“Is he dead?” I manage between ragged breaths.
“Yes.”
I wait for something to follow the single word. Guilt, maybe. Grief for the man I married at twenty-three, who danced with me at our wedding and told me I was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, before the first backhand, cracked ribs, and the night Kira watched him throw me into the bookshelf and screamed until the neighbors called the police.
Instead of guild, a tidal wave of relief washes in that’s so enormous, my body can’t stay upright.
It crashes like a dam breaking, and every muscle I’ve held rigid for six years releases at once. My shoulders fold, my spine curves, and I pitch forward into Pyotr. The sob that comes out of me is so deep that it doesn’t sound human.
I’m not crying because Bogdan is dead. These tears are for Kira and for safety. The phone will never ring again at 3 a.m. with a blocked number on the screen. No one will ever use my daughter’s name as a threat, or forge my signature on an account, or show up at my door with a smile on his face and a fist behind his back.
Pyotr wraps his good arm around me and pulls me against him, and I bury my face in his jacket and let six years of carried fearpour out of me. He rests his chin on the top of my head as one hand spreads across my back, wide and steady, holding me together while I come apart.
“I love you,” I choke out between sobs, the words muffled against his chest, broken and wet and ugly. And I don’t care. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”
His arm tightens around me. He presses his mouth to my temple and holds it there, and I feel his breath catch once before he steadies it. When he speaks, his voice is low and rough and meant only for me.
“I love you, Daria. It’s over.”
Over. The word doesn’t feel real. It sits in my chest like a stone I don’t know how to set down because I’ve been carrying it so long.
But Pyotr is holding me, and Bogdan is dead, and somewhere in Moscow, my daughter is safe with Rex tucked under her arm and no idea that the world just changed.
Tomorrow, I’ll call her and hear her voice. I’ll tell her the bad man is gone and listen to her chatter about dinosaurs and friendship bracelets until my heart puts itself back together one piece at a time.
But right now, I kneel in the snow outside a hunting lodge in the Finnish borderlands with blood on my hands that isn’t mine and tears freezing on my cheeks, and I let the man who killed my monster hold me until I can stand again.
Boris’ voice carries from somewhere behind us as he radios the team that the target is confirmed. Eduard is walking theperimeter. Grisha is pulling the SUV closer as the engine rumbles over the frozen ground.
The world is moving on. Doing what it does after violence. Cleaning up. Reporting in. Filing away the details that will never appear in any official record.
I don’t move. Neither does Pyotr. The snow soaks through the knees of my pants, and the cold bites into my shins, and none of it matters.
We stay where we are, kneeling in the snow, holding on.
39
Pyotr
Daria is asleep against my shoulder before we clear the tree line.
Boris drives. Grisha rides shotgun. Nobody speaks. I adjust my arm to keep the pressure off the wound and let Daria settle deeper against my chest. She’s wearing my jacket over her coat because she couldn’t stop shaking, and the cut on her left hand from the glass is wrapped in gauze from the med kit.
The drive to St. Petersburg takes four hours. Boris catches my eye in the rearview mirror somewhere near Vyborg.
“You good?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
He nods and returns his attention to the road. That’s the extent of our debriefing. Boris and I have worked together long enough that the details can wait.
We reach the apartment at half past nine. Grisha clears the garage before I wake her.
“We’re home,” I tell her.
She blinks and looks around, disoriented. Then her gaze settles on my face, and something in it steadies.
Boris and Grisha sweep the apartment while I walk Daria upstairs. Two minutes later, Boris confirms the all-clear, posts men on the lobby door and the parking structure, and leaves. The front door closes behind him, and then it’s just us.
