In general, being mercenary hired interim help pays well. But, most often I grew into the snakepit, and it's a tough negotiation position to desire higher rates for emotional pressure, so no, it doesn't pay enough. Financially, it is better to get hired into a C-level position than to move into it by merit. Most of the highly dysfunctional places I worked at (they're generally dysfunctional if they need a dickhead like me) are snakepits from the middle management up, if not toxic entirely bottom-up.

The worst one that ever happened to me is that someone that worked for me went behind my back to the board, complained about what I was doing with a huge customer the chairman themselves once landed, then I got called into a meeting the next day, in person, 11h flight out, leading to me canceling an important customer meeting (w/ a bigger customer.) I jumped on the next plane out, slept on the plane, took a 3h taxi drive, arrived just in time, came in, got cross-interrogated for 30 minutes. And they had no comments to what I explained and I was thanked. And that was it; could've been an email. I gave them notice that I was not open to contract renewal the week after - there are limits.