War(50)

Those qualities made him dangerous.

Usually I could reason, appeal to someone’s pride, their greed, their fear.

None of those would work with this man. I could see that clearly. He was on a mission, and that mission was me.

“Well, you have me at a disadvantage,” I said. “Perhaps if you explain my transgression, we could come up with a solution satisfactory to us both, one that lets us both get back to our lives,” I said.

He laughed, a laugh that on the surface seemed happy, almost joyful, but as it continued, the insanity that drove it rang loud and clear.

“You say that as if I have a life. I don’t. My reason for being is to see you get what you deserve.”

“You’ve made that intent clear. What makes you think I’ll go along with it?” I asked.

It was a ploy, an attempt to distract him, and one that he took, hook, line, and sinker.

“Oh, you’ll go along.” The man spoke with such certainty that it was enough to give me pause, but I pushed that lapse aside and focused on him.

He hadn’t noticed me getting closer, or if he had, he hadn’t cared. And now, whether he noticed or not was irrelevant.

My usual tools were not available to me, but I’d never discounted the effectiveness of overwhelming force.

I launched at him full speed and drove him into the hard concrete. He was strong, well-built, but he was no match for me.

Once I had pinned him, I began to punch him. I didn’t waste time with vanity blows to the face and instead aimed all of my force at his midsection.

I punched him as hard as I could, feeling his muscle and flesh give under my brutal blows, more than half hoping I’d ruptured one of his internal organs.

But when I met his eyes, I froze.

He stared at me, his expression blissful.

It was then I noticed he was not putting up a fight, that he instead simply lay there and accepted the punishment I was doling out. No attempt to defend himself, no effort to slow me. Only bliss.

And that bliss was more chilling than anything I had ever experienced.

I listened to my instincts and pulled back, released him from my hold, stood, and stared down at him.

He smiled. “I was wondering if you were going to notice,” he said, sitting up with a low groan.

“Would you have tried to fight me?” I asked, watching as he stood and readjusted his clothes.

He looked a little the worse for wear, but not nearly as bad as he should have after the way I’d pummeled him.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “If you’d killed me, you’d have had to suffer the consequences. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“You would have died to see me suffer those consequences?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yes, and I might still. It makes no difference to me.”

I stepped closer. “Then why don’t I just kill you now, spare us both the headache.”

“You could do that,” he said, seeming as nonchalant about his death as anyone I’d ever encountered, his seeming eagerness for death one of the things that stilled my hand.

“But you’d suggest I not?” I said.

He tried to shrug, but the motion was broken off with a grimace of pain. “It’s up to you. But killing me will have consequences, Nikolai,” he said.

The sound of his voice, the way that name, so long unspoken by anyone but Milan, sounded on his tongue, sent a shiver over my entire body. “What consequences?” I asked.

I’d kept my voice level, even, but even asking the question was a defeat. He knew it just as I did. If I were in control of this situation, his threat of consequences would mean nothing. Were I at my best, there would be nothing he could do that would be of any concern to me. That I’d asked was a concession that there was something he might have or know that mattered to me, and that single fact shifted the balance of power entirely in his favor, something he and I both knew.

He smiled triumphantly.

“So you care? You want to know? There are other options. You could beat me to death, snap my neck, maybe, and then leave me here. No one would ever find me, and if they did, no one would care. You could do that, Nikolai, kill me and go back to your life.”

He appeared to be offering a way out of this, but his words were a taunt. He knew as surely as I did that I could not walk away now, be left to wonder what he thought he held over me.

“If I don’t want to?” I asked, my voice brisk, clipped, though it was to limited effect.

Somehow, this dog had wrestled the upper hand away from me, and we were again playing this game on his terms.

Maybe we always had been.

“If you don’t want to, then I have a simple question for you. Yes or no,” he said.

He was enjoying this.