Example distributed storage systems, replication state engines, and methods manage replication state for guaranteed replication between data stores. An object data store may store data objects that have been determined for deletion and rendered inaccessible to a client application. A replication state may be queried for deleted data objects and, if the replication state indicates that replication to another object data store is incomplete, physical deletion may be delayed until the replication state indicates that replication is complete and the data object may be physically deleted.