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“I did find one or two girls, but I hadn’t yet gotten a good supply. The men kept demanding more and more, so I had to snatch a few off the streets, cruise the homeless shelters... Celia saw me and Igor one day, stuffing some girls in a van. She made the mistake of confronting Igor about it. She obviously had to go.”
I was not at all surprised when Nora leapt for him and began strangling him. I let it go on for some time before speaking up. “Just one question and then you can do whatever you like with him, Nora,” I said softly.
With a growl of effort, she pulled away from him, glaring all the while.
“Who else were you working with?”
Kirill shook his head. “No one. Please, I swear. I couldn’t trust anyone.”
I nodded. “Alright then. Nora, he’s all yours.”
She didn’t waste a moment closing her tiny hands around his throat and squeezing. I thought she might lose her nerve as his eyes began to bug out and his lips went blue, but she kept at it, her face a rictus of effort. Kirill was struggling, begging breathlessly as he tried to get free of his bonds. His eyes were filled with the realization that he’d severely underestimated this woman. I smiled, enjoying his discomfort.
His struggles got weaker and weaker until he went limp. Nora slowly removed her fingers from his neck, taking a careful step back from his body.
I stepped forward and shot him in the head.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-SEVEN
NORA
Ifelt sick.
I’d just strangled a man.
With my bare hands.
I stared at them, feeling the bile burn the back of my throat. I looked up to see Alexei looking at me, his eyes filled with pride.
“I shot him,” he said. “My bullet is probably what killed him.”
I felt gratitude to him for trying to protect me from this. But I was a nurse, and I knew what it looked like when someone stopped breathing. I didn’t stop squeezing until he stopped, until I no longer felt his pulse.
Still, I appreciated the effort. Reaching out with one hand, I drew him to me and hugged him close. “Thank you,” I whispered.
He wrapped his arms around me, holding me tight.
“Aww, you’re adorable,” Katya teased, but her smile was forced.
I smiled back at her before drawing her in and hugging her tight as well. After a moment, Alexei turned to his henchman. “Vlad, help me tie him up and weigh him down.”
The two of them dragged him out of the berth and up the stairs, weighting his body down with stones before throwing him overboard. Just like that, Kirill was gone. I knew I should’ve felt something—outrage, shock, or repugnance—but all I felt was relief.
Just this one time, someone who’d done something awful to us had paid for it.
My parents disappeared, they walked away and never looked back. I tried to repair the damage, but obviously, I had failed.
Putting my hands around his neck and choking the life out of him made me feel as if I took some of my power back. It wasn’t about revenge. Nothing was going to bring Celia back… Nothing would make any of her pain obsolete. But at least the man who’d done it to her was no longer breathing.
It was just about justice.
I never in a hundred years would have thought I was capable of murder, but here we were. Katya poured me a stiff drink as we sat down at the dinette. “How are you feeling? Was that your first kill?”
I took a large swig of whisky. “Uh, yeah. I’m usually about saving lives.”
She sighed. “Are you gonna be alright?”
I shook my head, sipping some more whisky. “I don’t know. I keep waiting for the guilt.”
