Whose hands are in the box?

Question

I just saw Limitless again and there is one scene I don't quite understand:

When Eddie and Carl are seeing the news about the leaked merger with Atwood and Eddie realizes his stash was stolen by the lawyer, a package arrives for Eddie with the note "URGENT!".

He opens it and finds a bunch of hands in it.

1. Who do these hands belong to?
2. Who sent them, and why?

My first impression was that the Russians sent it to threaten him, but I don't understand what significance the hands would have or who they would belong to. Did I miss something?

Answer 1

This was indeed done by the Russians who sent it to Eddie. These are the hands of the bodyguards which he hired to protect himself against the Russians. The purpose of sending Eddie the hands was to (supposedly) let him know there was no way for him to protect himself. Here are the bodyguards:

You cannot see the tattooed "ring" on the Caucasian's hand, but you can see in the box there is (at least) one Caucasian hand and one African-American hand. You can infer from this the owners of the hands are dead. There are other parts in the movie where you can see the tattoo on the hand (I just couldn't find a picture of it). I'm sure this is mainly a plot device so you have no doubt who the hands belonged to.