Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 68630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
“How do you want to do this?” Andrei asks.
He’s too fucking dumb to come up something on his own, and as usual, it’s left up to me. But this time, I couldn’t care less about cleaning this up properly. Bringing some heat down on Vasily can only help me. Any distraction will work in my favor until I can get my shit sorted out. It’s a risk, but right now, it’s one I’m willing to take.
“Go grab the bleach and some gloves,” I tell him.
Andrei disappears into the kitchen, and while he’s doing that, I snap a good fifteen pictures of the scene. Enough that there are identifiers of his bedroom. It’s not a guarantee, but it’s another insurance policy.
When he returns, I strip off my jacket and get to work. Andrei uncuffs her and rolls her up in the bedding while I hold back the urge to vomit all over his bedroom. When he’s done that, I point at the gloves and the bleach and tell him to get to work. He can’t clean for shit, but that’s exactly why it needs to be him.
“What are you going to do with her?” he asks as I start dragging the rolled-up bedding out of his bedroom.
“We’re going to plant a garden. Brighten up the place a little.”
“In the backyard?” He frowns.
“She’s not fucking going anywhere in my car.” I glare at him. “You should have thought of that before you did this.”
He doesn’t say a word, and it’s settled. Vasily never asks what I do with the bodies. He just asks if it’s taken care of. Unless Andrei decides to open his fat trap, there’s a good chance he’ll never know about this sloppily executed job. At least, not until I need him to.
Once I have the body in the kitchen, I open the garage and start digging through the piles of shit Andrei has accumulated over the years. I don’t know why he’s even bothered to keep half of it. There are at least a dozen boxes full of junk that I have to kick out of the way to get to the shovel. And it’s just my fucking luck that one of them rips at the side, scattering the contents all over the concrete floor.
For fuck’s sake.
I kneel and start shoveling the contents back into the box, but as I’m doing that, something catches my eye. At first glance, I don’t know why I pause. Only that it feels familiar. It isn’t until I pick up the small hand-carved trinket box that it comes back to me. The etching on the top is exactly like the one that sat on my mother’s nightstand. But this couldn’t be hers.
Even as I tell myself that, I’m hesitant to open it up. To confirm what I never wanted to believe. Because if it was hers, this would be a betrayal of the worst kind. A betrayal I could never come back from.
The hinges creak as I lift the lid, my lungs frozen as I peer inside at what is undoubtedly my mother’s jewelry. Her rings, a necklace, a bracelet. But I still don’t want to believe it. I can’t accept it until I pop the locket open and see a photograph of our family staring back at me.
I claw at my neck, tugging the collar of my shirt down. I feel like I can’t fucking breathe. What the fuck? How did this get here? How the fuck did this get here?
The echo of Andrei’s footsteps in the house snaps me out of my delirium. Slamming the lid shut, I stuff the wooden box into my pocket and leave the rest of the shit on the floor. When he opens the door to the garage, I have the shovel in my grasp and a wild look in my eye. That I can be sure of.
Andrei gives me a questioning look but seems to disregard my sour mood. “I’m done cleaning. What should I do now?”
I stare at him for a beat too long, considering how bad it would be if I tortured him right here in his garage. If I cut off every one of his goddamn appendages and stuffed them down his own throat before I jammed a knife through his skull. It’s what I would have done. Two weeks ago, before Kat and Josh, I wouldn’t have hesitated. But right now, things need to go smoothly. This needs to be a clean break. And I need to fucking think before I act on my impulses because right now, I just want to beat him until his blood explodes across the ceiling.
“Go to the store and get some plants.” I toss him my car keys. “Whatever the fuck you can find this time of year.”
He nods and heads back for the house. But before he does, I stop him.