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“Along the way, my resolve and belief in her faltered. However, that doesn’t change my origin story, as it were.
“Back then, I was young and foolish. I thought that following in her footsteps would give me answers, but I should have realized how idiotic that was.” Though I chuckled, it was sad. “There’s an irony to the fact that the one man who could give me those answers is the one I’m killing, but you see, my need for resolution can’t supersede the need this world has for you to die.”
Though his head flopped from side to side, I could see the awareness in his eyes—this was it.
The end.
Just… not yet.
Perching beside him, I reached down and stroked a finger over the many, many scars on his chest. “I don’t suppose you’d have long left anyway. Not just because you’re almost ninety, but organ donations are never quite as good as the real thing.
“Not that these organs were donated, were they? Not freely.” I trailed a hand over his arm. “What even is there to transplant here? A new carpal tunnel?” I hummed when I saw the question in his eyes. “Yeah, I figured out what the Brotherhood is. The other side of the same coin.
“The Brotherhood and the Sparrows are Janus, aren’t they? The God with two faces. The God of beginnings and endings.” I smiled at him and it was genuine and wide and loaded with my happiness as I stated, “I can’t wait to disband the Brotherhood, Anton. I can’t wait to tear down the thing you’ve spent your lifetime cultivating. I can’t wait for the Kuznetsov legacy to die out.”
His fingers twitched and I translated that faint movement with ease.
“I’m not a Kuznetsov,” I said with a chuckle. “I’m a Sullivan. I’m a Daniels. I’m a noxxious brat because they’re my family. You are not. You, in fact, are nothing. The moment I cremate your body is the moment I’ll eradicate you and everything you stand for.” I patted his cheek. “Brick by brick, I’ll demolish the Brotherhood, just like we did the Sparrows, but I won’t let them know your name. You won’t even have infamy. You’ll just be a shadow, much as you’ve always been.
“Still, maybe there’s one consolation, Anton,” I reasoned as I stood. “Maybe I have the heart of a Kuznetsov. You made me into this, after all. You fabricated the person standing here.
"I quite enjoy the symmetry of you beginning my journey and me ending yours. And why would I just switch off your breathing tube when this is so much more befitting a man of your history?” With that, I slipped my hands around his throat and whispered, “Do you see your death in my eyes? Eyes that I inherited from you?” My grip tightened. “You won’t hurt another soul, Anton. That’ll be my legacy.
“Yours is one of blood and pain and misery and horror. You’re a warmonger. You made me into that too but I’m choosing peace.” My hands squeezed harder. Harder. “Funny how peace comes with the price of murder.”
As I choked the life out of him, as I watched it drain from his bulging eyes, as his skin turned purple and blood vessels burst, as the machine started to beep, as the alarms sounded, no one came running.
Why would they?
He’d only survived so I could kill him with my bare hands.
These last, final moments were unnecessary. A waste of medication. A waste of an emergency team’s time. But they weren’t a waste to me.
This, after all, was the only closure I'd ever get.
As he took his final breath, I sucked down the deepest inhalation I’d experienced in over a decade.
Abruptly, the alarms disengaged and the machines stopped their function.
Conor moved behind me, his hands settling on my wrists as he carefully pried mine away from my grandfather’s throat, informing me, “Everything’s ready for the next phase.”
I blinked and allowed my arms to relax as he shuffled me away from the corpse. Then, he tugged me into him, holding me in a tight embrace that I didn’t know, until he graced me with it, was the only thing likely to keep me together.
“He needed to die, Star,” he whispered in my ear. “We’ll find the answers you need some other way, hmm?”
My fingers tightened around nothing, then as I clutched at him, I rasped, “He’ll be the last person I ever kill, Conor, with these hands.”
“If you say so,” he appeased, his tone soothing.
“I do.”
He hummed. “Are you ready? They’re waiting.”
For a moment, I felt lightheaded. That was when I realized I was holding my breath. “Can I do this?”
“Of course, you can.” He chuckled. “There isn’t a doubt in my mind that you’re the one person who could handle this.”
My fingers reached for his and I knotted them together. “No. We will handle this.”
