For a moment, I almost felt bad about that.
Almost.
Then I remembered who these guys were and that they’d come here to kill me.
Fuckers.
“Calm down,” I said. “You keep thrashing like that, you’ll strangle yourself to death.”
He roared and mumbled through the gag.
“What’s that?” I leaned forward, looking right into his bloodshot eyes. “Got something to say?”
He thrashed and twisted.
“You bit off my damn finger, asshole.”
Stupid bastard wasn’t listening.
I held up the knife where he could see it. “Settle down, or I’ll cut off one of your fingers. See how you like it.”
I glanced around the floor. Where the hell did the top of my finger go? Probably under the fridge with the gun. I almost laughed. NCIS would have a field day with this crime scene.
Wayne made a noise. Is he crying?
Right. Time to move this along.
“Here’s what’s gonna happen,” I said. “I’m gonna take that gag out, and you’re gonna tell me exactly what I want to know, or I’ll start cuttin’ pieces off you. Your choice.”
I pulled the gag from his mouth.
“You’re dead.” His voice was wrecked raw. “You hear me? Dead.”
“Funny. Don’t feel dead yet.” I tapped the blade against his cheek. “Who sent you?”
“Go to hell.” He strained at the rope hard enough that his entire body lifted off the floor. “I’ll rip your bloody?—”
“Wayne.” I kept my voice flat. “I’ve got the knife, and you’re hog-tied. Think carefully about what I can cut off, ‘cause there ain’t a damn thing you can do to stop me.”
He breathed. Long, ragged pulls of air, eyes fixed on his brother.
“Who sent you?” I asked, easing back a notch.
Silence.
I picked up the broken bottle neck and pushed it into his cheek.
Wayne’s eyes bulged, and he tried to pull away but couldn’t move an inch. “Bob. Fucking Bob Ackerman,” he said through his teeth. “You already know it’s Bob.”
“And what? You two idiots came to kill me because he told you to?”
“No, dickhead. We were told to bring you in.” The words came out like they tasted bad. He strained against the ropes again, eyes filling with tears. “There’s a hundred grand bounty on your head, and we got first shot at it.”
A hundred grand! Cheap bastard. Bob could’ve offered a million.
“And now you killed Bruce.” His voice cracked. “You killed my brother for nothing!”
I sat back and looked at him for a long moment.
