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"Our baby would be starting school by the time you worked up the nerve. You were scared to tell them you're alive. So, I told them for you."
"How did that go for you?" I demand, but I really want to know. "Is my mother furious with me?"
"No. Both your parents are happy and relieved you are alive and your brother is too, though he's not as expressive about his emotions."
Pieces start to fall into place in the puzzle that is this man. "If they hadn't been happy, if they had been angry with me, would they be flying in tomorrow?"
"No."
Suddenly him going behind my back to contact my family makes sense. "You were protecting me."
He's trying to say it was about getting my pasta press, but it's really about him making sure no one hurts me. In any way. Not even my family.
"Would you have ever told me about it if they were angry with me?" I ask.
"Eventually, after I got them to see their error in being angry with you for being the amazing person you are."
The tears from earlier come back and this time I cannot blink them away. This man.
"I love you, Atlas."
"I love you,ílios mou."
"I know." There's no way to doubt him when he keeps showing me over and over again how important I am to him and how much he cares about my happiness.
Epilogue
Dímios in Russia
ATLAS
Ivan pulls an obviously drunk, or high, young woman into his penthouse apartment with him. It's her lucky night. She won't end up the recipient of his vicious bedroom games.
Dead men can't strangle women at the point of climax.
He doesn't notice me in the shadows near the window. Why would he? His attention is on the woman he is mauling. She's trying to push him away with uncoordinated movements.
Probably roofied.
The alarm starts to beep more insistently and he shoves her down on the couch before turning to disarm it. The woman throws her hand over her mouth and makes retching noises.
Ivan curses in Russian. "If you vomit on my furniture, you'll clean up your mess with your mouth."
Looking around wildly, she lurches to her feet.
"Find the toilet or pay the consequence." Ivan's voice is filled with anticipation.
He's played this game before. The thought of Lucia on the receiving end of his sadism makes rage erupt inside me.
The woman runs down the hall, the sound of her heels clicking on the marble floor joined by the splatter of vomit. She had no nope of finding the toilet before being sick and Ivan knew it.
What he doesn't know is that he's about to die.
Slipping up behind him on silent feet, I maneuver the garrot around him with quick movements. His laughter cuts off and turns into a gurgle as I pull the razor-sharp wire tight with the leather tethers.
A hard kick to the back of his knees sends him crashing downward. He tries to get his fingers between the wire and his neck, but it cuts right through skin and cartilage at the joints. He rears back, but has no leverage and I make sure he doesn't get his feet under him again.
All the while pulling that wire through his neck.
