The church was empty. Even men of the cloth could be bought.
Igor ducked into the confessional and waited. He didn’t have to wait long. His father was punctual. As always.
Father and son, sociopath and sinner, separated by a plank of wood.
His skin prickled with rage. There was so much anger inside of him, it threatened to consume him.
Patience.
Revenge, retribution, blood. It was all his.
Olaf coughed. “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been three days since my last confession.”
Two days since Igor had found Maryruth dead. Two days since he’d murdered the head of the Polish Mafia. Two days since he’d sold Katarina Drugov to a Mexican drug lord.
“I had my son’s wife murdered.”
“Why?” Igor asked, pitching his tone low to sound more like Father Michael’s smoker’s voice.
“The woman he married was changing him. I grew jealous and afraid that my legacy would all be undone because of a woman.”
“So you believed you were acting for the greater good.”
Olaf latched onto his words like a lifeline. “Yes. Yes, absolutely. All for Igor. All for the greater good.”
“Recite the Act of Contrition,” he commanded.
Olaf spoke the words and then ended with, “God, I have mercy.”
Igor delivered the Prayer of Absolution.
At the end, Olaf said, “Amen.”
“God has forgiven your sins,” Igor said, rising. Before Olaf had a chance to leave, Igor kicked through the confessional partition, grabbed his father by his suit lapels, and hauled him close so they were nose to nose.
“God has forgiven your sins,” Igor spat into Olaf’s terrified face, “but I haven’t.”
“Igor,” Olaf begged.
Igor dragged the blade slowly across his father’s throat.
“Son—”
The word ended on a gurgle.
Igor cast Olaf’s body aside and spat on his form.
He stepped out of the confessional, covered in his father’s blood, and sheathed the blade to his ankle. When he came to the front doors of the church, he kicked them open, all respect, all honor, gone.
There was no one left to honor anyway.
Sasha and Vlad stood on the stone steps and moved to flank him.
Igor Dolinsky looked down on the streets of Manhattan.
He clenched his fists. “Let’s take this fucking city.”