I see a man tied to a chair, with a gag in his mouth and blood dripping down his face and neck.
“Well, I didn’t mean to interrupt you,” I mumble, though a smile is pulling at my lips. “What did the poor sap do?”
“That’s my business,” Aleksandr says cooly. “You don’t worry about it.”
He steps over to the man and pulls his head back by his hair. “Just know, he deserves this.”
“Don’t we all?” I ask. “We’re all the villain in someone’s story.”
Aleksandr slides the knife up the side of the man’s neck to his ear, cutting but not deep enough for death, and the man screams into the gag, but it’s barely audible. He’s squirming and panting for breath.
It’s a familiar sight. One that doesn’t faze me in the slightest. The damp smell of the basement, and the scent of iron from the thick blood. It’s like a cozy memory of mine.
Still, I can’t help but rub at my own neck for a moment.
“What do you want?” Aleksandr asks me.
“You know, you could have asked to meet me another time,” I say.
“This is the only time.” He glances at me. “Now. What do you need? More information? I gave you what I have.”
“I’m sure you have more,” I tell him. “But…no that’s not what I’m here for.”
“What the fuck do you want then?” he asks. “I’m a very busy man. I have to show up and put on my face for those assholes in less than two hours, and for the next three days… I’ll be trapped there. Playing a deranged animal for all to see.”
I blink at him, and a lump forms in my throat as his eyes stay locked on mine. Heat rushes from my chest down to my stomach and groin.
“I think you’re already playing that,” I tell him, then look at the man he’s torturing to death.
Aleksandr stands up straight and steps over to me. He holds the knife directed at me, and tilts his head to the side. His eyes and voice are both cold, yet they inspire such heat in my own body.
“I can show you,” he threatens me. “If you don’t tell me why the fuck you’re here.”
My cock twitches in my jeans and my mouth waters. “What if I want that?” I ask him.
He eyes my face. “You want me to gut you like a fish?”
I step closer to him, until the tip of the blade is pressed against my chin. “I’m sure you could do some damage without killing me, if you wanted to.”
His gaze falters, and I see a hint of something curious there.
I find that I’m not joking. I would let him do just about anything to me right now. Walk the line of pain and pleasure. So long as I get to stay nearby.
“You’re a sick fuck,” he whispers to me.
“You could find out how much,” I whisper in return.
Aleksandr slides the knife away from my chin, leaving just a small nick there on my skin. “Not now,” he says quickly and turns to his victim. I find myself not at all interested in why he’s here, or what he did to deserve it. I can guess, like many others. He’s an enemy of the Rose, or he presents a danger to Aleksandr.
Whatever the reason, I know he won’t be alive for long. Not with the look in Aleksandr’s eyes and the blood that pools on the cement floor underneath the chair.
“Carmine wants to meet you,” I tell him finally.
He brushes the blade along the man’s chest as he walks around him, and then presses it to the front of his neck.
“Your brother…why?” he asks. He’s completely ignoring the crying and muffled pleading of the man in the chair. As though it’s as easy for him to do all of this—torture him and talk to me—as it is to breathe.
I click my tongue. “He doesn’t trust you, at least…not on my word,” I explain. “He wants to meet you for himself.”
