My smile grows as I lift the pliers, making sure he can see them through his blurred vision. “This? This is nothing compared to what I’ll do to you.”
He knows what’s coming before the metal even closes around the next fingernail. His whole body starts shaking, panic taking over before I so much as tug.
“No, no, please?—”
The nail tears free with a wet snap, and his shriek rips through the basement. I let it ring out while I drop the nail to the floor and calmly move to the next one.
“Stop,” he chokes out, sobbing now, body sagging in the chains like there’s barely anything left holding him up. “Please…just kill me.”
A chuckle slips out. Death would be mercy, and mercy is the one thing he doesn’t get. He took my fucking kids. He hurt my wife. No one survives that.
The next nail comes out slower. I take my time with it, listening to the way he screams, watching his body jerk uselessly against the chains. He’s barely coherent now, shaking, drooling blood and spit down his chin.
When I finish with the last one, I toss the pliers aside and step back, studying the damage like an artist deciding where the next stroke should go. My gun is sitting on the table nearby, and when I pick it up, Eli barely manages to lift his head as I move back toward him.
Then I press the barrel into the deep gash carved across his stomach, pushing it into the open flesh until his body locks and a broken cry escapes.
“Oh God…please…”
I bend closer, close enough that he can see every part of my face and know exactly what’s still waiting for him. “This pain you feel? Multiply it by every second you had my sons.”
His eyes clamp shut and his head tips back. “I didn’t hurt them. I swear I didn’t.”
“But you did.” I drive the barrel deeper, and his screech fills the room.
But all I feel is rage. Rage when I think about what he did to them. The accident. The kidnapping. Sloane bleeding in that car alone until I got to her.
He did that. HIM.
“Stop…please…”
“That’s not happening.”
After that, he starts coming apart completely, each uneven sound dragging through his throat like staying conscious is hurting him.
I stand there watching it happen until, out of nowhere, a weak laugh breaks from him, and it makes me go still.
“Bring…bring her here.”
“What?” His head lifts slightly.
“Eden,” he croaks. “Tell her…I-I know what happened the day her…her mother died.”
I don’t like the sound of that. “What did you just say?”
He swallows thickly. “She’ll want to hear it.”
I slam my fist into his gut. He jerks violently, and a broken grunt leaves him, barely more than a sound.
“You can tell me.”
He lets out a dark snicker. “Fine. Just kill me.”
Fuck.
If this is something that might matter to her, I can’t let this svolich die before he talks.
“You’d better not be saying anything that will hurt her.”
