Page 166 of Ivory Oath

I laugh, but it’s bitter. I imagine it will be for a long, long time.

“What is the plan if Christos pops up to finish the job these two couldn’t?”

“Christos is Ruben Falcao’s problem now.” I thought that would taste bitter, too, but it doesn’t. Handing off this lifestyle to someone else feels like a gift. “In honor of Raoul, I’m ready to put this shit behind me and do whatever the fuck I want.”

Anatoly clasps his hand with mine and pulls me in for a quick hug. “Let’s start with arson, shall we?”

I usher Anatoly towards the wreck with a wave of my hand. “You do the honors.”

He gives me a ridiculously deep bow. Then he turns towards the crash. Faintly, I hear him whisper, “This is for my mom.”

Anatoly tosses the lighter into the driver’s seat.

The car catches instantly. The heat from the initial explosion sizzles like a sunburn across my skin. Anatoly jogs back to me and watches the fire spread. Flames lick across the interior until the windows shatter from the heat. The paint peels and rolls back like sizzling flesh as the car is entirely engulfed.

“He’s not making it out of there,” Anatoly mutters.

“I thought you wanted him to know it was you.”

He shrugs. “I’ll tell him when I see him next.”

“In hell?” I roll my eyes. “I hate to break it to you, brother, but you aren’t half as bad as you think you are. I don’t think hell will take you.”

“I guess time will tell. With the deal you just made this morning, it looks like I’m about to start living a reformed life. Maybe we’ll both change our ways and earn our wings.”

The Bratva signet ring on my pointer finger burns in the residual heat. The hot metal bites into my skin. Frowning, I twist it off for the first time in years. For the first time since I claimed it from Trofim in that hotel bridal suite six years ago.

Sirens wail far off in the distance.

There are still security tapes to be scrubbed and officers to be bribed. The usual clean-up will take even longer without Raoul—just the first of many, many times I’ll feel his loss over what’s left of my lifetime, I’m sure.

The flames grow and soot spreads across the concrete ceiling. The sirens are getting closer every second.

It all feels like goodbye. A funeral pyre to the life I used to lead.

I turn the ring over in my palm once and then again. Then I hurl it into the flames.

“Time will tell,” I repeat.

I clap Anatoly on the back and we walk out of the parking garage together.

EPILOGUE: VIVIANA

SIX MONTHS LATER

I’m convinced this can’t be happening until Dante screams.

“You peed on the floor!” He flings across the narrow kitchen and attaches himself to the wall like it’s Velcro. His arms are spread flat like if he moves even an inch closer to me, he’ll touch the puddle at my feet.

“I didn’t pee!” I stare down at the floor and my own cloudy reflection in the water pooled between my legs. “I just….”

My water broke.

It’s not shocking. It shouldn’t be shocking. I’m four days away from my due date. The weekly doctor’s appointments and countless strangers in public who smile at me and say, “You look like you’re about to pop” are proof of that. I am about to pop.

But I still didn’t expect to pop here. Now.

“I have to take you to school,” I say, trying to organize the suddenly wild thoughts in my head. “It’s my turn to take you to school.”

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