How the Hitman Stole Christmas - Sam Mariano Page 0,92
a name, we cut you loose and kill him instead. It can be that simple if you let it.”
“How many guys in your position get a sweet deal like that, Ed? How many?” I ask, raising my eyebrows at him. “Not fucking many, that’s the truth. Most of the time you get strapped down in Adrian’s chair, you don’t move out of it until your brains are on the cement.”
Adrian nods. “It’s true, Ed. That’s normally what happens. Sometimes the brains aren’t the first to go, either. Did you know if you’re really careful, you can remove a man’s intestines without killing him? You can, I’m not making it up.”
Adrian grabs a shabby metal chair, turns it around backward, and takes a seat in front of Ed, looking him straight in the eye.
I know Adrian isn’t a psychopath, but given his well-deserved reputation and the menacing glint in his eyes right now as he looks at Ed… Ed probably doesn’t know that.
“You want me to show you?” Adrian asks, the inflection in his tone conveying that he’d relish the opportunity.
“No,” Ed sobs, tears sneaking past the bloated, bruised skin around his eyes. “Please, Adrian. Please…”
“I mean, you will die. But not right away,” he goes on as he sits back, adopting a more conversational tone. “For a few hours you’ll just lie there in such excruciating pain you’ll wish for death to come. But the only way you’ll get that sweet relief is if we give it to you. And, I hate to sound like a broken record, Ed, but the only way we’ll give it to you—even then—is if you give us a name.”
Ed groans miserably, his head lolling to the side.
Adrian shakes his head. “Think of how pointless it’ll be. You make us disembowel you, then you lie there for hours in so much pain you might actually lose your mind, and then right before it gets to that point, when you can’t deal with the agony physically or mentally for even a moment longer, you’ll break. You’ll be even more desperate than you are right now. You’ll wish you would have tapped a lot sooner, but it’ll be too late. And after all this lying, all this resisting, telling us you don’t know shit when we know you do, in that moment when you’re in all that pain, you’re gonna give up. You’ll give us the name just so we’ll do you the mercy of putting you out of your misery, and Ed… that’s not how I want to spend the rest of my day.” Adrian looks back at me. “What about you, Jasper? Is that how you want to spend the day?”
I shake my head. “Nope. I mean, I can, if that’s what Ed wants. But if he drags this shit out much longer, I don’t even know if I’ll be willing to do the mercy kill at the end of all of it, to be honest. I don’t admire his fight, it just pisses me off.”
Adrian looks back at Ed. “You ever see Jasper pissed off before? He’s pretty level-headed most of the time, but that man’s got a temper on him.”
“Really?” Ed asks, glaring miserably at Adrian. “Did you see what he did to my fucking face?”
Spittle flies from Ed’s mouth as he screams that last bit, but his bluster is good news. This isn’t my first time dealing with Ed, and I know deep down he’s a coward. The fact that he’s raising his voice at Adrian right now tells me he’s close to giving up. This is his last show of spirit.
“Oh, that wasn’t my temper, Ed.” I flex my bloody fist while he watches, smiling coldly like there’s nothing I’d like more than to sink in the rest of his ugly face. “I wasn’t mad before. That was just business.” I drop the smile, looking at him with nothing but detached coldness in my gaze. “You haven’t seen me mad yet.”
Ed gives us each one last pitiful attempt at a glare, but he knows he’s beat. He knows we’ll either get the name, or we’ll kill him—we don’t bluff when it comes to something like that.
Because he knows that, the motherfucker finally spits out a name.
His defeat is my victory. On one hand, I’m glad he cracked now so Adrian can get home in time for dinner, but on the other…
I was kinda hoping it would take longer. I don’t particularly like Ed, and spending all night with him would have