Page 29 of The Mafia King's Baby

The fight ends with sudden, shocking finality. One moment they’re grappling against the kitchen counter, and the next, Lang is on the floor with Aleks standing over him holding what must be a silenced pistol. The weapon produces a sound like a sharpcough, almost inaudible above the sound of my own labored breathing.

Lang’s body goes still with the terrible completeness of death, and blood pools beneath his head on my kitchen floor. The violence that filled the space moments ago disappears as suddenly as it began, leaving only silence and the aftermath of something that will haunt my dreams for years to come.

12

Yefrem

The silence that follows the gunshot is oppressive, broken only by the sound of blood dripping steadily onto kitchen tile and Celia’s ragged breathing from somewhere behind me. I stand over Marcus Lang’s body, the silenced pistol still warm in my hand, and confirm what I already know. The bullet entered cleanly through his temple, and his pulse is gone. No movement, no signs of life, and no possibility that he’ll recover consciousness and cause further problems.

Lang’s death should feel like victory and the elimination of a threat that’s been pursuing me for eight months. Instead, I what I’ve done settles into my bones like poison. Not regret for killing him—he forfeited any claim to mercy the moment he broke into Celia’s house and threatened her with violence—but guilt for the circumstances that made his death necessary, and for the chain of decisions that brought a federal agent’s corpse into the kitchen of an innocent woman who deserved better than becoming collateral damage in a war between criminals.

I holster the weapon and turn toward Celia, who has collapsed onto the hallway floor with her knees pulled to her chest. The shock in every line of her face makes her look fragile and nothing like the confident woman who hiked mountain trails and shared stories about her father’s death. She stares at Lang’s body with the kind of wide-eyed horror that comes from witnessing violence for the first time and suddenly understanding the world is far more dangerous than suburban safety had led her to believe.

“Celia?” I keep my voice low and gentle, the tone I might use to calm a wounded animal. “Are you hurt? Did he touch you before I got here?”

She doesn’t respond immediately, her attention still fixed on the spreading pool of blood that’s already reaching the edges of the kitchen tiles. When she finally looks at me, her face carries an expression I can’t interpret that’s something between fear, recognition, and terrible understanding.

I pull out the burner phone I carry for exactly these situations and dial Leonid’s emergency number, knowing he’ll answer regardless of the hour or circumstances. The call connects after two rings, and I switch to rapid Russian the moment I hear his voice. “I need a cleanup crew at the Lake Tahoe location immediately. One body, federal agent, significant blood evidence. Scene needs complete sanitization.”

“How significant?” Leonid’s response comes back in the same language, professional concern replacing any personal reaction to what I’ve just told him.

“Kitchen combat. Furniture damage, blood spatter, and forensic evidence throughout the area. Full restoration required.”

“Understood. Team will deploy within the hour, but travel time to your location is minimum two hours. Can you maintain scene security until arrival?”

I look at Lang’s corpse and then at Celia, who’s listening to our conversation without understanding the words but clearly recognizing the urgency in our tones. Two hours is a long time to keep a federal agent’s body in a civilian’s kitchen, especially when neighbors might notice unusual activity or emergency services could respond to reports of disturbance.

“Affirmative. I’ll handle site preparation.”

“Status of civilian witness?”

The question is loaded with implications I don’t want to consider. In our business, civilian witnesses to deaths usually don’t remain civilians for long, and they rarely remain witnesses. The standard protocol would be to eliminate complications before they become problems, to ensure that no one can provide testimony about events that never officially happened.

I look at Celia again, who made me remember what it felt like to be human. The thought of applying standard protocol to her makes something twist in my chest that has nothing to do with tactical considerations. “Witness is secure. Will be managed appropriately.”

“Understood. Maintain communications blackout until scene is cleared.”

The call ends, leaving me alone with Celia and the consequences of decisions that can’t be undone. The cleanup crew will handle forensic evidence and body disposal with professional efficiency, but they can’t erase the memory of what happened here orrestore the innocence that Celia lost when she watched me kill a man in her kitchen.

I walk toward where she sits on the hallway floor, each step feeling heavier than the last. The guilt that’s been building since I left her house two weeks ago now feels crushing, like a physical weight that makes breathing difficult. She trusted me with her body and her confidences, and I repaid that trust by bringing federal agents and criminal violence into her safe suburban world.

“Celia, I’m sorry.” The words feel inadequate, but they’re all I have. “I’m sorry for lying to you about who I am, and I’m sorry for leaving you vulnerable to what just happened. You didn’t deserve any of this.”

She finally looks at me directly, and what I see in her face makes me take an involuntary step backward. Not fear, though that’s present too, but something sharper and more dangerous. Recognition. Understanding. The kind of clarity that comes when carefully maintained illusions finally collapse completely.

“I know exactly who you are,” she says, her voice shaking but still carrying the strength that attracted me to her in the first place. “And I knowwhatyou are.”

The accusation moves between us like a blade, slicing through any flimsy explanation I might have offered. She’s not asking for clarification or hoping for reassurance that appearances are deceiving. She’s stating facts about my nature that she’s finally accepted as truth. “Criminal.”

The word comes out like a condemnation, sharp and final. There’s no qualification or room for explanation about circumstances or necessity or the gray areas that exist betweenlegal and illegal in the world I inhabit. Just a simple, accurate assessment of what I am, and what I’ve brought into her life.

I don’t try to deny it or soften the reality with euphemisms about businesses or legitimate commercial activities. She deserves honesty, even if that honesty destroys whatever positive memories she might have retained about our time together. “Yes.” I keep my voice steady despite the way her judgment cuts deeper than I expected. “But after tonight, you are too.”

Her face goes pale at the insinuation, but I continue before she can protest or deny what we both know is true. “You were present when I killed a federal agent, and you didn’t try to stop me or call for help. In the eyes of the law, that makes you an accessory to murder and conspiracy to obstruct justice. You’ve crossed a line with me, Celia, whether you intended to or not, which means you need to cross another line and help me dispose of his body.”

The words are harsh but necessary, reality delivered without softening or false comfort. She needs to understand that her previous life of middle-class morality ended the moment Lang’s blood started pooling on her kitchen floor. Whatever choices she makes from this point forward, they’ll be made as someone who’s already complicit in activities that could destroy her freedom and her future.

“I didn’t choose this,” she whispers, but the protest lacks conviction. We both know choice became irrelevant the moment she decided to trust a stranger who told her carefully constructed lies about his identity and his business.

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