Page 5 of Ruthless Sin

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The bulb swings.

Her blood spreads patient across the concrete, in no hurry.

Move.

I don’t.

Move.

The left cuff is loose. The guard who put it on was sloppy, or tired, or both. I’ve been waiting. Not while Alexei was in the room. Not while she was still alive. Now there’s nothing left to wait for.

Now.

I twist. Pull. The plastic bites through to bone. I don’t care. My hand slips through. Then the other.

I stand.

The guard is outside, on his phone, laughing about something.

My legs give out and I go down hard on one knee, the concrete hitting my ribs, the wound at my side flaring white. I grip the chair and make my legs remember what they’re for.

I cross the six feet and kneel beside her.

There’s a wooden cross at her throat, small, hand-carved, the dark wood worn smooth by years of being held. It rests in the blood now.

I touch it.

Still warm from her skin.

“Klyanus’, Yelena. Ya naydu Milochku. Ya privedu yeyo domoy.”

I swear, Yelena. I will find Milochka. I will bring her home.

I close her eyes.

Stand.

I don’t take the cross.

I open the door.

He looks up.

Reaches for his gun.

I take the knife from his belt and put it in his throat before he can make a sound. He drops. His phone clatters on the floor and a woman’s voice keeps talking on the other end, tinny and patient and very far away.

Step over him.

I walk down the hallway. Out the service door. Into the alley.

Rain. Cold.

I lean against a brick wall and breathe through my mouth and the world goes gray at the edges and I drag it back. The phone registered to Martin Leclerc goes into the storm drain. The knife goes in after it.

I walk.

I will not say her name.

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