Page 111 of Russian Roulette
“Vulcan, that’s enough,” Kit shouts. He wraps his strong arms around my chest and forcibly drags me off the man. “We need to load him up into the limo and take him someplace else. You can’t kill him in the parking lot. Don’t do this here.”
“Okay,” I finally say. I turn loose of his neck, then pull back with my right fist and pummel his face, breaking his nose and sending blood spraying over both of us. I hit him over and over until he’s unconscious with blood streaming down his face. Once he’s knocked out, I stop. There’s no point hitting him any longer since he can’t feel the pain and I’ve already broken several bones in his face.
“We’re taking him to my place.” I grab onto the car door handle and pull myself up from where I’ve been crouched over him. I tug my shirttail up and use it to wipe the man’s blood from my face.
“For what?” Seven asks. He’s already grabbing the man’s legs to help lift him while Kit grabs the man’s arms.
“Interrogation,” I spit out.
57
VULCAN
The Russian awakes with a startled jump on the way to my place. His eyes grow wide with fear when he realizes we’ve tied his hands behind his back before dumping him on the floor of the limo. We’re using his body as a footrest with my heavy boots strategically placed on his broken nose.
Before tying him up, we searched his pockets and found his wallet with identification. His driver’s license identified him as Ivan Kozlov, which confirms he’s one of the two men who tried to kill Jade on the boat before she fled to Vegas. Ivan was the only name she remembered hearing. It’s a common Russian name, but I’m sure this asshole is our guy. Why else would he break into her car?
Ivan is a dead man.
Whether he’s figured this out yet or not, is the question.
The image of this bastard firing a gun at my girl while she’s diving off the side of a boat keeps flashing over and over in front of my eyes. I’ve never felt the intensity of rage that I’m feeling at this moment.
I want to kill him more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.
And I will.
When I told Jade I would kill to protect her, I meant every word. I’m not afraid of the consequences, whatever they might be. The Russian mafia will come after us, that’s a given. We set up a fight with the Russian mob the moment we grabbed their goon.
Regardless of what comes next, this man can’t be allowed to live after what he did to her. To think of how close we all came to never knowing what it feels like to have Jade in our lives. She completes our fucked up family and together we will burn down the world to protect her.
My whole life has been a long screwed up mess with one disaster happening after the other. For once in my doomed life, karma is on my side by placing this man in my hands. I won’t waste the golden opportunity to make sure I give him what he deserves.
After that, my life’s mission will be to hunt down his partner and make sure I deliver the same to him. There will be no safe place on Earth for him to run. No one will ever hurt Jade and walk away. Not as long as I’m alive.
“Hey Vulcan!” Kit says, interrupting my murderous train of thought. “Are you okay? What’s going through your head?”
“I’m fine,” I snap back. “Just in a hurry to get answers out of this motherfucker. Then we need to haul ass and find Jade before it’s too late.”
“It’s not too late,” Kit says, trying to calm me. “Don’t say that. We would feel it if something happened to her. She’s alive. Don’t worry, we’ll find her and then we’ll take her home. By this time tomorrow, we’ll all be sitting around eating pizza at my house.”
The Russian stirs awake at the sound of our voices. When he remembers what’s happening, he begins cursing at me in Russian again.
“Shut the fuck up!” I mutter, smashing his shattered nose with my boot. “Where is the girl? We know you have her. Do you speak English? If you don’t, you had better learn fast because I will fucking kill you if you don’t tell us where she is. You won’t leave the desert alive if you don’t cooperate.”
The man groans and his eyes flutter close. Either he’s passed out again from the pain or is faking it. In the end, it doesn’t matter. I’ll make sure he’s wide awake when we arrive at my place if I need to attach the car battery to his balls and throw a bucket of water over him. Hell, I might do it anyway to make him suffer. I can think of a million ways to torture him and I’m willing to do them all.
Kit and Seven haven’t tried to interfere with my way of handling the situation. They might not be personally willing to be as violent as I am, but they won’t stop me. I’m grateful they’re here to keep me from killing him prematurely before we have answers.
“What’s the plan?” Seven asks when Leroy turns the limo off the highway and along the dirt trail leading to the RV.
“To torture him until he tells us where Jade is,” I reply. “Simple plan, yet effective. If he knows where Jade is, he’ll tell me.”
I would love nothing more than to torture him slowly with my stash of knives. To cause him unbearable pain for scaring Jade. We don’t have the luxury of time, though. Not when Jade is out there somewhere, needing us.
After Leroy pulls to a stop beside my RV, we each grab the man and carry him to a chair sitting beside the picnic table. Kit takes off his belt and loops it around the man’s waist to buckle him into the chair. The chair is old and rickety but with his hands tied behind his back, he wouldn’t get far running attached to the chair. His head, covered in a black woolen cap, hangs limply to one side. He’s still out cold.
“Leroy, go inside the RV and flip on the switch for the floodlights. This bastard needs to see who he’s up against.”
