Choosing the Executioner

Sofia Keller was hired to translate a legal meeting between the Vor and the German consulate. By the end of it, she'd heard the name of a man who was supposed to be dead, and everyone in the room knew she'd heard it. The Bratva sends Alexei Morozov to clean up the loose end. He finds her in a bookshop the next morning and offers her a different job: interpreter for his family — visible, safe, and testifying against no one. Sofia says yes because she has no other choice, and because he is the only person who has ever told her the truth about what he was going to do to her. For six months she translates interrogations and watches him spare everyone he can. Then the Vor orders a hit on a witness she likes, and she lies to his face. He catches her. It turns out the name she wasn't supposed to hear was his brother's, and Alexei has been protecting him ever since. They get the brother out. Sofia and Alexei leave together. The last page is quiet, and neither of them is flinching anymore.