Page 97 of The Marriage

“Chicago will be leaderless. It’s already in ruins. They’ll fear you. They already respect you. Dima’s death with just—”

“You’re insane,” Demyan uttered.

Again, his gaze fell to the gun just an arm’s length away. The fog of confusion and frustration was beginning to clear, and Demyan could see where Maxim was going with this. Even if he didn’t seem to want to outright say it.

He wanted to end his story his own way.

“It’s right there, Demyan,” Maxim said, his voice urging Demyan to met the man’s eyes. “Pick it up, finish the job here ... I’ve already put everything else into place. Make sure they find the body. Claim this death, too.”

“I don’t know that you’ve done anything, actually.”

“This way, we both get what we want.”

“This way?”

“Demyan—”

“You can’t ask me to do this,” Demyan barked.

“I haven’t even properly asked yet. Would it make you feel better if it felt like I forced your hand?”

“How can you joke about this?”

Maxim only smiled. “What good is a friend if he won’t kill you when there’s no other choice?”

That joke fell flat, too.

Demyan was cold all over.

“It’ll work,” Maxim assured quietly.

He couldn’t look away from the gun again.

“You said to claim Dima’s death, but he’s not dead, Maxim.”

“But he will be.”

Demyan reached for the gun, then, the butt smooth against his palm as he felt that substantial weight of metal in his hand. “One last time—where is she?”

“She’ll find you.”

He didn’t bother to ask what that meant.

What good would it do?

“I would rather have you do it than someone else,” Maxim said when Demyan flicked off the safety and racked the gun without a word. Maybe his rambling helped soothe whatever nerves were making themselves known in those last seconds. “I can trust you to make it quick, and clean. I won’t do it myself. Not the ... honorable thing.”

A piece of Demyan understood that ...

“Anything else you want?” Demyan asked.

The man only really came here to die, anyway.

“Tell her what I said, look me in the eye when you do it, and don’t waste time,” Maxim replied. “I’ve wasted enough already. I’m sure everybody would just like to get on with it by now.”

So be it.

Demyan stood up from the chair, and aimed his gun. He didn’t take his eyes off Maxim when he pulled the trigger.