Page 84 of Sinister Promise

Then his gaze shifted back to his hand, where thefinger should have been. He screamed and cried, carrying on like a toddler who fell off his bike and thought the world was ending.

The pathetic display disgusted me.

Comparatively speaking, his daughter had lost far more than a pinky in the last twenty-four hours, and she didn't carry on like this.

My brave girl was far stronger than her father.

Damien tilted his head, feigning confusion. "Math was never my strong suit, but I think that means two additional fingers."

I nodded. "You'd be correct."

It should have been far, far more. But I needed more information before I could kill him, and he deserved the pain.

Alina's father stopped, looked up, his cheeks tearstained and his brows furrowed as he tried to understand what Damien meant.

Perfect. The confusion would make this hurt more.

I took the opportunity and lashed out with the knife.

The blade struck again, slicing off another finger. His ring finger. Then again, for his middle finger.

He screamed while I wiped the blood from the blade onto his shoulder. No reason to dirty my clothes if I didn't have to.

Richard howled in agony, his entire body convulsing from the pain. But we were far from done.

"Shut up," I ordered over the man's wails. Immediately, his cries silenced, but his body still shook. "We are only just getting started, so you might want to save your strength."

There was a lot of information I needed from Richard, and I had to act fast if I wanted to claim it before he lost too much blood and fainted or, worse, just up and died from a heart attack or a stroke or some shit.

Not that it would've been a significant loss.

Slamming the knife on the table in front of his face, I focused on the task at hand.

"Who do you owe money to?" The question hung in the air like a blade.

He shook his head, refusing to answer. Maybe Richard had more balls than I thought. That meant it was time to make them shrivel.

"Grab his hands," I ordered.

Mikhail raised an eyebrow as my men grabbed Richard's hands and held them to the table. Richard tried balling the one fist he could still make, but my men straightened out those fingers pretty easily.

He sobbed harder as I took my place in front of him and pulled the revolver from the holster tucked at my side. Slowly, methodically, I unloaded it. Then pulled another two bullets from my pocket and stood them up in a neat little row on the table, like soldiers awaiting orders.

"You have seven fingers left, my friend. We are going to play a little game. Seven bullets for seven fingers."

"There are eight bullets," he said, his voice barely a whisper.

"The bonus round," I said, the corners of my mouth pulling into a sinister smile as I took the first bullet and slid it in the chamber before spinning it and clipping it closed.

He tried to pull away as I held the muzzle to his right index finger and repeated my question.

"Who do you owe money to?"

"I can't—" he cried, and I fired the gun.

The hollow click echoed in the hangar, and Richard's shoulders sagged as he sobbed.

"Lucky you, you get to keep pushing buttons and pointing at things, for now." I opened the gun and placed another bullet in the cylinder and spun it again, placing it against his thumb. "The first time you had a one-in-six chance, it's now a two-in-six. Do you like those odds?"

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