Page 78 of Bratva Sacrifice

I don’t know why the words make me want to cry. But my heart squeezes in a strange, fierce ache. My hands sift through the papers, the items tossed haphazardly on the table before me. The wallet is stuffed with cash. There’s half a dozen credit cards and debit cards.

The picture on the driver license is mine, pulled from my old ID. But the name is Catherine Miller. The passport, the same. The debit cards, credit cards, even a library card—all in the same name. There’s high school transcripts, university transcripts. Catherine Miller has a Masters in Early Childhood Education, just like me.

She lives in La Jolla, California. She’s got a bank account with a ludicrous number of zeros trailing the first digit. She’s got medical insurance, dental insurance, homeowner’s insurance, and car insurance. A birth certificate and a social security card. Death certificates for family members—Catherine is an orphan, as well. There’s a copy of Catherine’s fictional father’s will, leaving the bulk of his fortune to his only child. She had her appendix removed at thirteen, just like I did.

There’s tax returns for the last several years and dozens of family photos—photoshopped, but so cleanly no one would ever know. A school ID from her alma mater, which I know must be new…but the picture looks old, and the lamination is peeling, like it’s seen a lot of use.

It’s a background so clean, so thorough, that there aren’t even stitches to suggest it was manufactured. No one would ever be able to tell that Catherine Miller didn’t exist until recently. Probably not even the government.

And now I understand why Catalina is dead. I had to die. I had to die, so that Catherine can live. No one will ever search for a dead woman. And no one will ever tear apart the pieces of my new identity.

I’m free. I’m safe. Forever.

I curl into my seat, choking on sobs.

But I’m no longer certain what I’m crying for.

∞∞∞

There’s a driver waiting for me when I land, holding a sign that reads Catherine Miller, and I can tell just by looking at him that he’s not mafia. My new life starts now, and there are no connections to the old one. He’s only a hired driver, paid to pick me up from the airport. I’ve never been to San Diego, but I can tell I’m going to like it already. It’s the end of summer, but it’s a gorgeous seventy-five degrees and the sky is clear. There’s the tang of salt in the air, and palm trees line the sidewalk. I slide into the back seat of the waiting car, which glides smoothly into traffic.

It’s not a long drive. Maybe twenty or so minutes later, the car makes the turn into a gated neighborhood and stops at the security desk. It’s the first test of my new identification, and the guard peers at me through the window as he takes my ID and checks it against his system.

He hands it back. “Welcome home, Ms. Miller,” he says, and the gate opens. Just like that. But it’s clear as we proceed up the winding road that there are lots of homes here. Probably many of them are vacation homes, and we’re so close to the beach. The guard doesn’t know everyone’s face—he knows what his system tells him. And the system tells him I live here.

The house I arrive at doesn’t look overly large. There’s no risk of getting lost, not like there was in Alexei’s sprawling mansion. It’s probably two thousand square feet. But the look of it is faintly tropical, with a Spanish flair in the exterior detail. The driver waits until I reach the door to proceed back down the driveway, and I clutch the keys in my hand, pressing the most likely-looking one into the lock.

The door opens, and it becomes immediately clear—I’m not near the beach. I’m on the beach. The large sliding glass doors visible straight through the open floor plan of the house reveal waves sliding against the shore. A little private oasis.

It’s like this house was made for me.

No—it was chosen for me. Alexei was always listening to me. Everything I told him about where I would go, what I would do—he took all of that and crafted the perfect life. I have enough money that I never have to work, but gave me my own education back so I can still teach. I have a house on the beach. Near my feet are two tiny ceramic bowls with a paw print motif, ostensibly meant for the cat I told him I wanted.

My heart aches a little more. I want to ask him why. And I think of his last words this morning, the terse, “You won’t see me for dinner.”

They were a goodbye. They were goodbye and I didn’t even know it. Strangely, in this house that belongs to me, with a fortune in my bank account, and encapsulated within the safety of a gated community, I feel more adrift, more helpless, more lost and alone than I ever have before. My hand slips inside the manila envelope and fishes around for the new phone, begins the process of scrolling through contacts. Hoping.

There’s a handful of numbers programmed in already. A veterinarian. A housekeeper. A financial adviser. A primary care physician. A fucking therapist.

No Alexei.

The first sob catches me completely by surprise. I sink into a plush armchair, drop my head into my arms, and cry. My house is still and silent. This time, there’s no one to hold me.

Chapter Thirty Eight

Alexei

In the end, I could not tell her goodbye. In the end, I could not even watch her leave.

She will never have to see me again, but I’m not a good enough man not to see her. My men are good; they know how to place cameras. They know how to rig for audio. I know that I will have to wean myself off of her slowly. Katya is like an addiction, and I am too far gone not to have my fix. But one day it will have to end.

One day she will be secure in her new life. She will go out on dates. She will bring someone home.

The cameras will have to be gone by then. Or I will not be able to control myself.

She is not mine anymore, though I still think of her this way. Perhaps I always will. I let her go only for her own happiness which has become of more value to me than my own. So it doesn’t make sense to me, what I see on the monitors.

I thought Katya would attack her freedom like a glutton. That she would take that shiny new car I know is in her garage out for long drives, spend hours lazing on the beach, enjoy everything her new life has to offer to her. I thought she would make use of the education she worked for, that she would at last attain that dream she once cherished and find a teaching position immediately.