How to rule a king

три́дцать два

AN: We're back with two new chapters. Faster than ever. Also, I can proudly state this to be a disclaimer-free chapter. Except for Alexei being Alexei, all is fine here. 

Alexei:

I admit maybe ripping that stupid fuck's heart out last night without interrogating him first really wasn't my brightest idea. Then again, I am known to react rather impulsively from time to time. After all, things like this just seem to keep happening to me. And to be honest, he really had had it coming, pushing all my buttons, especially when he had started to beg me for mercy. Even thinking about it right now I couldn't help rolling my eyes. Begging me for mercy? Who on God's beautiful green earth does he think I am? The tooth fairy? Santa Claus? He couldn't have seriously thought that begging me would have gotten him anywhere. Still, being stuck with his even more delirious partner inside one of the TITANIC's interrogation rooms aka torture chambers made me wonder if it would have been so bad to at least pretend to cut the bastard a deal to get some information out of him. Because quite frankly it could have hardly been any worse than listening to the stupid fuck in front of me trying not to choke on his own blood. What a waste of time and space.

"Volkov, I really do think he's got no clue who's behind the attack. I mean, look at his face, man: You broke his jaw twice...and what is this? Not a nose...apparently...also, he's kinda missing an eyeball..."

Letting out an annoyed huff at Nikolaj's exaggeration, I rolled my eyes at the large white-blond man sitting in a metal chair looking far too small for his bulk, with his combat boot-covered feet popped up on the table in front of him as he flashed an all-teeth-smile to our victim sitting slumped in a matching metal chair across the table. Given, the man, one of the soldiers that actually somehow managed to survive Piotr's team's clean up after New York, listening to the name Carlos Montecruz, wasn't looking his best with his broken facial features and his right arm limply hanging off his side, he most certainly wasn't missing an eyeball. His right eye was simply swollen shut from the direct hit of my fist it had taken at the beginning of our interrogation session. Maybe it hadn't essentially been necessary for me to haul my fist against his face for breathing too loudly out of fear but then again worse things had happened. He most likely wouldn't even go blind from that hit, so I didn't see the big shocker about it. Not that he needed to worry about a possible blindness anyway, he would after all only leave this room in a body bag. Still, eying our suspect up and down I had to admit that he had actually clearly seen better days. Although asking me, he looked quite well considering he spent nearly four hours locked in a room tied to a metal chair, constantly receiving beatings. And yet he simply wouldn't give up the information we needed. As if I was expecting too much of him. Which I clearly wasn't. All I wanted to know was which sick fucks ordered him and his weird collection of mercenaries to try and rape my wife while I was away doing business.

"He has to know something."

I hated the small sound of despair hidden beneath the baritone of my voice as I grunted back at my friend. There was always something. Without this soldier telling us what we wanted to know we'd be left empty-handed. Left without any clues of whom to blame for the mess we're in right now. Because as much as it may hurt my pride to admit this, this wasn't just about wishing to get revenge for what they did to my wife, well yesterday night clearly was, but this, finding the masterminds behind the whole plot had also a lot to do with proving to my partners and enemies that I was still not to be crossed. Or else there would be a reckoning far worse than anything they had ever seen before. But in order to show them just how good I was at making other people's lives a living hell I needed to find the people responsible for the chaos I was stuck in right now. And I needed to find them rather quickly. Because every day passing without me displaying their heads on spikes for everyone to see, more and more rumors of my apparent weakness would be whispered, encouraging other desperate men to try and take my empire. Not that they had any chances of succeeding, of course. I had done this job too long to not be prepared for such a thing, but still, an uprising would be rather inconvenient right now.