This may be my biggest test of loyalty and worth yet—I just wish that, like in the past, this test was also orchestrated by Victor because then I’d know Dina was going to be OK. But it’s not. I know in my heart it’s not. Victor has no control over it this time; there’s no one on the inside like Niklas was when we took down Willem Stephens in Albuquerque last year. Dina could die. And I may not be able to stop it.
I won’t let her die…
2
Izabel
With my gun on my hip and Pearl sheathed in my leather boot, I follow behind Victor as we stealthily make our way around the back of the red brick building. The area, two blocks of mostly abandoned buildings, is half shrouded in darkness. Many of the street lights that once lit up the place have long since burned out. One flickers in the distance near a ghostly intersection. A large fenced-in lot of old rusted cars is on the other side of the street, directly across from this building at 66th and Town. Many of the windows in the buildings along the street have been busted out—this whole place is a shithole, vacant and dark, the perfect breeding ground for crime and crack-heads and kidnappings. Only, there doesn’t seem to be any actual people. Not a sound. Not a shadow. Not a mysterious out-of-place vehicle parked on a corner. Not even a stray animal in search of scraps. Nothing.
We duck low underneath the few windows when moving along the red bricks. Niklas is behind Victor and in front of me. Dorian is right behind me.
Victor stops with his back hunched over and he motions to Dorian and Niklas, telling them with only the gesture of his finger for each of them to go around the building in opposite directions. Niklas nods and heads around the back. Dorian nods and heads around the front.
Victor and I stay parked next to a side door set in the wall with three concrete steps leading down into it.
“You’re going to wait here,” Victor says quietly as he checks his gun.
Already I’m shaking my head in protest.
“This could be an ambush,” he whispers, “and you’re still far from ready.”
“I can handle myself,” I whisper back angrily, pulling my own gun from the holster at my hip. “You can’t keep me in the damn playpen all the time, Victor.”
He grabs my elbow and yanks me closer to him. I can feel the warmth of his breath on my cheek.
“You will wait here,” he repeats in a low, firm voice, “do you understand?” His strong fingers tighten around my elbow when I don’t answer. “Izabel?” he rips my name out.
“No!” I shoot back quietly. “I’m not going to stay here!”
Silence passes between us.
I lower my eyes, not in shame, but in disappointment and anger.
After a moment, Victor raises my head with his fingers fitted underneath my chin. He looks into my eyes, not as Victor, my boss, but Victor, the love of my life.
“I’ll probably always be this way with you,” he says. “If something were to ever happen to you…I don’t want to end up like Fredrik.” He pauses, looking briefly at the brick wall and then he sighs. “I’ll go in ahead of you,” he says.
I nod slowly and he kisses my lips and leaves me standing here, the wooden door set in the wall at the end of the concrete steps closing behind him as he disappears inside the building.
This is why I hate working with Victor, and why I prefer working with Niklas, regardless of how much I hate Niklas. Victor is hard on me in every aspect of this profession; he’s put me through some horrific things just to prove I’m trustworthy, but when it comes to being in the field, he often treats me like a child. Not all the time, but in times like these when he gets one of his gut feelings. Quietly I question his true reason for being here. Because I know that his love for me, however deep it runs, isn’t enough to put any of us at risk to save a ‘little old lady’. He has gone out of his way to keep Dina safe and comfortable in various safe-houses across the country, all because she means so much to me, but risking all of us like this just to save her from her kidnapper is out of character for him. Which is why I know he’s not doing it just to save her. That gut feeling of his is telling him that other things may be at stake, that there’s far more to this than what it might seem. And it cannot be ignored.
I go down the steps and let the darkness of the basement floor swallow me up inside of it, too.
Victor is nowhere to be seen when my eyes finally begin to adjust to the dark. Some faint light bathes the area in spots, pooling near the few small, horizontal windows set in the brick, covered by years of dust and thick with cobwebs. On the other side of the vast, mostly empty space, past a pile of debris and a stack of old bicycles, there’s a tall rock staircase. Another smaller door leads somewhere to my right. And to my left is more debris—piles of broken rock and tattered insulation and strips of wood that had been pulled from the low ceiling.
I head toward the tall staircase, gun at the ready in my hand. I’m more a knife-girl, but something tells me this unexpected mission thrown on us in the middle of the night might be more a gun event. As I ascend the rock steps quietly, I reach down and pat Pearl jutting up from my boot, just to make sure she’s still there. She and I have a very close relationship—she’s killed far more people than I have.
A shadow moves across the gray light on the basement floor, snapping me around on the sixth step to look behind me. I never heard the door opening from the outside. I back myself against the wall, my black, tight-fitting attire helping me blend in with the darkness. My long auburn hair is pulled into a tight braid trailing down the center of my back and out of my face, keeping my vision sharp. I don’t move and I steady my breath so that it’s as noiseless as the rest of me.
I ready my gun when I hear the distinct sound of small debris being crunched underneath a pair of boots.
“It’s just me!” Dorian whispers sharply as his hands shoot up on both sides, my gun pointed down at him from the middle of the dark staircase. “Jesus! Scared the shit out of me, woman!” His voice is low, his breath noisy.
I lower my gun.
He points at the small door on the other side of the room.
“Came through there,” he whispers. “There’s another way into the basement on the other side of the building. That door links the sides.”
“Did you see anyone?”
“No, not a soul.” He comes up the steps behind me. “This doesn’t feel right.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I say.
“Where’s Faust?”
“He came in this way ahead of me. Where he is now I don’t know.”
We take a few more steps, getting closer to the door at the top.
“I didn’t know you were married,” I say quietly, but keep moving because this isn’t the time to stop and chat about our exes. Besides, I don’t really have any exes, unless you want to count Javier Ruiz, the Mexican drug lord who I was a sexual slave to for nine years. And personally, I don’t consider him an ex.
“I guess we all have things about us we’d rather not talk about,” he says.
That wasn’t necessarily his way of refusing me the conversation, but I end it just the same.
We reach the door and I place my hand on the dusty old knob, preparing to open it slowly.
“She hates me,” Dorian says, catching me off-guard.
I look down at him two steps behind me.
He shrugs. “I don’t blame her though,” he says and then nods, looking at the door. “Let’s go.”
The door breaks apart from the frame, thankfully without a sound, and I crouch down on the top step in my tall black boots before poking my head carefully around the corner—if anyone’s standing there waiting to blow my head off, they’ll probably expect my head to be a little higher, giving me just enough time to spot them first and back away before they can react.
There’s no one in the long, dark hall that splits off in two directions. Just more debris—overturned metal chairs and what looks like old desks of some sort are stacked in a sloppy pile along one wall. Papers are strewn about
the floor.
We step out of the doorway and into the hall, passing quietly around the debris and the paper.
“I’ll go this way,” Dorian says, pointing to his left.
I nod and we part ways, me heading in the opposite direction past several opened doors on both sides of me, each room revealing that this might’ve been a school at one time. Now that I think about it, I do recall seeing what resembled an old running track a block over, and other red brick buildings much like this one, and a basketball court—it and the track overrun with weeds made it harder to identify in the dark, initially.
I take my time down the length of the long hallway, stopping at each door to make sure the rooms are clear before walking past them, and minutes later find myself at a set of closed metal doors, with strips of silver running horizontally along the centers, waiting for me to place my hands upon them to push them open. I step up to the doors and press my back against one instead, carefully turning my head at an angle to see inside the vertical piece of glass running from the top of the door to the horizontal push-handle. Moonlight barely penetrates the room from the frosted glass panels high up in the tall ceiling. All I can see are rows and rows of seats drowned by the darkness. And a stage, I finally make out the longer and harder I look. It’s an auditorium.
Taking a deep breath, I press my hip against the push-handle and open the door. The handle pops and cracks, just like I remember it when I was in Jr. High school, and I wince. When I believe I’m still in the clear, I begin to move farther into the room, crouched low as I move down the center aisle. The carpet smells like fifty years’ worth of dirt and mildew. The air is dry but cool, and getting cooler as November approaches, and it too stinks of old, abandoned building and weather damage.
I stop cold in my tracks and adjust my eyes in the semi-dark. There is movement below; what looks like a figure is sitting in one of the seats on the second row close to the stage. I drop closer to the floor, my finger ready to pull the trigger if I have to, and I watch for any more signs of movement, hoping my eyes were only playing tricks on me in the darkness.
A foot sways back and forth, propped on the back of the chair in front of what I’m definitely certain of now is a figure.
A loud bang resonates through the auditorium, and then another, and I see Niklas and Dorian entering from two different sides below, both with their guns raised and pointed right at the figure.
“Put your fucking hands up! Put your fucking hands up now!” Niklas shouts as he rushes the figure, his voice echoing throughout the room.
I duck down behind a row of seats and stay out of the way for now, just in case there are others, and I need to come in later from behind.
“Where’s Tessa!” Dorian screams at the figure and it looks like he’s shoved the barrel of his gun into the side of the figure’s head. “I’ll splatter your brains across the fucking seats if you’ve hurt her! Where is she?!” he roars.
“Back off, Dorian,” I hear Victor’s voice carry over the auditorium and then see his figure walking across the stage, the sound of his dress shoes tapping against the wood floor.
I look up and all around me for any signs of movement, or shadows moving along the walls, but still there’s nothing. Could this person have come alone? I’m not buying it and I doubt Victor is, either. We didn’t even come alone; there are four other men outside on the rooftops who scouted the outside before we made our first move around the back of the building. But they found nothing either. No signs of anyone lurking about the buildings, or on any rooftops waiting to get us in the sights of their sniper scopes.
The figure stands from the seat, and I see long white-blonde hair tumble against her back. Her hands are raised out at her sides and although I can barely make out what she looks like from behind, I get the distinct feeling that there’s a smile or a smirk dancing at the corners of her mouth.
Finally, I push myself back into a stand and step out into the aisle. Niklas is the only one who looks up as I make my way down. Dorian won’t take his enraged eyes—or his gun—off the woman.
Finally, Victor looks at me. He nods his approval.
In a flash, the woman braces her hands on the backs of two chairs and her slim body lifts into the air, her feet swinging around in one swift sweep, her boot making contact with Dorian’s gun, sending it flying. A half a second later, her other boot makes contact with his face, a nauseating crunch ripples through the air as Dorian goes down. A single shot goes off with a vociferous bang and a flash of light dies in front of Niklas, but his gun too is sent flying. The woman leaps over the back of the seat and lands in the center aisle, crouched perfectly. The second she stands eye-level, Niklas rounds on her with an upper-cut. She falls backward into the seats on the other side of the aisle.
I run toward them, holstering my gun and pulling my knife from my boot, hungry to use it on this bitch.
Blonde hair whips behind her figure as she leaps from between the seats, propping her hands on the backs again to give her balance. She kicks out at Niklas. Once. Twice. The third time her black boot plants dead center in his chest and sends him falling backward into the aisle. She pounces on top of him and swings her fists at his head, but Dorian grabs her from behind and pulls her off. Niklas springs back to his feet, just as the woman rams the back of her head into Dorian’s face behind her, instantly setting her free from his hold. Her long leg juts out and she buries her foot into Niklas’ gut, and just as quickly, she rounds on Dorian again and punches him square in the face; blood that looks black in the semi-dark springs from his nose.
I jump into the scene, crouching low against the floor and sweeping my foot outward to take her off of hers. She falls backward, her blonde head hitting an armrest on the way down. I fling myself on top of her and go to put my knife to her throat but she blocks my hand with her arm, knocking it from my grasp. I get a few blows in; my knuckles come up bloody after the third time I hit her in the nose, but suddenly I’m choking when her legs lock around my throat from behind and my body falls backward against the floor.
With our roles reversed, the pain of her fist cracking against the bones in my face makes my vision fuzzy and my senses dizzy. I do the only thing I can do and reach up with both hands, grabbing fistfuls of silky hair and I pull like I’m going to rip it all out, until we’re both struggling on the floor. Hair-pulling is for bitches, except when it’s the only option.
She punches me. I punch her back.
“Where is Dina!”
She laughs and jumps to her feet, but then she falls back down when Dorian grabs a hold of one arm and twists it around behind her. He pounces on her, jabbing a knee into the small of her back.
She laughs again, her voice garbled by the blood pooling in her mouth.
Niklas strips off his belt and wraps it around her wrists bound behind her, pulling as tight as it will go, surely cutting off the blood circulation.
They both yank her to her feet, a hand around each elbow.
I step around in front of her, looking her in the eyes for the first time. Her hair is stained by blood around her mouth and disheveled around her oval-shaped face. The smile she wears is spiteful and excited, as if this entire scenario that just played out got her off in some sick way.
I draw back my fist and slam it down against her face again. Her head jerks back briefly, and when she shakes off the stun, the smile returns and a look of challenge remains ever-present in her face.
Niklas holds onto her tightly. Dorian stands off to the side. I know he wants to kill her as much as I do.
“If I die,” she says, taunting me, “that old bitch bites it right along with me.”
I lunge at her, swinging my fists, screaming into her face, until Victor’s arms grab me from behind and pull me off of her.
“Where is she?!” I bellow. “What did you do to her?!”
An even more devilish smile slips up on her lips, painted the reddest of reds I’m just now noticing; lipstick is also smeared across her face.
> She spits blood onto the floor and rolls her tongue across her teeth as if checking to see if any are loose.
Victor pushes me off to the side, separating us, and he stands between us.
“Who are you?” he asks her in a calm, but demanding voice.
She smiles, her white teeth glistening with blood.
“Oh, one of you knows who I am,” she says cryptically, her eyes passing over all of us, except for Niklas who’s still behind her. “Where’s the interrogator? The sadistic torturer? He’s in on this as much as the rest of you.” Her eyes fall back on Victor. “And that greasy little fucker you hired to do all of your hacking. The information-getter? All of you are in on this.”
“What is ‘this’ exactly?” Victor asks.
The woman cocks her head to one side, almost thoughtfully. “You’ll know that when all six Knights of the Round Table are present.” She smirks. “Oh, and I’ll be needing a bath, a clean outfit, a meal—not any of that fast-food shit—and a glass of wine.”
Niklas and Dorian glance at one another, then at me, lastly at Victor.
Niklas yanks the woman by the back of her hair, exposing her throat.
“Who the fuck are you, you insane bitch?” he demands.
“Oh, love,” she says whimsically, “don’t rough me up too much or I might just fall in love with you.”
He pulls on her hair harder, but she doesn’t even flinch.
“My name is Nora,” she announces, “and for now, since I’m clearly the one in control, that’s all any of you need to know.”
3
Izabel
Present time – 9:00 p.m. – Boston Headquarters
A face with a split lip and stained yellow and blue underneath the left eye, stares back at me in the mirror.
“That bitch is crazy,” I tell Victor standing in the room behind me. I dab some ointment onto a cut underneath my eye with the tip of my finger. “She’s playing games, Victor.” I wince when my finger touches the sore bone.