Page 29 of Shadows of the Past
It’s close to midnight now, and part of me expected Fiodor to be awake, panicked even, but no. The idiot actually thought Ivan was bluffing.
Checking the security footage reveals that a doctor came by an hour ago to patch up his shoulder wounds from earlier. He’s probably pumped full of painkillers and sleeping soundly upstairs.
How do people sleep so peacefully knowing death is breathing down their necks?
The first bedroom I enter is painted entirely pink: walls, furniture, everything.
Fuck me.
A little girl, no older than ten, is curled up on a bed shaped like a penguin, surrounded by glitter-covered pillows and fluffy cushions. Her innocence is almost suffocating in a place like this.
I step closer and gently cover her mouth with my hand. Her eyes snap open instantly, wide with panic.
“I need you to listen very carefully,” I whisper, my voice firm but low. “You’re going to run to the entrance that leads to the road behind the garden. Once you get there, crouch down andwait until someone comes to pick you up. You will NOT come back here.”
Her head nods quickly, signaling she understands, though fear lingers in her gaze. I’m not good at talking to children—I never have been—but she seems to grasp the gravity of my words.
When I slowly remove my hand from her mouth, a single tear rolls down her cheek.
“Mama?” she whispers, her voice barely audible.
I shake my head, and she knows what it means: her mother isn’t coming with her. I can’t save them both.
It’s not their fault they’re family to a coward who played games with a snake, but someone has to pay the price for his mistakes.
I send a quick message to Akim, instructing him to wait for the girl on the road behind the estate. Whether she listens or not, whether she makes it there, is out of my hands now. I’ve given her a chance; the rest is up to her.
I step into the master bedroom, where Fiodor and his wife sleep soundly as if they’re untouchable, as if nothing bad could ever happen to them.
His shoulders are wrapped in fresh bandages from earlier, and I pause for a moment, weighing my options. I could kill them both right now, clean and simple, but Ivan wants a message sent.
And that’s the problem: messages in this world are written in blood and brutality, not clean executions.
I move closer to Fiodor and press my hand over his mouth while positioning my gun to his forehead. His body jolts awake as his wife stirs beside him. When her eyes snap open and landon me, she lets out a piercing scream and nearly tumbles out of bed, but I raise my gun toward her before she can move farther.
“Sit down,” I say flatly, though I don’t know why I bother giving instructions anymore.
Fiodor’s face turns bright red as his eyes dart toward the nightstand. I’m sure he actually thinks the gun hidden in its drawer will save him.
Without giving his wife time to react further, I pull the trigger. The bullet hits dead center in her forehead, leaving a crimson hole behind as her lifeless body collapses beside the bed.
Fiodor’s scream is raw agony, a sound that cuts through the air like a blade, and for a moment, I wonder if he really loved his family after all.
Too late now.
“I have a little girl,” he pleads through tears, his voice trembling with desperation.
“If she’s smart, she’s already gone,” I reply coldly. It’s the only consolation I can offer him, not that it matters much.
I don’t care about his life or his pain; this isn’t personal, it’s an order I have to follow to protect years of work from unraveling.
“I’d try not to move too much,” I add casually as I press the barrel of my gun against his leg. “We wouldn’t want me to miss your artery and make this slower than it needs to be.”
Before he can process my words, I pull the trigger again, this time aiming precisely at a major blood vessel in his thigh.
The blood gushes immediately.
One shot follows another, each knee taking its turn, and his screams grow sharper with each hit.
