Then, slowly, while I thought about what had happened, how it had happened, and why, it dawned on me. It was Dimitri’s fault for filling her head with a bunch of nonsense and for trying to convince her that I was a danger to her. If she had just done what I asked her to do, she would have been alright. She would not have found herself in harm’s way the way Lisa, my ex, had.
I hadn’t thought about Lisa in ages. It wasn’t that I wanted to forget what had gone down. I just needed to move past it. I had vowed to her that I would never let anything like that happen to anyone else. My carelessness had caused what happened that day. Instead of mulling it over again, however, I was going to make Dimitri pay for bringing those memories back up.
Dimitri smiled humorlessly when I walked into the room in the basement.
“You knew I was coming down here after you brought Lisa up,” I told him.
I would have imagined that anyone else in Dimitri’s position would have shown more tact, but no, not Dimitri. The thing about big guys like Dimitri was that they could take a lot of punishment and keep on going like nothing had even happened. That was what made them valuable assets to people like Ivan. That fact was not lost on Dimitri. He knew how much punishment he could take, and he truly believed I wasn’t going to test that limit.
He kept his smug smile as I talked and approached the table. He may not have understood the words that were coming out of my mouth, but he knew exactly why I was down there. He knew what he had told Julia, and he knew I had come to hand out his punishment.
“Now you’re fucked. There’s no one else here who understands Russian, but I’m sure we can come to some sort of agreement anyway.” I shoved the table aside so that I stood directly in front of his chair.
If I had allowed Dimitri to stand up in front of me, he would have towered over me. He would have stood wider than I did as well. He was a mountain of a man, a real Russian bear. He wasn’t standing, however, which gave me a rather unfair advantage over him. I didn’t mind.
“You see, Dimitri, I know a language that we both speak. Pain.” I leaned forward as I spoke, bringing my face down to his level.
He spat in my face and laughed.
“Oh, that’s it, you motherfucker.” I punched him right in the mouth.
He just smiled and spit out the blood. I almost didn’t hear it spatter on the floor over the sound of another punch landing square in his gut. He lurched forward in the chair, pulling on the rope tied across his chest.
I unleashed my rage on his punching bag body and face, burying my fists into him. He took everything I dished out and kept the bloody smile on his face. When I stopped and stepped back to catch my breath, he laughed at me and said something in Russian.
“Shut the fuck up,” I shouted, sending another fist into his face. I punched the smiles and laughter right out of him then. His head slumped forward, and blood dripped from his face. His chest heaved with his heavy, beaten breath.
I couldn’t stop myself. I took off my thick leather belt and wrapped the ends around my hands.
“You want to talk shit when Dr. Danvers is in here, huh? Let’s hear you talk shit now.” I stepped around behind him and pulled his head back with my belt around his throat.
He gasped and looked up at me with his bruised and bloody face.
“Talk shit, Dimitri. I can’t hear you.”
I pulled harder. I pressed the belt more against his chin than his neck. I didn’t want to choke him out. I just wanted to hurt him. He wheezed, and I saw his hands frantically gripping and releasing the arms of his chair.
“You’re being awfully quiet. Did you run out of shit to say, you dumb bastard?”
“Gage!”
I let go of the Russian’s neck and looked over at the voice calling me from the door. It was Juarez. He entered the room when I acknowledged him. Chase followed, of course. Those two were like the tag team champions from hell.
I took a step back from Dimitri and eyed my boys as they walked across the room in front of me.
“Why are you down here doing the dirty work?” Chase asked, and started laughing.
“Seriously, Gage, we can take care of this for you,” Juarez added.
Dimitri looked up at me with panic in his eyes.
“Oh, you don’t like it when I let the boys play, huh?” I mocked him.
“I don’t think he does,” Chase answered.
“That’s good to know.” I stepped around in front of Dimitri, placing myself between Chase and Juarez.
His eyes followed me. He seemed to be pleading with me not to let them have him.