Chapter 28
Naomi
“Here, put this on.”
I winced as I took the black plastic apron from the burly brigadier, my stomach in knots. I wasn’t sure what to expect when it came to disposing of Jon’s body, but I also knew that if I didn’t see it firsthand, he would still occupy my thoughts.
I would still look over my shoulder for years to come, expecting him to have cheated death somehow and return to life. I didn’t want him to have this hold over me any longer.
Tugging the apron over my clothing, I tied it across my waist. Oleg wordlessly handed me a pair of gloves next and some goggles. “In case there is a mess,” he muttered as he outfitted himself in the same getup.
Finally, he looked at me. “Are you ready?”
I appreciated the tinge of concern in his eyes, knowing that my request wasn’t quite what he would have expected. He had taken me from the mansion to an abandoned set of buildings not far from the docks where I had witnessed the women trafficking, and he had been quiet throughout the drive there. I was just glad to be out of the mansion for a little while. After three days of sheer terror, Gavril was going to be all right. We had a long road to recovery ahead of us, but that didn’t matter so much to me anymore.
He wasn’t going to leave me, and that was truly what mattered.
Realizing that Oleg was still waiting for an answer, I gave him a short nod. “I’m ready. I need to do this.”
His mouth tightened, but he didn’t ask any more questions and I followed him down a short hallway, the air cold as a freezer the closer we got. Oleg pushed through a set of swinging doors, holding them open so I could enter as well, and I stifled my gasp at the sight.
Jon was laid out on the table, naked, under a set of fluorescent lighting. The entire room was cold and made of dingy gray concrete, the lighting casting a sickly pallor on the space. From my vantage point, I could see the bullet hole in his chest, the one that I had placed there, though someone had cleaned up the blood that had drained from it.
Now he just looked, well, dead.
Swallowing hard, I turned from the body to watch Oleg unroll a leather satchel, the stainless steel glistening under the lighting. “What are those?” I forced out. After all, this was going to be my life now. I might as well ask all the questions that I could.
Oleg picked up a pair of wicked-looking pliers. “These are the tools that you use to de-mark a body.”
“De-mark?”
He nodded, rolling his shoulders. “It’s important that we remove all traces of identity from him, especially since he’s a Fed. If his body does happen to surface, they will struggle to identify him quickly.”
That didn’t sound pleasant at all, but a small kernel of evilness wished that Jon could have been alive for what was about to happen. He deserved the pain, the anguish that I had felt since the first day I had met him. Not only that, he was responsible for many deaths in Gavril’s Bratva by pitting the Krasnaya against them.
No, Jon wasn’t one of the good guys, and what he had gotten, he had deserved in the end, even if it was a quick death.
Oleg walked over to the body, his expression resigned before he looked back at me. “Would you like to participate?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No, I’m good at just watching. Um, you can proceed.” I had no interest in learning how this process would happen, and hopefully this would be the first and last one I would witness myself. If I wasn’t so invested in Jon’s death to begin with, I wouldn’t even be here in the first place.
Oleg turned back to the body and pried open Jon’s mouth as I found a wall to lean against, hoping that I wouldn’t do something stupid like pass out. I wasn’t that squeamish normally, but then again, I had never witnessed something like this before.
One by one, Oleg pulled the teeth out of Jon’s mouth, dropping them into a small stainless steel cup as he worked. I winced every time one hit the cup, the morbid dental procedure something straight out of a horror film.
Had Gavril ever watched or even participated in something like this before? The way that Oleg moved, I felt like this wasn’t his first one at all. That was going to be a question for my husband when I got back.
That and a good, hot bath.
When Oleg was done with that task, he looked back at me. “Still good?” he asked, laying down his bloody pliers. “If you need to leave…”
“I’m good,” I said quickly, giving him a small smile. “I mean, I’m fine for you to continue.”
He didn’t respond, instead walking over to get something that resembled a cigar cutter, moving it up and down a few times to make sure it was working correctly. “This is a cutter,” he explained as he approached the body once more. “I’m going to remove his fingertips with it.”
My knees weakened at the thought. Oh God. Teeth were one thing, but removing parts of his body? I wasn’t sure I could stand upright for that.
“There are some headphones,” Oleg continued, not looking at me. “On the wall behind you. I would suggest you put them on.”