The cold of the concrete floor seeped into Ivan's bare knees, a familiar, biting ache. He strained against the heavy-duty cuffs binding his wrists behind his back, the metal biting into his tattooed skin. A low, frustrated growl rumbled in his chest. The collar around his neck, fused to a steel plate in the floor, didn’t even budge. Fucking useless. He’d been testing the welds for weeks. They held.

Pathetic. A bear in a cage.

The thought, his own, was the final spark. Rage, hot and blinding, erupted. He threw his head back, the muscles in his neck cording.

"Cyka!" he roared, the Russian curse echoing off the damp basement walls. "You hear me, you twisted little shlyukha? You think this is funny? Chaining a man like a dog?" His voice was a raw, ragged thing, scraping against the silence. "I will tear your throat out with my teeth! I will find every one of your pretty little toys and shove them so far up your—"

The distinct, soft click of the basement door latch cut through his tirade.

Fuck.

You heard every word. And he knows the punishment for that won’t be light.