Silence stretches between us. I get up slowly, ignoring the wobbly feeling in my legs and take a deep breath.
“I need a gun,” I say.
I’m handed three—one from my husband and two from his friends. Our friends. I take the one that’s closest, the metal heavy and foreign in my hand. My husband gets up from his crouch and comes before me.
“Sure you want to do this?” he asks, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “I’m already going to hell,Lastochka. Let me do it.”
I shake my head. “It has to be me.”
I’m not six years old anymore, and this isn’t rage deciding for me—it’s what every fiber in my body knows to be the right choice. It has to be me who ends her life.
Mikhail nods, gently stepping to the side, revealing Lucia Donatello on the concrete in a pool of her own blood and the two fingers she lost.
“It’s already loaded,” he says. “All you need to do is aim and pull the trigger.”
“If you kill me…you won’t be able to live with yourself. Who are you trying to fool with these theatrics?” Lucia asks, her voice paling from the loss of blood.
I don’t even answer. There’s no point.
Instead, I take a long breath…and pull the trigger.
The recoil jerks me backward, my short hair flying in front of my face. Blood sprays from Lucia’s wound, her face frozen in shock. Trembling hands come down to where she was shot, her gaze drawn there instinctively.
I stand and watch as she takes her final breaths, lowering the gun, which Mikhail gently pries out of my tight grip.
“Sweetheart…” he whispers.
I told him I was Catholic. I told him I didn’t want the men he killed on my conscience.
And yet…
“God will just have to understand me on this one,” I say, tears prickling my eyes. “He fucking owed me.”
47
Mikhail
The tang of blood fills the air.
It’s on the concrete floor, on that cunt’s clothes, and even on my wife’s pretty face, a few strikes crossing her button nose and right eye. She’s fucking gorgeous—lethal in the way a wounded predator is when you’ve pushed her too far. Save for her shaking shoulders, she’s still. Does she regret it? Was that too much for her?
But when she turns to look at me, I don’t see regret swarming in her bright eyes.
I see hope.
“I want to go home,” she tells me. “Let’s clean up and go home. Please?”
“Absolutely,” I say, smiling down at her. I turn to Rodion and Niko. “Anyone lurking around?”
“Nah. We’re good,” Niko confirms.
Nodding, I walk over to a dead Lucia, her eyes wide in shock. I don’t bother closing them as I haul her limp body up so we can take her outside.
“We’ll stay behind. Clean up. You got that?” Rodion asks, jerking his head to the corpse.
“Yep. Meet you at the airport in an hour,” I say. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go.”
My wife moves a little robotically, like she’s not sure what to do with herself, and I exit the garage with the dead woman in my arms.
