So he admitted being a liar. Damien wasn’t impressed. Angelo Vitali was a piece of shit. It didn’t matter how handsome or charismatic he was. Damien hated the man, and he intended to make Angelo’s death one to remember. Still, Vitali had stayed quiet for most of his captivity, so it was about time he had something to say.

“I won’t believe this or anything else, but go ahead.”

“You should kill me,” Angelo said. “If you don’t kill me soon, I’ll have you, my boy.”

I’ll have you, my boy. The words made a shiver run down Damien’s spine. He knew Angelo’s reputation all too well, and being in the man’s presence, he could see how men were seduced by him. Angelo was very handsome. He had incredible bone structure, the sort which would have suited a model or Roman Centurion equally. Damien found his eyes drawn to Angelo’s full lips and dark eyes almost equally. Those eyes were a danger all of their own. But Damien had no intention of falling prey to Angelo’s charms. He had already seem the havoc this man wrought when men fell under his sway. There was absolutely no way Damien would make the same mistake so many others had made.

“I don’t think so,” Damien laughed derisively.

Angelo looked at him with those deep dark eyes and smiled an unholy smile, soft and yet dangerous. “If you hold me longer than twenty four hours, I win and you lose. If I were you, I’d kill me now. Take that gun, put a bullet between my eyes.”

Damien knew what Angelo was doing. He was trying to get this over with more quickly. Angelo was smart enough to know what the various tools Damien had assembled were for. He’d put money on Angelo having used most of them on other people.

Shaking his head, Damien put his hands on his hips, his muscular body casting a shadow over his captive.

“I know how you operate, Mr Vitali. But here’s the score. I’m not a lost little twenty-two year old gangster with no real ties you’ve captured as a favor to Mason Malone. I’m not a nearly closeted sexually frustrated FBI rookie either. I’m in my thirties, I have you tied up, and I’m straight. You have no power over me.”

Everything Damien said was true - except for the part where Angelo had no power over him. For some reason Damien couldn’t fathom, much less begin to explain all the power in the room seemed to be on Angelo’s side. Most people panicked when you tied them up, strained against the bonds and sweated up a foam. Usually by now a man would literally stink of fear, but Angelo was cool, calm and collected.

“Straight.” Angelo’s lips quirked. Everything Damien said, and all Angelo addressed was the sexual component. Typical.

“Yes, some men still are,” Damien allowed his natural sarcasm to emerge.

“Naive boy,” Angelo purred. “Nobody is straight.”

“I’m pretty sure they are.”

“No. Not a single soul,” Angelo smiled. “I have been with women and men, and I have never met anyone who could not be seduced under the right circumstances.”

“These aren’t those circumstances,” Damien snorted.

This really wasn’t going the way Damien wanted it to. This was supposed to be the part where he intimidated Angelo and lathered him up with anticipation for the pain. Instead it was turning into a conversation about the fluidity of sexuality.

He needed to get control of the situation. He needed to scare the shit out of Angelo. He was about to reach for the gun, but he realized that wouldn’t do anything. Not to Angelo Vitali. The man had probably had a thousand guns pulled on him in his lifetime.

“Something sharp. Or hot.”

“What?” Damien frowned at Angelo.

“You’re looking to make an opening impact, so you need to show me you’re limitless in your ability to inflict pain. The scalpel would be a good choice, medical connotations frighten a lot of people. Or the blow torch.”

“I don’t have a blow torch.”

Angelo made a tutting sound. “You should always keep a blow torch handy, boy. It can be used to harm or to help. Singeing skin, or cauterizing wounds, even sterilizing equipment at a pinch. Very handy.”

Damien cut his eyes at his prisoner. “I don’t need tips, Mr Vitali.”

He reached out and picked up a hammer.

Angelo nodded approvingly. “Simple, but brutal. Good choice.”

“Shut the hell up!” Damien raised his voice.

“Sorry,” Angelo murmured, composing his features in a condescending sort of way.

Damien didn’t detect so much as a glimmer of fear on Angelo’s face. Well, he’d soon see about that. He looked pointedly at Angelo’s right knee and lifted the hammer. Angelo’s brow didn’t so much as twitch, not even when Damien bought the hammer singing through the air in a vicious arc.

This was when they usually screamed. But Angelo didn’t make a sound. He just watched, as if he wasn’t actually a part of the situation at all.

Damien stopped short of Angelo’s knee cap. He wanted the man to be able to walk.

“Changed your mind?” The slight mocking tone to Angelo’s voice made Damien’s temper flare. He swept his hand through the air again, this time it was his left, and the back of his palm and his knuckles made solid contact with the left side of Angelo’s face. The man’s head was thrown to the side as the satisfying sound of flesh on flesh echoed through the room.

It was then that Damien saw what he was looking for. It was only there for a split-second, an expression of fury which flared in Angelo’s dark gaze, and was gone as quickly as it had come.

“You’re going to regret that, boy,” Angelo said softly, drawing his head back to a neutral position and expression.

“Am I? I don’t think so.”

He’d found the perfect way to make a statement. Slapping a man’s face didn’t harm him seriously, but it did give him a short, sharp shock and it was a powerful statement of control.

“I’ll give you fair warning,” Angelo continued in those same calm, quiet tones which made the hair on the back of Damien’s neck stand up. “Whatever you do to me, I will do to you double.”

“You’re shackled to a chair.”

“I won’t be forever.” Angelo looked Damien dead in the eye and Damien felt an unsettling sense that Angelo was right. Somehow, he was going to escape.

“There’s nobody coming to rescue you, and I’m not going to let you go,” Damien said. “You’ll stay under lock and key until the day you die. Which will be the day I am done exacting vengeance for each and every one of your victims.”

“I don’t have victims,” Angelo said, with a hint of impatience. “People come to me and the consequences unfold. They will for you, just as they do for the others.”

Damien took a deep breath and looked at Angelo with a begrudging sense of admiration. That slap had taken him aback, but he was already trying to reassert himself with threats. Bringing him to his knees was not going to be as easy as Damien had thought.

Angelo’s trick was to seduce a man, to make him destroy himself, rather than acting directly, so Damien’s plan wasn’t to beat him or torture him. It was to let Angelo experience the full horror of that kind of manipulation on the receiving end.