The words flattened Elizaveta like a truck. She had been dating Jesus for twelve months. She had loved him—or thought she had. And he was not only a killer, he was a cold-blooded sociopath.

“Move away from him,” Jesus told her. “Unless you want to die first.”

“Jesus, please…”

“Move!”

“You can’t do this, Jesus!” Pita said. “It’s insane. You can’t kill everybody—”

“It’s either them or me, Pita.”

“And Pepper, and Lucinda?”

“They don’t know what’s happened. They’ll believe what I tell them.”

Pita began wandering in a circle, mumbling, a hand to her head as if she might faint.

“Pita!” Jesus barked. “You have to be in this with me.”

“I…” She shook her head. Her eyes were filled with questioning fear. “Jesus, you can’t do this.”

“There’s no other way. If I go to prison, I can’t fix what’s happened at the company. It will all come out. We’ll lose everything. You’ll have nothing. You’ll be poor.”

“I’m not feeling very well.”

“Pita, I need to hear you’re in this with me.”

“I can’t—”

“Pita!”

“Fine,” she said so softly it was barely audible.

“Fine what?”

“Fine! Just do it! Hurry up!”

Jesus returned his attention to Elizaveta. He did not smile or revel in his victory; he displayed no emotion at all, which terrified Elizaveta all the more. Her heart slammed inside her chest, and she found it difficult to breath. It seemed impossible she was about to die. She had to teach the twins on Monday. She had a hair appointment Tuesday evening—

“Last warning, cariño,” Jesus said. “Move away from Jack.”

She almost asked him why he wanted her to move, but she knew the answer. He didn’t want her and Jack’s deaths to look like summary executions.

“Screw you, Jesus,” she said.

Now his face filled with cold malevolence. With a brutish grunt, he stormed over and grabbed Elizaveta by the hair, yanking her away from Jack. She yelped, clawing and kicking him. He drove his knee into her face, stunning her. Light flowered across her vision. She tasted the calcified bits of a cracked tooth on her tongue.

Then he was hitting her over and over and over.

Jack

A commotion was happening around me, a sonic orgy of shouting and struggling, a million miles away. Pain flared in my head, and I remembered Jesus swinging the post-hole digger. Wondering whether a chunk of my skull and brain were missing—that’s what it felt like—I raised my hand, touched the fiery spot above my ear. It was numb, pins and needles. But everything seemed intact.

Groaning, I sat up. The room focused though remained soaked in an underwater slow-motion quality. Jesus stood several feet away, bending over Elizaveta. For a moment I thought he was speaking to her, but in fact he was striking her with short, straight jabs.