Page 106 of Goodnight, Sinners

It hurt that she wouldn’t see her youngest before she died. She wondered if Saskia would miss her. Just a little.

She wasn’t sure how long she slept, but probably only a few hours. This time the tap of shoes was inside her room, rather than the hall.

She opened her eyes and rolled her head toward the doorway, blinking against the harsh glare of the fluorescent lights in the hallway. Other than the shadow walking steadily toward her bed, the hospital corridor was quiet. Had he paid the guard to look the other way? Or had he killed the woman?

Not Dasha’s problem anymore.

“Jozef,” she whispered.

He didn’t answer.

He couldn’t answer.

She’d done that to him.

“It was me, you know,” she whispered, trying to make out his stark features in the dim light filtering from the hallway. She could make out some of the tattoos on his neck. Her eyes dropped to his hands; he wasn’t holding his gun. He intended to let her talk before he killed her. “I stabbed you in the throat. Took your voice and your parents.”

He stepped closer until she could see his face.

He signed,confession?

“I suppose I just want you to know. Weren’t you ever curious?”

He didn’t say anything.

“I paid some local guys to break in and kill them. I went too, I needed to see their bodies, make sure the job got done.” His eyes gave nothing away. “It was mafia politics, nothing personal. They were in the way. Your father wanted to rule with your uncle. It was a matter of time before Gregor wanted more, threatened everything we’d built.”

Everything they built, not you. You’ve been trying to bring the family down from the start. It was you who should have died that night, not them.

“Maybe,” she said. “Your mother was certainly suspicious. She never really warmed up to me, never took any of the food I offered her unless we were eating from the same dish. She knew. But it didn’t save her.”

Now she saw a flash of fire in his eyes.

Satisfaction hit her like a drug. She was a cruel bitch. Even as she was dying, about to be finished, she wanted to hurt those around her. Even the ones she loved. She didn’t know why she was wired this way, and now it didn’t matter.

“I was going to kill you too,” she admitted. “But I didn’t have the heart. You looked too much like my Kristo. I’d already begun to love him then, and looking at you was like looking at our future. Perhaps, if I’d given birth to a boy, I might have taken you out along the way.”

She shifted in the bed, uncomfortable.

“I didn’t have a boy and you were the only son I’ve ever known.”

You were no mother to me,he signed.You were barely a mother to your own children.

“You don’t know what it takes to make a parent. Wait until you have children. You’ll see. It’s not always easy to overcome our own nature and love children the way we’re told we should.”

Whatever makes you feel better, but I would argue a sociopathic serial killer could never make a good parent.

She laughed, surprising herself. It felt weird to smile in her last few minutes of life.

“Touché.”

She pushed herself up in the bed, her arms shaking. Jozef slid his hands under her armpits and helped her, gently laying her back against the pillows before releasing her. It was the cruelest thing he could have done, and tears sprang to her eyes. He hadn’t touched her since Shaun’s poisoning, yet here he was, touching her as though he cared.

“Do you love me, Jozef?”

Yes.He answered without hesitation.I believed you loved me, too. You kept me close after my parents died, you protected me. You kept me with your girls. I hate you for what you’ve done to our family, but I still love you.

“I love you, too,” she admitted. When he shook his head, silently denying her words, she added, “I still have feelings. I may be a… what did you call me… a sociopathic serial killer, but I can still feel love. You were the son I always wanted and never had.”

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