Page 102 of Goodnight, Sinners

Halil nodded, the glow of streetlamps illuminating him. “I know. You’d have to be an unfeeling monster to put a bullet in your best friend and not regret it. You may be a lot of things, but I never pegged you for a monster.”

Relief flooded Nikolay. “Do you forgive me?”

Halil didn’t answer, he pointed.

Nikolay squinted in the dim lighting. They were at the back of the cemetery where the oldest graves were. He could make out a mound of fresh soil. As they got closer, he saw an open grave.

“Inside.” Halil waved his gun at the grave.

Nikolay stopped and stared into the darkness beyond the cemetery. He had three choices. He could get in the grave. He could refuse. Or he could run. All options would end in his death. Halil was an excellent shot.

If this was it, he wasn’t going to fuck up his own death like he’d fucked up everything else.

He crouched down and sat on the edge of the grave before pushing himself inside. Something crunched under his booted feet. Rotten wood and bones, he suspected. They’d excavated an old grave. They would kill him and cover his body with the soil. They’d pay the cemetery caretaker to look the other way until grass grew over the grave and it looked the same as every other.

“Will you tell my mother?” Nikolay asked.

“No.” Halil’s voice held no inflection. “You never gave a shit about her. As far as she knows, you’re already dead.”

It was true, but now that he’d reached the end of his life, he felt the desire to be close to his mother, even if it meant she learned about his death, maybe mourned a little.

“Please.”

“Goodbye, Niko.”

The bullets were muffled by a silencer, but they seemed to roar with fire and brimstone as they struck his body. One, two, three, four, maybe more. He lost count as he collapsed into the grave. None in the head. No quick merciful death.

He’d turned his best friend into a cruel man.

While he lay bleeding out, Halil stood sentinel, silently watching over Nikolay as the minutes passed. When his dying breath rattled in a chest full of blood, he watched as the man who’d once been a brother to him disappeared into the shadows.

Chapter Forty-Five

Jozef didn’t know what to do. It was a strange sensation for him. He always knew what to do, but this time he was out of his element. He crouched next to Shaun’s chair, holding her hands in his as she sobbed. He hated every tear that crawled down her face.

He was usually the one to cause her tears, but this time, it wasn’t him. It was the doctor who’d disappeared discreetly from the room.

They were in the fertility clinic where Shaun had gotten her referral. They’d been called to the clinic for the results of their first round of testing.

Her tears dripped onto his hands where they were clasping hers. He bowed his own head, blinking back his own tears. Her heart was breaking, and he couldn’t do anything about it. He couldn’t kill the thing without hurting the woman he loved more than anyone or anything in the world.

He couldn’t kill PCOS. Polycystic ovary syndrome.

Shaun was infertile and the diagnosis was destroying her. He would have to take good care of her. While she’d broken down, the doctor had discussed the complications of Shaun’s condition. She could develop diabetes or heart problems. He wanted to make damn sure she would be okay in the long run.

The doctor had recommended they think about a hysterectomy. Jozef knew Shaun wasn’t ready for that so he wouldn’t mention it. Not until he’d healed her heart from this traumatic news.

He gently pulled his hands from hers and reached up to cup her face, soaking his hands in her tears.

She blinked rapidly so she could see him.

He dropped his hands so he could sign,I will give you the world to make up for this hurt.

“I don’t want the world,” she whispered. “Just you… and a baby.”

I know, my love, and I am sorrier than you can know. If I could make you pregnant, I would. Remember our first day together?

“When you took me from the hospital?”

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