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“We’ll let it be the shroud on your father’s funeral pyre.”
“We have to catch him first,” Talia replied as she draped the dress on a chair. Scrubbing her hands over her face, she groaned. “How are you still standing after all of this?”
“I’m no stranger to hardship, princess.”
“I mean, you haven’t been anything other than angry or calm. Aren’t there any other emotions in you? Grief over the tragedy? Or manic glee from exhaustion?”
I took down one of my best suits. Removing my clothing, I mused over the question. “I’m distraught over the state of my sister’s soul.”
“Oh,” Talia breathed. “I didn’t even consider that. You’re so religious.”
“Mmmm, it bothers me. If she was devout, I would have comfort knowing she was waiting for me in Kingdom Come.”
“You can tell me about it, help me to understand,” Talia said, as she put her clothes in a hamper to be cleaned. “I didn’t grow up religious. How do you have faith in a deity after the hell you’ve endured?”
“It is because my life has been a living nightmare that I do.” My fingers mechanically buttoned the black shirt before tucking it into the dress pants. “The priest is burying Yna as a personal favor. He’ll be discreet, but he had no qualms making it known that Iryna wasn’t an active member of the church. He knows it was a constant source of sorrow in my mind, one that cannot now be remedied. I always encouraged her to attend with me.”
“How tactless of him to rub that in,” Talia grumbled, pulling the dress over her arms. She turned for me to zip it up.
Stepping close behind her, I trailed a finger over her spine. “Iryna wasn’t a faithful attendant, and many of her views were contrary to the church’s teachings. But I believed in a merciful God, and I put my faith in His omnipotent judgement rather than the understanding of mortals. That is the only thing I can cling to as this final act for my sister unfolds. It’s a strength to rest my faith in a higher power rather than my own, and given my limited and flawed understanding, it gives me steadfast hope for when this life is over.”
“Wow, that’s...beautiful. I suppose having that kind of trust in my own life would have been a constant source of comfort. We’ll have to explore that when this dreadful war is over. I’d like to know more.”
“I would like that,” I said, pulling her into my arms. My lips found the shell of her ear, and I pressed a long kiss there as I slid the zip up. When the lace closed around her throat, I whispered, “Thank you for forgiving a flawed man for what could have been his greatest sin.”
“I do, but it was also hard to believe you were actually going to kill me. Perhaps it was a ludicrous denial, but even when I told you to do it, I knew you wouldn’t deep down.”
I shuddered, arms wrapping instinctively around her. “I was so close, so very close to destroying you.”
“But you didn’t. And you won’t.” With that declaration, we finished preparing. Talia’s beautiful eyes saddened when she saw the bloodstained dress shirt I’d thrown in the hamper. She knew about the knife wound as she helped Sophia bandage it sometime around midnight. Her response was because she cared.Maybe retirement wouldn’t be such an awful consideration.
I didn’t need to be the world’s best assassin. I couldn’t come home to Talia bleeding, or God forbid, die and leave her alone. It was an interesting thought and warranted mulling over. My wife didn’t know I was an assassin, but maybe she could learn that she was the one who put an early end to my career. Either way, whether I stopped or not, it was something I still needed to share with her...after the funeral.
The walk to the beach was short. There was no music or ceremony. The priest waited with my cousin, the bratva soldiers standing at a respectful distance.
“Let us begin,” Father Elias said, stretching his hands wide.
It was hard to focus on the drone of the officiant, no matter how comforting his words were. Too many worldly thoughts rattled through my mind. There was a tick of unease, making me feel that I’d missed something. I checked the long list of worries off to make sure everything was accounted for. The shipping debacle was solved; the cargo would be gathered in a few weeks by its owners; the Russians, who had solidified an eternal friendship in my mind, were a veritable army at my beck and call; my cousin had declared his intention to put away the bottle for good and go to rehab; and every resource was being maxed to track down the devil. There was nothing glaringly obvious to make me uneasy.Perhaps it’s merely the desire not to lose another family member.
Talia, who needed to go back to sleep, stood to my right. And Adrian, who couldn’t hide the tremors in his limbs, stood to my left. I was beyond glad my cousin was going to treatment. At this point, it felt like the bright spot in this bleak situation. Alcohol had always been his demon, and because I was exhausted and had just laid my sister to rest, knowing that my blood relative was going to get the help he needed laid that worry to rest as well.
With all that in motion, this pause felt like the calm in the eye of the storm. I fully expected bloodshed on epic proportions once the devil learned that we’d killed his only son, but since there was no army loyal to his cause, it was hard to say how much he would spend to launch an attack. Jakob was certain we could withstand any variety of assault. When we’d spoken last night, there’d been no snide comment on me keeping Talia alive; the pragmatist in him simply rolled with the ever-changing situation.
I cut a glance to my wife. Those dark eyes glistened. Not even as a bride had she looked more beautiful with the sea breeze playing in her thick, wavy hair. The black she wore was the only thing marring her visage, and I didn’t want to see an absence of color on her ever again. She was born to blaze in bright, stunning colors.
“May her memory be eternal,” Father Elias murmured.
We bowed our heads, and I suddenly realized this was goodbye. I squeezed my eyes closed, keeping back the tears. Talia laced her hands through mine.My lifeline.
