“Yes. Myself—not Niklas or Nora or our cover.”
He reaches up his hand and brushes my bangs from my face, regarding me, and I can only wonder anxiously what he’s thinking right now. But he doesn’t say anything.
“What is it?” I ask. “Why are you looking at me that way?”
He smiles faintly and then kisses my lips.
“I have something for you,” he says, but I can tell it has nothing to do with the way he was looking at me.
He reaches into his pants pocket and then places his hand over mine, dropping something small and cold into my palm. It’s Dorian’s safety deposit box key. A tear nearly slips down my face, but I fight it back, swallow, and look up to meet Victor’s eyes again.
“I thought you might want to be the one who takes it to Tessa.” He moves over to the table. An extra briefcase is sitting next to Victor’s. “This also belongs to her,” he says. “It is what was owed to Flynn on his last job just before he found himself in one of my cells.”
“Thank you, Victor. I’ll take it to her.”
He passes the briefcase to me, kisses my lips once more and then says, “Tomorrow…if you are up for it, I would like to take you on a small vacation. Our plane leaves at nine.”
I blink, stunned.
“A vacation?” The word itself sounds strange to me. “Like an actual vacation? I don’t get it—what for?”
Victor smiles, cocks a brow. “Well what do people normally do on actual vacations?”
“Well I uh…well I don’t know; I’ve never been on one.”
“I guess then we are both vacation virgins,” he says.
I chuckle. “OK, I would love to go…on a vacation with you, but”—I look around the meeting room, imagining everyone sitting around the table—“can we just leave like that? I mean, who will be in charge of things while we’re gone?”
He places his hands on my shoulders. “Yes,” he says, “I can leave whenever I want”—(I blush; I guess that was a stupid question)—“and I’ll still be in charge, just from very far away.”
“Well, from what I understand,” I say, playfully, “it’s not much of a vacation if you don’t leave your work at home.”
“True,” he says, “but that rule generally applies to normal, everyday people. I think it is safe to say that we do not fall into that category.”
“Ah, I see.” I grin. “Yeah, it’s definitely safe to say that. So where are we going?”
“Somewhere tropical, so be sure to pack appropriately.”
I step up to him, standing on the tops of his dress shoes, pushing myself up toward his mouth. I kiss his chin. “Another thing I hear about vacations is that you have to let loose”—then his lips—“stop being so damn serious all the time; no words like ‘appropriately’ or ‘eliminate’.”
He leans toward my ear and says, “Be sure to bring that black bikini of yours, the one with the ties on the sides; makes it easier for me to take it off.” The tip of his tongue moves along the shell of my ear; every tiny hair on my body stands on end. Then he kisses me deeply, his hands fitted around my arms, holding me in place, stealing my breath away.
“OK…black bikini is practically already in the suitcase,” I say, nearly stuttering.
He smacks my ass when I turn around. I look back to see him grinning at me; I blush hard and exit the room with haste so I can hurry back and get ready to leave.
Victor
The moment the door closes behind her the grin disappears from my face. I stare at the door for a long time, thinking. There is so much to think about, so much to consider. I turn back to the table and flip the latches on my briefcase. Inside is a file folder staring back at me, the one I recently acquired from Dan Barrett. I remove it from the briefcase and set it on the table, sliding my fingers into the photocopied sheets of paper sandwiched inside. I open it to the top page. And then I read Dorian Flynn’s handwriting again for the fifth or sixth time:
I hid the voice recorder underneath the table. I didn’t really expect Victor Faust to order me to kill the audio at any time during our confessions with that bitch, but I’m damn sure glad I had my backup recorder in place when he did. According to Izabel Seyfried, she gave birth to a baby in Mexico, and the father, Javier Ruiz, sold it. Pretty fuckin’ harsh; poor Izabel doesn’t even know if it was a boy or a girl. I know it’s a long-shot finding a random baby sold seven years ago, but if it could be found, it’s just another weapon against them if we ever need it. Seyfried’s adoptive mother, Dina Gregory, is all we really have on her, and I don’t expect her to live much longer, so this baby is an alternative. I’m very fond of Izabel and I’d never want to hurt her, but she’s Faust’s only weakness. I thought his brother was a weakness too, and maybe he still is to a degree, but Izabel, she’s the one who will almost definitely cause Faust to fall. But I think Faust will cooperate with us; as long as we pay him and hold up our end of the deal, which I think is wise because having Faust on our side is better than having him as an enemy. And I happen to like them all—except for Fredrik—so I hope things go as planned.
There is a knock at the door.
“Come in,” I call out, and close the folder.
“You wanted me to report my findings,” Nora says, coming into the room.
I take a seat. “Yes,” I say, and gesture at an empty chair where Nora sits down. “What do you have for me?”
“Niklas did what you thought he would,” she says, crossing her legs. “There was no way he was going to make Izabel play the role of a slave; he probably knew she’d fuck up at some point and he’d be forced to beat her like he did me. Making her his girlfriend, or whatever, gave her just enough leeway to make the mistakes he knew she’d make, and not have to punish her for them.”
I nod; reach out and absently touch the edge of the file folder in my fingers; a nervous gesture I suppose.
“Niklas could’ve used her against you,” she says. “He had every opportunity to take it farther than a kiss.”
“He would not have done that,” I say.
“Because of his loyalty to you?”
“No,” I say, “not because of his loyalty to me.”
Silence passes.
“You know,” Nora speaks up, “I would ask you what you’re doing, but I have a feeling I already know.”
“I thought you might.”
“And I’m not sure if you want to hear this or not,” she goes on, “but I have to say that it looks like it might already be working.”
“I thought it might.”
“But you love her,” she says. “Don’t you?” She seems unsure.
“Yes. I do love her.”
“Then why are you doing this?”
I place my full palm on the folder and slide it away from me. “I’m doing it,” I say, “because I love her.”
“But you’re going to make her hate you, Victor.”
“That is the last thing I want,” I say, staring off at nothing, thinking of Izabel—my only weakness. “But just like I told her, I would do anything to protect her.”
“Is that—protecting her—the only thing this is about? I’m telling you, Victor, my way is much easier.”
I look at Nora coldly.
“Your way, Kessler, is not an option. We may be looking into the same mirror, you and me, but we are not the same person.”
“Maybe not,” she says, “but if you really love her the way you say you do, then your way of dealing with things is only going to cause you a lot of unnecessary pain. And it’ll never go away, because it’ll always be there, staring you in the face. Are you strong enough to handle that?”
I do not answer, not only because this is not a conversation I feel comfortable having with Kessler, but because I simply do not know the answer.
She stands from the chair.
“Unless there’s anything else you need,” she says, “I’d like to go to my apartment and get some sleep.”
“No, that will be all for now.”
She starts to
walk away, stops and then says, “Dorian’s dead, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
She pauses, chewing on the inside of her mouth—a nervous gesture much like mine with the folder moments ago. But then she shrugs it off, smiles and says, “Better him than me,” and leaves quickly.
I lock the file folder away inside my briefcase, along with its secrets.
Niklas
Jackie plops her half-naked ass down beside me on the bed. She’d started to strip the second she walked into the room—the woman is almost as horny as I usually am. “Not sure what you brought me here for, if not to get laid, but I’m glad you called.”
I get up from the bed, burning cigarette wedged between my lips, and I open my duffle bag on the table by the window.
“Holy shit! Is that—?”
I toss a stack of one hundred dollar bills to her, and then a second. And then a third.
“Fifty thousand dollars,” I say. “Give or take a little.”
Jackie stares at the money in her hands, wide-eyed, high on the color green; someone like her has probably never seen a thousand dollars all at one time, much less held fifty.
“What the fuck?”—she looks up at me—“where’d you get this?”
“I worked for it.” I plop back down beside her on the bed, crossing my ankles. “It’s yours.”
She blinks, stunned. “What do you mean? You can’t be serious.” And then she surprises me when she starts to shove the money into my lap, shaking her head. “No, I-I, Niklas I can’t take this.”
“Sure you can,” I insist, pushing her hands away, the money still in them. “And you will. Because you deserve it.”
“Hey, now that’s not…Niklas, I thought you never paid for sex.” She grins. And blushes like a fucking kewpie doll—I really have no idea what a kewpie doll is, if it blushes, or where that reference came from.
I laugh and then reach over to set the cigarette in the ashtray. “Damn woman, you think so highly of yourself that I’d pay you fifty thousand dollars for, what, ten or so nights with you?”
She slaps me on the arm. “Asshole!” she laughs. “Well I just meant—”
“I’m not giving you the money for the sex,” I tell her. “I just want you to get yourself out of that shithole of an apartment of yours; buy yourself something nice; maybe take that niece of yours to Disneyland, or whatever little kids like to do—that Harry Potter fuckin’ wonderland, I don’t know—just go out and have a good time.”
She’s not smiling anymore, just looking at me like she doesn’t know what to do or say.
“I don’t understand.” She wipes a tear from her face.
“Hey, none of that emotional shit,” I tell her. “It makes me uncomfortable.” She smiles and I reach out and wipe another tear from her face, and then I smile too. “I just think you’re a good friend, Jackie, and those are kind of hard to find.”
She lays her head on my thigh.
“Who knew?” she says, a playful gleam in her eye.
“Who knew what?”
She grins.
“That a man whore and asshole like you could be so…sweet.”
I wrap my hand in her hair, pulling her head from my leg. “You ever fucking call me sweet again—”
“What are you gonna do?” she taunts. “Sweet, sweet, sweet Niklas.”
I crawl on top of her, pull off her panties.
“I do whatever I want,” I say and kiss her hard and then go down between her legs.
I do whatever I want…because I’m my own person. And I’ll fight for whatever I need to make me whole. Whoever I need to make me whole.
-OTHER BOOKS BY J.A. REDMERSKI-
Speculative Fiction/Contemporary Fantasy
DIRTY EDEN
Crime & Suspense
KILLING SARAI (#1 – In the Company of Killers)
REVIVING IZABEL (#2 – In the Company of Killers)
THE SWAN & THE JACKAL (#3 – In the Company of Killers)
SEEDS OF INIQUITY (#4 – In the Company of Killers)
THE BLACK WOLF (#5 – In the Company of Killers)
More to come…
New Adult Contemporary Romance
THE EDGE OF NEVER (#1 – The Edge Duology)
THE EDGE OF ALWAYS (#2 – The Edge Duology)
SONG OF THE FIREFLIES
THE MOMENT OF LETTING GO
Young Adult Paranormal Romance
THE MAYFAIR MOON (#1 – The Darkwoods Trilogy)
KINDRED (#2 – The Darkwoods Trilogy)
THE BALLAD OF ARAMEI (#3 – The Darkwoods Trilogy)
-ABOUT THE AUTHOR-
J.A. (Jessica Ann) Redmerski is a New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author and award winner. She is a lover of film, television and books that push boundaries and a sucker for long, sweeping, epic love stories. Things on Jessica’s wish-list are to conquer her long list of ridiculous fears, find a shirt that she actually likes, and travel the world with a backpack and a partner-in-crime.
To learn more about Jessica, visit her here:
www.jessicaredmerski.com
www.inthecompanyofkillers.com
www.facebook.com/J.A.Redmerski
www.pinterest.com/jredmerski
Twitter - @JRedmerski
J. A. Redmerski, The Black Wolf
(Series: # )
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