To block out the noise of his bones cracking. I scrambled to get them, and the moment I slid them on, piano music filled the air, much like the type that Gavril would play. The sound soothed my nerves somewhat, knowing that when I was finished here, we could move on with our future. He could play this melody for our child and me, do the things that he loved to do without fear that I was going to reject him.
We had a bright future ahead of us, one that was going to be filled with love, laughter, and a bit of violence, but knowing that Gavril wasn’t going to do the trafficking anymore filled me with contentment so I could handle the rest. My husband wasn’t perfect, but neither was I.
Wordlessly, with the music playing in my ears, I watched Oleg remove the tips of Jon’s fingers with his cutter, not bothering to wipe up the blood that dripped from the open wounds before he added the tips into the cup with the teeth. I couldn’t hear any of the noise that he was creating, but watching it was violent enough, and by the time he was finished, Jon’s blood was pooling onto the floor, racing in rivulets toward the drain underneath the table.
I didn’t remove the headphones after he finished, finding the music soothing to my tortured soul as he moved to his next task, shaving Jon’s body to remove any trace of hair that could be used for DNA comparison. He started with the head, the hair collecting into a trash bin as he worked and moved down Jon’s body with his electric razor, shaving his arms, legs, groin, and even his feet until he was satisfied that no hair remained.
Jon looked like a pale newborn baby by the time Oleg was finished with his task, and I started to feel the weight lift off my chest. Jon was truly dead. He wasn’t going to leap off the table and try to ruin my new existence with Gavril.
He wasn’t going to torture me with his texts, his calls, his sudden appearances that had always sent me running to find a way to escape him.
He wasn’t going to be able to use anything against me any longer or have a chance to put my child in danger in the future.
Jon was truly gone and the realization brought tears to my eyes, fogging up my goggles. I felt freer than I had in years, honestly.
Oleg took his cup and the trash bin and opened another bin in the corner of the room, too far away for me to see what it was. There he dumped it all before closing the lid and returning to his table of tools to extract a scalpel.
I watched wordlessly as he cut open Jon’s body from collarbone to groin, using a small steel bucket to pull out his organs quickly and efficiently, far too fast for me to identify them.
Which was good. I wanted to have it done and over with as quickly as possible.
Once he was done with that task, he took what looked like the hose to a vacuum cleaner and sucked out the remaining blood from the body cavity until he was satisfied, motioning for me to remove my headphones. “The worst is over with,” he replied, stripping off his bloodied gloves and apron. “Now we prepare the body for burial.”
I hung the headphones back on the wall and watched as the doors swung open, two men entering with a bucket between them.
Rocks. It was filled with rocks.
“We have to weigh it down so it doesn’t make an appearance,” Oleg explained as the men started to fill Jon’s empty cavity with them. “This fucking asshole will spend an eternity at the bottom of the Pacific.”
Fish food. Jon was going to be fish food. Another weight lifted from my heart as they finished their task, and Oleg used a stapler gun to close the incision he had made.
It was done. Jon Hampton was nothing more than a shell of a man now, virtually unidentifiable if he did happen to make an appearance in the future. Oleg turned to me as the men wheeled the gurney out of the room. “I can take you home now.”
I shook my head. Even though the thought of getting on a boat made me slightly queasy, I was far too invested to stop now. “I want to see it to the end.”
“Of course,” he replied. “Then let’s get to the boat.”
After stripping off the garb, I followed Oleg back outside, watching as the sun was just starting to peek over the horizon. My watch told me it was nearing six in the morning, and the city was just starting to wake around us.
I was exhausted. After keeping vigil beside Gavril’s bed for the last three days, I longed for a good night’s sleep without having to worry about him or anything for that matter.
Life was going to be so different now.
Oleg helped me onto a small fishing boat, Jon’s body now stored under a stack of traps that were set out to catch seafood. I took a seat as far away from it as possible and watched as Oleg, flanked by the two men, guided the boat out of the docks and to the open ocean. The sea air filtered through my hair and I drew in a breath, glad to not feel queasy at all from the gentle rise and fall of the boat as it cut through the water. The sunrise was gorgeous to watch as well, and by the time Oleg reached his destination, I was feeling far different than I had been on land.
There were no boats for as far as I could see, land nothing more than a tiny speck in the distance, but the men worked quickly, maneuvering the body to the edge and dumping it over with a small splash. “Set out the traps,” Oleg directed as he turned the boat from the position immediately. “Put your waders on.”
A cover. He was setting up a cover in case we ran into harbor police.
The men hurried to do his bidding and I watched as the burly man did the same, strapping on a pair of waders and a worn cap on his head before turning to me. “If we get stopped,” he started. “I will do all the talking, all right?”
“Won’t they check the registration?” I asked. “I mean, I’m clearly out of place.”
Oleg grinned at me as he handed me a bundle as well. “No, you aren’t, Mrs. Kirilenko. Welcome to the crew.”
Thankfully our trip back to the docks was uneventful, my heart hammering in my chest the entire hour back to shore, and by the time we arrived at the building, I felt wrung out. Oleg helped me remove the waders I had put on to up our disguise, and after a bathroom break, he escorted me to the car as if we had just taken an early morning joy ride and not dumped a body into the ocean.
Settling into the leather seat, I leaned back and closed my eyes, waiting for the guilt and shame to creep up into my very soul. I should feel something, right? I had just witnessed a horrible experience with someone I had once cared about. It was a crime that I had participated in, and my conscience should be eating me alive.