liars don’t get the benefit of the doubt.”
He snorts and closes his eyes for a moment.
“What the fuck do you want, Artur,” he growls.
“We want you to stop attacking our warehouses,” I snarl, leaning close to him.
“What?” he snaps, scrunching his face.
I hit him again, still waiting to feel that long-anticipated satisfaction.
Kaz is standing behind me. Joe is upstairs, standing guard just in case.
“Fucking make sense!” Misha shouts. “If you’re going to demand shit from me, at least make sense about it!”
I huff bitter laughter. “Talk to me, man. This isn’t going to stop until you admit you’ve been messing with the warehouses,” I swing my fist again.
Still no satisfaction.In fact, instead of feeling good about it, there is a knot of tension growing in my chest.
Maria.
Maria loves her brother.
And I love her.
She would be crying if she could see me now. She would hate me. She would beg me to stop.
I groan and turn my back on Misha, pausing to pull my thoughts together.
Kaz steps close to me and mutters, “You okay?”
“Yeah, man. Just…not how I expected to feel about this,” I whisper.
“It never feels as good as you think it will. Revenge is a fickle creature,” he mutters. “But we still need the information. If you can’t…”
“No, it’s fine. I’ve got this.”
Picking up the electrified clamps, I drag the table with the battery pack closer and hook each clamp to the cuffs around Misha’s wrists.
“Come on, man, what the fuck?” he says, horrified.
“Talk, it will all end, my friend,” I say. The word friend twists on my tongue and feels like poison. He was never my friend. It was all fake. This man is an exceptional liar, and no matter how many times he tells me he doesn’t know what I’m talking about…I won’t accept it.
I flip a switch on the battery, and Misha’s body goes rigid as volts of electricity course through him. He shudders, gargling and convulsing in tight spasms until I flick the switch off again.
Misha gasps, drooling and leaning forward, his head hanging as he fights for breath.
