Present - 27

"Wouldn't you want to kill him?" Paul asked. "With your bare hands?"

"No. I want him to suffer the way I have suffered." James was stubborn and set in his ways. When he made a decision, he stuck to it unless it crumbled underneath him.  "I want to hurt someone he loves the way he hurt Emma."

"Well, we have accomplished that. His slave has been our prisoner for months now."

"Your prisoner," he hissed. "And we did not get under his skin until I sent him those pictures. That will haunt his dreams the way he is haunted ours."

"Or we just started the war of the century." When Paul met Vulture the night before, the intensity of his anger rang in the atmosphere. Very few words were said, but the hostility was evident. 

"I met with him last night."

James dropped his anger. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at him like he was criminally insane. 

"Why?"

"I tried to pay him off."