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I did, but I realized it too late.
There’s a long-winded procession of shaking hands, pictures being taken. The ceremony is over within a matter of minutes. A few reporters stay behind to ask questions, but the majority of the crowd shuffles off. I go with them, not wanting to stay behind and risk being spotted. I keep tabs on all of Ivanovich’s movements, make note of everyone he talks to. In the end, though, he leaves without much of a fuss and enters the police station, disappearing inside. I’m tempted to follow, but I’d be a fool to walk straight into the lion’s den.
He’ll come out sooner or later.
And I have nothing but time.
* * *
I follow him through the city streets, a shadow. There’s roughly fifteen paces between us, just enough space to avoid suspicion, but not so much that I’m likely to lose him. I’ve been watching him for days, closing in on a week. The detective has had so much attention directed at him, it’s been next to impossible to get to him, but I’m sensing a shift in the air.
His accomplishments are slowly becoming old news now. People are fixated with some new scandal in the financial sector—insider trading or some such involving a high-ranking government official. To be honest, it works in my favor. The sooner people forget about the detective and his heroic deeds, the sooner I can make him disappear… No one will be the wiser.
His daily routine is frankly pathetic. The detective spends all day behind his desk at work. Lunch is at one in the afternoon, then he clocks out well before the sun goes down. I quickly discover that he likes to go to the park and sit for hours on end, watching people go about their lives. He has no one to talk to, no friends on which to rely.
Shit.
Maybe Idopity him. Just a little bit.
Because maybe I’m starting to understand.
This madness I feel… This never-ending cycle of anger and anguish… It’s nothing short of torture. Since I lost Sandra, I’ve been listless. Barely hanging on to my sanity. What was life like before I knew her? Did I know what it was like to feel happy before I ever heard her laugh or see her smile? A huge, gaping void where Sandra is supposed to be has opened, and all I have the strength to do is fill that void with my burning hatred. It’s too hard to breathe, too difficult to think. Is this what Ivanovich had to endure for the past twenty years?
I go on ahead of him and break into his apartment. After some research, I discovered the house we found him in before belonged to his family when they were still alive. He never sold it but can’t live there. Another facet of his sorrow.
Breaking in is a simple matter of slipping into the building while a delivery man makes a quick drop off, the door propped open with his foot. Nobody questions me when I walk into the elevator and arrive at his floor. I keep my eyes down, my face hidden from the building’s cameras. Tonight’s the night I finally make Ivanovich pay.
I’ve been watching him long enough to know he keeps a spare key in the fake plant by his door. All I have to do is retrieve it and walk inside. There, I take a seat in his kitchen, gun pointed at the door, ready and waiting just like when he paidmea visit all those months ago. I’d laugh at how the tables have turned, but I frankly don’t have the energy.
Ivanovich doesn’t arrive until roughly an hour later, long after dark. He doesn’t seem at all surprised when he flicks the light on and sees me. The man very casually shrugs off his jacket and toes off his shoes, joining me in the kitchen without any semblance of urgency of fear.
“I was wondering if you were going to show up,” he says as he grabs two glasses from his cupboard and retrieves a bottle of vodka from his freezer. “I was curious to know where you and your brothers wound up. The coroners didn’t report processing your body, and it didn’t look like any of my colleagues booked you.”
Ivanovich sits down across from me and pours us both a drink. He slides my glass over, but I glare at the liquid suspiciously.
“It’s not poisoned, if that’s what you’re worried about.” He proceeds to take a hefty drink out of his own glass, proof he’s telling the truth. Regardless, I don’t partake. “You look like shit.”
“Have you looked in a mirror?” I bite back. “You’re not exactly the spitting image of sunshines and rainbows, Detective.”
My words don’t seem to faze him. “So what brings you to my humble abode?”
“She didn’t make it,” I tell him quietly. “They shot her.”
Ivanovich doesn’t even blink. I don’t know what reaction I was expecting. Certainly not empathy, but the fact that he gives me nothing makes me hurt more. “Good,” he says instead, sipping his vodka. “One less Antonov on the street.”
I set my jaw. If he’s trying to get a rise out of me, it’s working.
“Don’t you dare talk about her that way,” I grumble.
“Tell me, does it hurt?” For the first time in days, a smile graces his lips. Except there’s nothing friendly about it. It’s dripping with cruelty and bitterness. Ivanovich leans forward, studying me with pure sadism in his eyes. “Go on,” he goads. “Pull the trigger, Nicolaevich. I know you want to. Shoot me.”
I think about it for a moment. That’s the whole reason I came here. I’ve been hell-bent on making him pay for what happened to Sandra, but now that I’m actually here… I set the gun down on the table with a sigh. It’s all so pointless. Killing him won’t accomplish anything. Not now that the one person I ever truly loved is gone.
“Do us all a favor and do it yourself,” I say, echoing Mikhail’s words as I rise from the table and leave.
There’s a fairly good chance Ivanovich will shoot me in the back, but I don’t care. Either way, one of us is going to die tonight—and I honestly don’t care if it’s me. It’s a genuine surprise to me when I make it to the hall, then the elevator, then the front of the building. I’m not being pursued.
As I cross the road—
