so it’s important that I’m honest with you,” I say, as I grin and tighten my grip on the pistol. “The truth is, Abram, you died the day we met. Now, we’re just making it official.”
I squeeze the trigger and smile at the sight of blood spurting out of his stomach. He tries to scream, but the pain is too much, so all he can do is inhale and try to clutch his belly. When he reaches for the wound, I pull the trigger again, sending another bullet through his hand. This time he does scream, and I don’t want him to make Alannah too uncomfortable with all that noise, so I pull the trigger again. Another bullet tears into his body and finds a home in his lung, stealing his breath away. The pistol kicks one last time as I fire another round into Abram Baskov’s forehead. Blood splatters across the hardwood and starts to pool underneath his body, just as his lungs release their last bit of air and life.
He’s gone.
After another minute, I hear the bedroom door being opened, and Alannah walks back into the room. She looks down at Abram, but only for a second as she realizes it’s actually over. I don’t know what to expect from her, but to my surprise, she walks over and wraps her arms around my waist. I drop the gun on the floor and hold her close as she lays her head on my chest.
“Now what do we do?” she asks as she lays on me like she’s trying to listen to my heartbeat.
“You don’t have to do anything,” I answer. “I’m gonna clean this up, and it’s gonna be over. I just gotta make a phone call.”
“Okay,” is all she says as she goes to sit on the couch and I grab my cellphone.
I dial up Skinny Joe and Charlie first, then I call Frankie so I can tell him it’s over. He doesn’t say too much, but I can tell he’s finally satisfied with something I’ve done. He even volunteers two of his guys from his crew to help Joe and Charlie get rid of Abram’s body.
When they show up, I let them in so they can get to work. They bring in plastic and supplies to clean up the mess, while Alannah and I pack a bag for her so she can come stay with me at River City until she’s ready to come back to the apartment. It might be a while, though. Seeing a dead man in your living room tends to have long-term effects.
We leave and let the guys take care of the mess, and once we’re at River City, Alannah and I take an hour-long shower together after she works her nursing magic on my gunshot wound. The bullet went through and through, so she cleaned up the wound and bandaged me up real nice. We don’t say much after that, and I can see she’s trying to wash the image of Abram’s lifeless body out of her memory. I understand it may take a while, and I’ll be here to support her if she needs me. The same way she wanted to be there for me when my father died. I’ll be whatever she needs me to be.
Once we’re clean, we lay in my bed and hold each other. I don’t need her to say anything. The fact that she accepted what had to be done says enough for me. It takes a special kind of woman to accept a man like me, and to accept the things I have to do in my “line of work”. Alannah is no ordinary woman. She’s special, and she’s mine.
I never needed another reason to love and trust Alannah, but she gave me a million more reasons tonight. The bond we share is unbreakable now.
We’re in this.
Together.
Dominic
Alannah never mentions Abram. She never asks what the guys did with his body, or how they did such a great job cleaning up the mess in her living room. She never asks me how I feel about it, and I never ask her. It’s over, and everything goes back to normal. At this point, she probably doesn’t even believe there’s such a thing as normal for me, and that’s fine, because the most important thing is that she has accepted it. So, as I drive her to Mercy Hospital after two days of privacy and separation from the rest of the world, I find comfort in her