Page 47 of Unholy Matrimony
“No, I think we are good. We will take him to the old hangout. It’s secluded enough.” Ilya comes out and gives the thumbs up. I pop the trunk and we hoist Nikolai in. He kicks blindly and contacts Oleg’s chin. I shake my head. Leaning into the trunk, I grab Nikolai’s collar and punch him in the face. He slumps down. Hopefully, he will be out for the drive.
We all climb in and take off. Our old hangout is Dedushka's dacha. It's about an hour outside of Moscow Oblast, so if we want to make it home by dinner, we’ve got to get this done. Now. “Do you think it is still stocked? Or do we need to make a stop to grab supplies?” Oleg responds, “We should be good. Remember, we took care of Matvei like six months ago. We cleaned up and made sure it was ready to go again.” Good, nothing to interrupt us.
Nikolai regains consciousness about twenty minutes from arriving and he kicks and screams from the trunk. Oleg blasts the music to drown out the sound of his threats. We can still faintly hear him pleading when we finally pull up to the dacha. The three of us stand at the trunk. Ilya opens it and rips the bag from his head. He pans across the three of our faces, landing on mine.
I greet him, “Dobryy den', dorogoy test'! Privet vashey budushchey vdove6.”
The twins hoist him out of the trunk and start dragging him to the house. Nikolai kicks and screams up the steps to the door. Before entering, I turn to face him. “Are you ready to confess your sins, Nikolai? The devil is ready to hear your confessions.” He screams, “Net… Net7, you cannot do this!” I pull him to me after we enter the house., “That is where you are wrong, Nikolai. I can. Your daughter will thank me once you are no longer breathing.” Ilya is standing behind him and with a nod of my head, he puts Nikolai in a chokehold. After a few moments, he passes out.
“Okay, let's get him downstairs and tied onto the chair.” I grab his feet as Oleg leads the way down the old stairs to the cellar. Oleg reaches for the lock on the cellar door. Once unlocked, he pushes it open with a shove. It has been six months since our last kill here, and you can still smell the singed flesh of Matvei.
“Let’s get moving. I have a pregnant wife to get home to,” Oleg says.
“Me too,” I retort.
Before I can even register what I said, Ilya and Oleg both stop to look at me. “The fuck did you say?” Oleg is smiling, waiting for me to respond. “Der’mo8! I wasn’t supposed to say anything for a few more weeks. You both better not say anything to Lina.”
“Really? She’s pregnant? Already,” Oleg states. Ilya laughs at his brother's questioning, “How could she not be? They fuck like rabbits.” They finish tying Lina’s father to the chair and offer hugs of congratulations. “You fuckers are going to be uncles to our kid. Be prepared for that.”
I wake up Nikolai suddenly with a sharp smack across his face. “Prosypaysya, Mudak! Ty zhe ne khochesh' propustit' sobstvennuyu smert', ne tak li9?” Nikolai whimpers and loses the function of his bladder, pissing himself.
“That is the second time you’ve made him piss himself,” Ilya cracks. “Definitely not losing your touch.”
Now I would love to draw out his death and savor the fact that the man who abused my sweet, innocent wife is suffering. The pull of being home with my Tsvetok 10is much greater. “Anything you want to say?” I press. I circle him with a blade in my hand, dragging it across the exposed skin of his arms, making cuts just deep enough to bleed.
“Tell my wife…. Ahhh,” he screams as my blade glides across his shoulders. “Tell… her …I love her. Let Raisa know… I loved her.”
His blood is dripping down my arm, onto the floor. Noting that he didn’t mention Lina, I pushed my blade into his stomach. Twisting it in, until his screams ring in my ears. “What about your other daughter? Do you have anything you want to say to her?”
As I pulled the knife out, his body went limp and slumped forward in the chair. I know he isn’t dead yet. I motion for Ilya to hold his head up. Driving the knife in between his ribs, he coughs up blood onto my shirt. “Nothing? You have nothing to say to her?” His breathing becomes shallow. I use this opportunity to let him know our good news. “Well, I have something to say to you on her behalf. Lina is carrying our child. I got her pregnant the night of our wedding. It’s too bad for you.” I dig the knife deeper, “that you will never know the children we will have.”
He gurgles and coughs. His blood splatters across my face. I retract the blade from his ribs. Oleg walks over and checks his pulse. “Still alive.” The fucker is holding on a lot longer than I expected. He is choking on his blood. I lean down and whisper in his ear.
“While my zhena11 will never see you again, because her beautiful soul will be in the Kingdom of Heaven, you will see me again in Hell. Let me promise you this: I will torture you there as well. This was only a taste of what you will get from me for eternity.” The knife slices through his carotid and his blood pulses out. I stare into his eyes as life leaves him. My clothes, saturated with his blood, I pull away from his body. I spit on his lifeless body.
“Can you two deal with this?” motioning to his body, “I want to shower and change. I don’t want to scare my zhena12, walking into the house in her father's blood.” Ilya pats my shoulder. “Konechno13, you don’t even have to ask.” I walk back upstairs, closing the cellar door behind me. I stand under the spray of the tiny shower, letting the lukewarm water wash away the blood. Cleansing me of the sin of killing my wife’s father. My mind wanders. Will my wife forgive me for this? I always intended to do this, but maybe not this soon.
I pull some clothes out of the old dresser once I am finished. I sit on the bed and lace up my spare trainers. Muffled voices are making their way up the stairs. It seems like the twins are done. Their faces are covered in blood splatter, but their clothes are remarkably clean.
I point, “How did you two stay so clean?” Oleg holds a garbage bag forward. “Plastic suits. I grabbed some the last time we stocked the place up.” I faced him and rolled my eyes. “You say this now! I just ruined an entire outfit and shoes, and now you tell me we had plastic suits.” I walk out the door, shaking my head while laughing.
We pile back into my car and make our way back to Moscow. We make small talk about what to do with the body, to which the twins let me know they are going to toss the pieces of him into the lake. “That’s fine with me,” I say. “I don’t plan on having Lina and the baby here. We will buy a dacha somewhere nicer than here. There are too many skeletons in that lake.” All of us mutter in agreement. None of us wants to even think about our children swimming in that lake and happening upon some bones.
Once back in the city, I drop them back off at the warehouse because that is where Ilya left his car. Tomorrow is Saturday, so I won’t see both of them until Sunday at Liturgy. “See you guys on Sunday.” I nod to them take off and head home. The majority of my drive home is spent strategizing on how to tell Lina that her father is dead. I realize I hadn’t told her that her sister is at a boarding school. I make a mental note to find out from her mother where she is. As I pull into the driveway, I feel nervous.
Here goes nothing. Don’t be a pussy, Lenya. Your wife is not that scary. Just tell her.
I walk into the house, looking around at all the changes she has been making. Lina has been making this place a home, somewhere for us to raise our children and to grow. She has mentioned that when I take over, she would like us to continue living here. She doesn’t want to take over my father's house. I am one hundred percent okay with that.
The living room is empty, so I make my way down the hall and see the room directly across from ours is open. Alina is standing next to my wife, a pad of paper in hand, writing the ideas Lina gives down.
Lina already has the entire space planned out from what I gather. Alina notices my presence. I hold my finger to my lips to let her know not to let on that I am home. She smiles. “This room is just so large for one child. I just don’t see how we will fill up the space.”
She lets out an exasperated breath. She runs her hands through her hair and then pulls it into a messy bun with the elastic from her wrist. I walk behind her and wrap my arms around her waist, pulling her back into me.
“I guess we'll just have to have more children to fill up the space. We can have as many children as you wish, lyubov.14”
She spins around and throws her arms around my neck. I look over at Alina. “I think she's finished for now.” Alina smiles and walks out of the room.