Angelo was a fascinating man. It was truly a pity that Damien would inevitably have to kill him. That was the job - and he always did his job. It has been a few hours since taking Angelo and he’d yet to make a real impact, but that was alright. He had time. Nobody knew where Angelo was, and the men paying Damien had made it clear that the longer all this took, the better.

Angelo was watching him just as carefully as he was watching Angelo. They were locked in a mental tie - one which could be broken at any moment with a dose of lead. But that wasn’t Damien’s job. Damien’s job was to break Angelo, and right now, he didn’t feel like he was any closer to doing that than he had been in the court house.

“You’re not afraid of me hurting you.” It was a statement of fact, a fact that puzzled Damien deeply. He’d served with some psychos in his time, but most of them were just big bullies who broke the moment any real pressure was put on them. Angelo was the opposite. He was more composed now than ever.

“Every night you sleep and you dream,” Angelo said softly. “You could dream of anything. You could dream of power, riches, women, men. You could construct a persistent fantasy where you have everything you desire. And instead, what do you dream about? Nightmares about being naked in public places, having your teeth fall out. You are tormented by the petty and the mundane. When your mind puts itself to creative use, it creatures torturous fantasies for itself. You are being chased. You are in danger. Death is near. Social ostracism, the loss of loved ones. That is where the mind goes when it is unchained. I know what makes a man work, beneath his veneer. I know what he truly wants. And it isn’t money, or power, or sex, or riches.”

“What is it?”

Angelo looked him dead in the eye. “Pain.”

Damien shook his head with a little smirk. “That doesn’t sound right.”

“Of course it doesn’t. Because we’re all told that we avoid pain and seek pleasure. But people seek pain constantly, in a myriad of ways. You sought pain when you came after me.”

“No. I wanted money. There’s a three-million dollar price tag on your head.”

“And yet I breathe,” Angelo smirked. “You should have shot me the moment you laid eyes on me. You should have claimed your prize and flown off to some desert island where desperate but beautiful woman would have spread their thighs for you day and night. Instead you stay here with me, in this depressing warehouse which is too cold for your comfort or mine, and you attempt to torment me in the most half-hearted of ways. We both know a hundred ways to hurt a man. You have barely bothered with any of them. And I know why.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re waiting for me to get free.”

“I am?” Damien laughed.

“Yes. Because, you know when I am free, I will hurt you.” Angelo’s eyes gleamed darkly. “I can taste your anticipation, Damien. Don’t worry, my boy. I will hurt you over and over and you will scream my name.”

“That’s enough!” Damien barked, his ire rising as a flush of unwanted humiliation began to rise over his skin. “None of that is true. I’m keeping you alive because my orders were for you to die slowly.”

“Well I am dying at about the same rate I was before I met you, so, mission accomplished on that count,” Angelo smiled gently.

Damien raised his hand and bought it down in a hard backhanded slap, his knuckles slamming into Angelo’s cheek. It was a hard blow and he was instantly ashamed of it, not because he’d hurt Angelo, but because he knew damn well he’d been baited into doing it.

“Kitten mittens,” Angelo mused, spitting blood onto the floor. “You barely touch me, boy. Why bother with those slaps, when you could pick up that lead pipe and do the job properly?”

Damien knew damn well his bare fists hurt plenty. The reddening of Angelo’s skin, instantly swelling under his eye, not to mention the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth made it utterly obvious that his blow had made an impact. Angelo was right though, it wasn’t as hard as Damien could have hit him, even bare handed.

He was taunting Damien, pushing for a vicious and violent end. This wasn’t usually how interrogations went. Most men begged for leniency and mercy. But Angelo Vitali wasn’t most men.

“You really want me to hurt you?”

“I just gave you a very long-winded lecture on the fact that all men desire pain,” Angelo said, sounding a little terse. “It’s as if you don’t listen at all, boy.”

“I’m not a boy. I’m thirty-two years old. I’m as much of a man as I’ll ever be.”

“Oh no,” Angelo smiled. “When I’m done with you, you’ll be twice the man you are now.”

“Why do you keep saying that? You’re never going to touch me. You’re not doing anything to me. I’m doing things to you.”

“Playing pattycake, for the most part,” Angelo smirked. “Come on, Damien. Do something that really makes your blood rush.”

Damien was a mercenary, and mercenaries killed for money. He had a body count in the double digits. But most of the time, his targets never knew he was coming. That was part of the prestige of his skill. He could end people without them ever knowing the end was near.

When he’d taken this job, he’d figured he could break a man easily. Cruelty wasn’t hard. He could shoot him in non-essential places. He could burn him. He could lop bits off with shears.

But he didn’t want to. And Angelo knew it.

Right now, Damien knew he should be throwing in the towel and calling in a real sadist. There were men out there who could make Angelo scream until he couldn’t scream anymore. There were horrors which could be unleashed on a man that Damien couldn’t even begin to think about. Not because he was queasy, or weak, but because there were things you just couldn’t do unless your soul had shattered, and his was still firmly intact.

There was nothing wrong with being a mercenary in his book. Death came to everyone anyway. It was just a matter of changing the schedule around a bit. It would have been easy to kill Angelo. Finding a way to truly hurt him… that was a more complex and perhaps impossible task.

But he looked at Angelo, at those refined, handsome features, at those dark eyes that held so much evil and no small amount of mischief, and he felt a rush of conflicting emotions which did not naturally lead to sending the man to suffer at another’s hands. This was Damien’s job, and he was going to do it.

“Pick up that electrode.”

“What?”

Angelo glanced at the probe which was hooked up to a small battery generator. “Pick it up.”

Damien wasn’t sure what Angelo had in mind, but he was curious, so be picked it up.

“You want to hurt me, don’t you, boy.”

“Uhm.”

“Use it on me,” Angelo prompted. “Open my shirt and use it on my body.”

Damien raised a brow, but did as he had been told. He reached over to Angelo’s shirt and ripped it open, sending buttons popping across the room. For an older man, Angelo Vitali was in very good shape. No extra fat on him, he was all lean, toned flesh.

“Dramatic,” Angelo intoned, his lips quirking with amusement.

The probe worked a bit like a cattle prod. All he had to do was push the end to skin and pull the trigger. Damien looked Angelo dead in the eye, pushed the probe against his right nipple and zapped him. Angelo jolted in the chair, a hiss escaping his clenched lips.

“Satisfied?”

“Lower.”

“Excuse me, Mr Vitali?”

“Do it lower.”

Angelo’s eyes were dark and hooded, his voice was thick, perhaps with pain, or perhaps something else. Damien shrugged and lowered the probe a couple inches lower and whacked him with another dose of electricity.

There was a curse, and another one of those hissing sounds. Angelo was squirming in the chair now, unable to stay still.

“Again! And lower!”

His demands were strident, but the prod seemed to be having an effect. Damien lowered the probe to just below Angelo’s belly button and pulled the trigger again. Angelo’s body convulsed, his knees trying to come up to his chest but stopped by the cable ties. At each site, the skin where the probe had been applied was reddened, but other than that there were no marks. A pretty neat interrogation method really, very plausibly deniable. Angelo had chosen well.

Damien didn’t need prompting again. He lowered the probe to just above Angelo’s belt and gave him a good solid whack. The lower he went, the more Angelo hissed and growled and the more his body jolted in the chair. He seemed to be increasingly losing control of his responses, which pleased Damien greatly. Finally, he was making an impression on Vitali.

“How does that feel?”

“Good,” Angelo hissed. “It hurts. Do it again."

“You’re not supposed to be coaching me.”

“But you need training, boy, and in good time you’ll get your own taste of these things. Remember, whatever you do to me, I will do to you double.”

Damien hesitated. This was wrong. Not just wrong in the sense of it being wrong to hurt people, but wrong in the sense that Angelo had far too much control over this situation. Even bound to a chair, he was calling the shots.

But maybe this was how it had to be. Damien smiled and pressed the electrode back to Angelo’s flesh, watched the man arch in pain. Yes. Maybe it was best that Angelo did feel he was in control of this. In the end, he’d be shown just how devastatingly wrong he was.

“You’re getting a taste for this,” Angelo said, panting slightly. “I can see it in your face. You’re learning the pleasure of inflicting pain.”

It was an absolute pleasure hurting Vitali, but Damien had to be careful not to lose himself in it. There was a point to this exercise.

“Are you learning the joy of experiencing pain, Mr Vitali?”

“I’ve known that joy for a long time.”

“But it doesn’t happen very often now, does it? You stay hidden away in your secret houses, with the men you’ve kidnapped and subdued. They don’t dare hurt you. You must be so pleased I’ve come along.”

“I am pleased,” Angelo said, his dark eyes gleaming. “You have no idea how pleased I am with you, Damien.”

Fuck. Damien was starting to respond. He could feel a swelling at his crotch, the beginnings of lust. But he didn’t want Angelo. He definitely didn’t want to want him, that was for certain. The man had a reputation for seduction, but Damien wanted to stay well clear of any erotic elements. So why had he applied the probe several times across the very top of Angelo’s belt? And why was he even now stroking the tip of it dangerously close to Angelo’s dick?

He told himself it was to taunt Angelo, and there was no doubt that Angelo was responding. Damien could feel the ridge of the man’s erection as the probe passed back and forth.

“You’re a sick man, Mr Vitali,” Damien said, shaking his head.

“As are you,” Angelo replied. “We sick men find one another in so many ways. Usually I do the capturing, but this is interesting too.”

“It won’t end the way it usually does for you, Angelo.”

“I think it will,” Angelo smiled. “This is new to you, boy. You’re learning so much about yourself, so much you won’t be able to express outside the confines of the world I control.”

“I’m pretty sure there’s no shortage of men I could tie up,” Damien smirked.

“True, but not many who would allow you to work out your frustrations on them in this way - and still fewer who would promise you every bit of the pain you’re inflicting in return.” Angelo’s voice lowered to a quiet purr. “Untie me, Damien. Let me show you how this is truly done.”

“Ha!” Damien smirked. “Nice try, but no. There’s a chain of command here, Angelo. You answer to me.”

“Chain of command.” Angelo’s brows rose. “You’re ex-military. So is my boy Mark. The thing I love about military men is their ability to do just as they’re told without thinking. The things I have ordered Mark to do would make your toes curl, Damien.”

Damien was working hard to keep his features composed, but there was a way to regain control of the situation - the electric probe, bought to bear three times in very quick succession against each of Angelo’s nipples and then finally, directly to the erection in his pants.

“Che palle!” Angelo swore, his jaw clenching as his muscles went uncomfortably tense with the zaps of current. “You’re learning.”

“It doesn’t matter if I’m learning,” Damien said, standing over Angelo. “The question is, are you?”

“It’s hard to teach old dogs new tricks, boy.”

“Maybe. But I’ll have you sitting up and begging for me before I’m done with you. And don’t call me boy. You can call me sir.”

“Yes, sir,” Angelo said, his lips twisting with what looked to Damien suspiciously like delight. “Would you untie me?”

“Why?”

“There are physical needs which can’t be performed tied to a chair, at least, not with any measure of dignity or hygiene.”

“Do I look like I give a fuck about your dignity or hygiene?” Damien laughed as the first real flicker of concern passed across Angelo’s face. Good. Now he was learning. They could fuck about with electrodes all day, and he could play out the fantasy of still being in charge of a boy, but in the end, he was tied to a chair and there was no way out without Damien’s say so.