Niklas’ body freezes rigidly, more hurt by this truth than the truth before it. Another tear escapes from his eye, but this time he doesn’t have the mind to wipe it away.
“I killed him,” I finally say. “Father told me that I would have to because it was the only way he wouldn’t finish the job. So I shot him where he stood.”
He can’t look at me. I feel the conflict within him, his mind and heart trying to choose which emotions to feel and which ones to reject: his hurt for what our father did, or his love for his brother, because both are too much to take on at once.
I go on:
“Being Vonnegut’s Number One, I convinced him to spare your life and made him believe that our Father was unhinged, paranoid, and that was why I had to kill him. I told Vonnegut that you were trustworthy and that I wanted a chance to prove that to him and the rest of the Order. I vowed to take full responsibility for you—”
“Full re—,” he glares at me, “full responsibility for me? What, am I a goddamned child? Everything I have done since I was seven-years old, I’ve done for the Order. I am the one of us who always did as I was told, who never questioned Vonnegut’s orders, who has never given him or anyone else reason to question me!” He clenches his hands into fists at his sides. “I have strived to become like you, Victor, to be respected and trusted and showered with the same glory Vonnegut has showered you with since before you were promoted Full Operative! I have done nothing to warrant—”
“You’ve been lying to Vonnegut for me for years, Niklas. What’s not to say that you would turn against me when the time was right? You’ve pretended to be Vonnegut’s trustworthy soldier, his liaison waiting to be promoted Full Operative, all the while lying to him whenever I asked you to.”
“Is that what this is about?!” He points upward and then drops his hand aggressively back at his side. “Have you been testing me all this time?! That’s what you’ve been doing! Isn’t it?!”
“No,” I say. “I would never use you like that, Niklas. I killed our father to save your life. Why would I then risk your life by setting you up?”
He has no answer. He just stares at me confused and hurt and angry and not knowing what to do with any of it. He collapses back into the chair, his legs splayed out into the floor, his upper-body slouched forward resting his forehead in his hand.
“Why are you telling me this now?” he asks, raising his eyes back to me. “What made you decide that today was going to be the day you turned my life upside-down? Did you just wake up this morning and say to yourself: ‘Today I think I’ll mindfuck my brother because I have nothing better to do’?”
“I felt I owed it to you,” I say. “You should know the truth before you die.”
He looks faintly stunned, as if trying to figure out if he heard me right.
His hand drops away from his forehead and he straightens his back against the chair.
“What do you mean?”
“Niklas,” I get right to it, “I know you told Javier Ruiz where I hid the girl. Where I was with the girl.”
His eyes wrinkle with confusion.
“What are you talking about?”
I walk a couple steps to my right, my hands now behind my back to appear to be resting there. My gun is hidden safely in the back of my pants.
“When you called me while I was on my way back to Tucson, you said that the time of Javier’s last known whereabouts was at three-twelve in the afternoon.” I cock my head to one side. “Why did it take you seven hours to give me this information?”
He still hasn’t flinched. I’m beginning to find his ability to act more effective than I gave him credit for.
He thinks about the question for a moment. “I called you as soon as I found out myself. Victor, you know we don’t always get that kind of information right when it occurs.”
“Maybe so,” I say. “But you and Samantha were the only two people who knew where I was and where I planned to leave the girl.”
He points at me, his expression twisted with disbelief. “But you told me Samantha was the one. You said the girl told you that Samantha got a call….”
“I lied.”
He still hasn’t flinched.
Is he telling the truth?
I raise my gun to him.
Niklas’ eyes widen and he puts out his hands toward me.
“Victor, I didn’t betray you. I swear to you on my life, I told no one anything!”
My finger presses carefully on the trigger.
“You are my brother!” he shouts. “I have always done what you asked, kept your secrets, played your game between Vonnegut and the orders he gave you! I would die before I betrayed you!”
When Niklas’ eyes avert behind me, I know that Sarai is standing there.
“I told you not to come out.” I keep my eyes on Niklas.
He looks back and forth between the two of us, his features riddled by shock and betrayal on my part.
“You said she died.”
“I lied about that, too.”
I press the trigger a little more.
“So who’s lying to who then? Who’s been betraying who?!”
Back and forth his eyes dart.
“Victor! It. Wasn’t. Me!” he roars. He’s more angry than scared, his face twisted with heartbreak and disbelief, his hands clenched tightly into fists at his sides. “I won’t beg for my life. I won’t do it, brother. If you must kill me then kill me, be done with it, but know that I did not betray you!”
In the last second, I lower my gun and catch the breath I’ve been holding for the past few minutes.
Then I sit down in the nearby chair and slump against it.
Silence fills the room. I’ve never been so confused in my life about anything.
“I think he’s telling the truth,” Sarai says softly behind me. I feel her there, standing with her fingers draped over the back of my chair. For a moment, I almost reach up and touch them.
Finally, I raise my eyes to Niklas and say to Sarai, “I believe he is, too.”
“How is she alive?” Niklas asks, more concerned with her than the fact that I’ve decided not to shoot him. He seems to be looking at her more now than me. I can’t tell yet what level of discontent he’s feeling about this, but maybe once the shock wears off I’ll be able to read his face a little easier.
“Samantha didn’t tell Javier where we were, either,” I say. “I only told you that to get you here because I was certain you were the one. You were the only one left.”
“Samantha was killed trying to protect me,” Sarai speaks up.
I wish she’d just stop talking and go back into the room.
“Javier killed her,” she adds with sadness in her voice.
“And Sarai killed Javier before I got there,” I say.
Niklas stares at both of us for a long time, perhaps still trying to fit all of the pieces together in his mind, and likely still feeling stung by my deceiving him the way I did to get him here.
“Fine,” he says, slashing the air in front of him with his hand. “Samantha didn’t do it, but neither did I.”
Sarai’s fingers move from the back of the chair and touch the back of my shoulders, likely involuntarily because she’s so nervous. For a moment, I find myself wanting her fingers there, but I get up quickly before my brother gets the wrong idea, if he hasn’t already.
“What is all this about?” Niklas asks. “Tell me Victor; what has this girl got to do with you?” He starts pacing again, looking back at me every so often, his mind in overdrive. “You went to Mexico to hear Javier’s offer, to see whose offer was worth the contract, his or Guzmán’s. And then on the way out, you find a stowaway in your car who clearly belonged to Javier Ruiz—”
“I don’t belong to anyone,” Sarai says acidly. “And my name isn’t girl, it’s Sarai.”
I put my hand up to her and she stops talking, but her harsh gaze grows darker looking across at Niklas. She crosses her arms.
Niklas glares back
at her, but he says to me, “I’ve already reported the lies you told me to get me here to Vonnegut.” He sits back down in the chair. “You know as well as I do that to retract that story will raise all sorts of questions. You can’t keep her hidden forever. You might as well have formally requested a new liaison because they will assign someone else to you simply because of our ‘miscommunication’ if that’s what we choose to tell him.” He shakes his head at me, a faint smile of disbelief at his lips. “You’ve done all of this, you’ve lied to the Order, you’ve put the entire mission in jeopardy, destroyed it actually, all because of this girl…” He sneers. “Safe House Twelve was compromised because of her.”
Niklas looks right at Sarai standing behind me and without having to see her myself, I can sense the resentment boiling within her.
“So many are dead because of her,” Niklas says. “Samantha. That girl back in Arizona. Reports were that she was only sixteen-years-old. Dead because of…Sarai.” He smirks.
I see Sarai’s long, reddish hair whip behind her as she rushes past me. I could have reached out and stopped her, but Niklas deserves whatever retribution she can manage to dish out before he knocks her on her ass.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Sarai
My face burns with contempt, tears pouring from my eyes in droves as I bolt across the short distance toward Niklas.
I don’t care that he looks both surprised and faintly amused as I lunge for him, swinging my fists chaotically in front of me at his face.
In a flash, I’m on the floor on my back and Niklas is crouched on top of me, his hand pressed around my throat, rendering me unable to catch my breath. I claw at his wrist with both of my hands and try to kick him but there’s no way I’m moving from this spot. He glares down at me and moves his hand from my throat to my cheeks, seizing my jaw with his fingers like a vise-grip. With his other hand, he pins my wrists together, forcing them against my chest. He turns my chin to one side and then the other and I taste the chemicals leftover from his aftershave as his index finger presses against the edge of my lips.
“Get off me!” I growl under the weight of his hand.
“Niklas,” Victor says calmly from behind. “Leave her be.”
Niklas’ blue eyes bore into mine and he holds me here in this position for three more excruciatingly long seconds before doing what Victor said.
I try to catch my breath when he releases me, but I think mostly I just hold it longer until he has moved away from me completely.
I raise my back from the floor, but stay sitting on it. I’m so hurt, so outraged at Niklas for the things he said, but my pride hurts worse than anything.
Because I know he’s right.
I look at the floor rather than at either one of them. I don’t want them to see the shame and guilt on my face although it would be evident to anyone that it’s there.
“Niklas,” Victor says calmly, “I am sorry to have compromised you.”
I look up instantly. I feel a mood shift in the room and though I’m not exactly sure which one, I can tell by the pause in Victor’s voice that it’s something life-changing.
“We could devise a plan,” he goes on with Niklas’ undivided attention. “Let Vonnegut believe that Sarai is, in fact, dead—”
“Or we could just kill her to make it true.”
I jerk my head sideways to look at Niklas, who’s looking right back at me with the same condescension.
Victor shakes his head, objecting to his mordant yet entirely serious proposal.
“We could devise a plan together,” Victor continues in the same stoic tone, “or I could do it on my own and you can walk away and not be any part of it.”
Niklas’ eyes grow wide, his body locks up firmly. He seems at a loss for words. And so am I. I may not understand how these kinds of things work in their business, but I don’t really need to know that what Victor just proposed is something very dangerous. It’s suicide.
I manage to pick myself up from the floor.
“You have a choice,” Victor says. “Go along with my plan to tell Vonnegut that she’s dead, or tell him the truth, tell him everything that went on here to secure your place in the Order. I won’t hold it against you. I’ll take her away with me, set her up somewhere so that she can go on with her life. And then I’ll go on with mine. It’s your choice, Niklas. But I won’t kill her, and if Vonnegut finds out that she’s alive he will, rightfully so, question my loyalties. And you know first-hand what happens when any of our loyalties is questioned.”
“Eliminated as a precaution,” I say out loud, though mostly to myself, remembering what Victor said moments ago about why they ordered Niklas dead.
Niklas is in shock. He shakes his head repeatedly as if trying to shake Victor’s treacherous words out of his mind.
“You of all operatives,” Niklas manages to say, “…I don’t understand why you’re doing this, why you would throw away everything and go into hiding—.” He shakes his head again, unable to finish the sentence.
“It wouldn’t be the first time I risked my position and my life to follow my conscience rather than my orders.”
Niklas takes in a deep breath and averts his gaze toward the ceiling. Then he looks at me and we share a moment suspended within this intricate web of lies and contempt and resentment, a moment where, despite all of that, we realize we have something in common: Victor saved us both equally, and for that we are one in the same.
Simultaneously, we look back at Victor.
Niklas finally breaks the thick silence.
“As I have always said, brother, I will never betray you.”
Victor nods and I see the relief hidden within his blue-green eyes. I wonder if he would’ve killed Niklas where he stands if Niklas had chosen to take the alternate route.
“I’m with you,” Niklas says and glances at me once. “Whatever you want to do. But before we do anything we need to figure out who told Javier where you took her.”
When Niklas’ eyes fall on me again they stay there, and I suddenly feel like he’s blaming me.
My eyebrows wrinkle in my forehead. I cross my arms tight over my chest. “Well, I sure as hell didn’t tell him,” I spat. “Don’t look at me like that.”
Victor walks between us and takes me by the wrist, leading me to the nearest chair where I sit willingly. My stomach swims nervously. I look up at both of them, my hands gripping the ends of the chair arms.
“It wasn’t me!”
“I know it wasn’t you,” Victor says. “But I need you to think right now, Sarai. Have you at any time spoken to anyone since you left the compound? Anyone at all. Have you seen anything that maybe didn’t seem right, something seemingly insignificant?”
I shake my head, my index fingers making a nervous circular motion against the cherry wood grain grooves in the design of the chair. “I-I don’t know,” I say breathily, desperately trying to come up with something, anything that he could be looking for.
But I can’t.
“Victor, I-I don’t think so.”
He paces once and then looks over at Niklas. Then as if he was just slapped in the face by a theory, he turns his body swiftly back to me.
“Take off your clothes,” Victor demands.
My heart stops.
“What?”
“Sarai, take off your clothes.” He pulls me up from the chair by my hand. I try to wrench it away from him, but he applies more pressure.
“I’m not taking my clothes off! Why would you ask me to—?” I slap him with my free hand, right across the left side of his face.
He grabs my wrist. “I need you to trust me. I’ve brought you this far now do as I say and take off your fucking clothes.”
His uncharacteristic use of that vulgarity shocks me into compliance. My eyes dart back and forth between them again, my jaw tightening, my breath heavy and short expelling from my nostrils.
“Fine,” I say, jerking my hand from his. “But not in front of him.”
&n
bsp; Victor takes me by the wrist and walks with me past Niklas and toward the entrance to his room.
“You have nothing I want to see,” I hear Niklas say just before Victor shuts the door.
I already feel naked standing in the wide open of Victor’s spacious ocean-view room and I haven’t even taken my clothes off yet. I want to linger as long as possible, drag it out so that maybe he’ll change his mind or at least tell me what this is all about, but he wastes no more time. And he doesn’t let me waste any more of it, either.
“Take them off. Now.”
I start with my shirt, pulling it over my head and exposing my bare breasts. I drop the shirt on the floor beside my feet. He watches me, not with lust in his eyes, but with determination. I lean over and slip out of my pants and all that is left are my panties.
He steps right up to me.
I hesitate. The space between us is about two feet but it feels like two inches. I don’t want to take off my panties, not because I’m afraid of him, but because…I’m embarrassed for him to see me that way.
When he steps up closer and doesn’t demand I take the panties off, I breathe a silent sigh of relief.
“Lay down on the bed,” he says and that breath is sucked right back into my lungs again before it can expel completely.
When I don’t act fast enough, he wraps his hands around my upper-arms and gently pushes me down against his expensive designer comforter.
I swallow a lump in my throat.
As I start to raise my arms to my breasts to cover them, I feel Victor’s warm hands on me. I freeze, my eyes wide and unblinking. He raises my arms above my head and begins to feel every inch of my skin, pressing his fingers along the underside of my arms first and then down toward my ribs before making his way to my breasts.
His eyes catch mine briefly.
Maybe he wanted to ease my fear of him with that glance, but all it did was make me want him to touch me more.
The guilt of that thought sears through me. But the touch of his hands on my breasts, kneading only a small portion of them with his fingers, does something entirely different.