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Blood sprays when his carotid artery is cut and seconds later, he goes limp. A few seconds after that, the blood stops pumping out of him.
He's dead and can't ever hurt another woman again. Lucia is safe. From him.
And I will continue to keep her safe from anyone and anything.
A woman's moans reminds me I'm not alone with the dead man. Not that my lizard brain ever forgot.
Dropping the body to the floor, I leave my garrot where it is, the leather tethers dangling down the back of Ivan's suit jacket. I sign my work into his cheek with the tip of my knife. δ for Dimios.
His Golubev brothers will know theirpalachkilled thevtoroy.
Jumping lightly to my feet, I go in search of the woman Ivan was tormenting. She's sitting against the wall, tears streaming down her face.
When she looks up and sees me, she doesn't even flinch. She's too wasted.
"You are not safe here," I tell her in Russian.
She wipes at her face with the back of her hand. "I know."
In the past, I would have gotten her out of the apartment and left her to figure out what came next. But Lucia's face keeps superimposing itself over the younger woman's. I cannot leave this innocent for the bratva to punish for the justice I doled out.
"You need to leave St. Petersberg."
"I have nowhere to go."
Not good. Killing thevtoroyis sanctioned but that doesn't mean thepakhanwon't look for someone to make an example of.
"What about your family?"
"I have none."
"Friends."
"If they could protect me from him and his brothers I would not be here." Her words are slurred, but their meaning is sound.
Maybe throwing up got some of whatever Ivan gave her out of her system.
"How do you feel about America?"
"It's not here."
"Does that mean you want to go?" She can fly back on the jet with me.
Getting her papers and a new identity will be child's play for Orion. With the large Baltic community in Portland, it's a good place for her to disappear.
"Yes."
Lucia will say that I should wait for the young woman to sober up so she can make an informed decision. I don't have time.
I text my brother.
Atlas:I have a job for you. Be waiting at the tarmac when the jet lands.
Taking time to clean the apartment of trace DNA from the woman, I leave her where she is until the last. Then I clean up around her and we go.
"Do you have things you need from your home?" I ask.
"Aren't you afraid of the bratva coming for you if we stay in the city?"
