Page 125 of Cruel Kiss

Grigor is the one who breaks the tension. He's the oldest, and he was Igor's man, too, long ago.

"You brought the one witness," he says to Lev, slow, wondering, "who knows whereyourmoney is buried. To tell a story about wherehisis." He shakes his head. "You old fool."

Lev's face is doing exactly what I waited for. The white. The scramble. His panicked response comes too late to save his own worthless skin. "He's lying!" he declares, pointing at me and Pyotr at the same time, like he can't figure out which one of us to blame. "He's?—"

"Enough," Grigor cuts in. "The laws of the skhodka require the captains to make a decision. We've heard the evidence. It's no longer your turn to speak."

Silence.

Then the captains huddle together.

From where Lev and I are standing, neither of us can hear them speak. It's a low undercurrent of Russian. I stand still with Cali'sbody heat to warm me. Lev is stammering, but no one bothers to listen to him. I don't feel any urge to talk. All that matters has been said already. The receipts are on the table.

It doesn't take long.

Grigor straightens up. He looks at me first. There's no warmth in it, but there's no death in it, either. Then he looks at Lev.

"Thepakhantold the truth," Grigor says, "when a lie would have saved him. He stood there and confessed to killing Igor. But you…" His frown turns into a sneer of disgust. "What lies have you told, Lev? For thirty years, you robbed the man you say you're avenging. You murdered a father—a coward, yes, but a civilian, the father of two small children—to hang a rat's collar on an innocent man. You snatched an old man from his retirement and beat him for numbers you'd been stealing yourself." He looks at the other five captains. They don't disagree. Nobody moves. "Under the old law, our law, the one you keep invoking… there is only one outcome."

Everyone in the room knows what it means.

Lev's lips part. Nothing comes out that matters.

Grigor looks at me. "It's yours to carry, Ronan," he intones. "The room's decided. But you're stillpakhan. You do it, or you name who does."

I look at Cali.

I've spent so long trying to hide parts of myself from her. I meant to keep this part hidden, too, so she'd never know the true story of my father's murder at my hands unless I was already dead and gone.

But it's all in the light now. She's still watching. I need to know before I decide my next move:

Can she live with all of me?

She looks back at me. Her face is pale, but her eyes are determined.

Then she nods.

Just once. Small.

But she nods.

I don't ask twice. She said I'd never have to.

I take the gun from under my coat. Lev is saying something now, begging, the words tumbling out, a man who spent forty years watching my father do this to other men and never once believed it would be done to him.

I don't listen. I've listened to enough old men tell stories in this room to last me the rest of my life.

I fire off two shots.

Lev crumples to the ground.

And then I wait. I wait for Cali to look away. To close her eyes so she doesn't have to see it.

She doesn't.

She keeps her eyes open. On me.

She looks at me standing over a dead man, but she doesn't flinch. It's a data point, nothing more. Not an unforgivable sin.