Page 66 of Tangled Souls

This time it’s Huck who steps forward with pliers in his hands. He doesn’t say a word because my demand hasn’t been met.

But it will be.

Huck is efficient as he peels off Mikhail’s nails without flinching. Mikhail lets little whimpers leave his mouth, but he clearly resents each one of them.

“There’s no shame in giving into the pain. The shame is in the man you became,” I tell him, my lip curled into a snarl.

“Fuck,” Mikhail pants with his eyes squeezed closed.

Huck isn’t done. Far from it. Once all of Mikhail’s nails are removed, he grabs a small bowl. Glee has me stepping closer. The moment Huck brings the bowl up and the liquid inside touches Mikhail’s fingers, he starts jerking to try and pull them free.

It won’t happen.

And I know the salt water in the bowl is burning, burrowing, and battering against his senses. There’s no escape for him.

Huck uses the bowl to submerge the fingertips of one hand and then the other. On the third round of alternating between hands, Mikhail breaks.

Then the words start to tumble freely.

His tongue stumbles and stutters.

Everything is left on the floor of the basement where the shadows hide their horrors, and blood can be washed away. He tells us the name of everyone he’s recruited, who he bought drugs from, and who he sold to. He tells me about the feelers he had out there for the trafficking operation to start again.

He doesn’t stop until the truth is laid out and he has nothing left to give.

Hendrix, Wolfe, and Dominic will be tasked with ensuring every name uttered and contract brokered will be snuffed out. I know they’ll do their job and do it well.

I look upon Mikhail because even with my demand met, his pain won’t end.

Baker steps forward, a different knife in his hand. He slices alongside mine, parallel and crossing, not missing a single cut I gave the man and matching it with his own existence.

“Fuck,” Mikhail rasps after needing to be woken up. Again. “Just end me. I’ve told you everything.” His eyes come up and find mine, his world broken alongside his mind and his entitlement. “Please.”

When I pull my gun free this time, I don’t fire just one shot.

I take out his kneecaps. I fire into his gut.

He’s gasping for breath, his skin becoming pale as the blood starts to drain from him with every sluggish beat of his heart.

With our eyes locked, I fire one more shot to match the one I gave his cousin.

Death was not slow for him. It was never meant to be.

Mikhail terrorized and plotted. He tried to wreak havoc on my city.

Now his blood is on my hands, but his is just another life taken. It’s far from the first and I doubt it will be the last.

But at least, for now, I can close the chapter on Morozov completely. Anatoly is gone. Mikhail is gone. Their power was corrupted and overthrown.

The time has come to live our life with our tangled souls united, and love wrapped around us while enjoying a future which plays between the shadows and within the light.

EPILOGUE

ONE YEAR LATER

OAKLYNN

For a while after Mikhail was captured, tortured, and killed, I thought I was going to drown in cum. Not literally, but I swear there was more cum in my body than any one person should have. Once the immediate threat was neutralized, my men put all of their effort into another mission.

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