“Answer my fucking question,” I demand, glaring down at him from my crouched position on the table, my finger on the trigger.
“Two billion dollars is more important to me than anyone,” he says without hesitation, without regret. “Even my wife.”
I grit my teeth.
“Victor?”
I wait for his response.
Victor
Turning away from the computer screen set up in Mrs. Pinceri’s home, I look at the woman standing in the room with an angry pinched mouth. Her gray-blond hair is fixed in curls above her shoulders. She wears a long cream-colored dress with a copper-colored scarf around her neck. In her tired, aged blue eyes is a look of vengeance. And pain. I’ve seen that look before, on women whose husbands have replaced them with younger, more vibrant companionship.
“What will it be, Mrs. Pinceri?”
She swallows, standing with her arms crossed as she stares only at the screen with the live image of her husband being fed through the camera hidden in Izabel’s face mask.
“Kill the bastard,” she sentences him with acid in her voice.
I nod and turn back to the screen.
Izabel
“Take him out,” I hear Victor say.
I smile and push myself into a stand before jumping down from the table. Pinceri’s eyes follow my every move.
Clock is ticking away, I remind myself.
“Sure you don’t want to reconsider your answer?” I ask, though I know he won’t.
“You can go fuck yourself,” he spits out the words. “And tell whoever your client is, they can do the same.”
My smile gets broader and I wish that he could see it.
Pressing the barrel of my silencer to his forehead, I say with satisfaction, “Your wife is our client,” and witness his smile drop before I pull the trigger and splatter his brains against the wall.
“Let’s go,” Nora says behind me with urgency.
We dash into the hallway and head for the stairwell near the elevator.
“Two minutes,” I say as she swings open the door. “I don’t think we’re gonna make it.”
“We’ll make it.”
I hope she’s right because if we don’t, if we can’t get through the rooftop door before the automatic alarm is activated, we’ll set it off and Pinceri’s men stationed on the bottom floor will likely be waiting for us outside by the time we make our way down the side of the building.
“Maybe we should’ve taken the elevator,” I say between strained breaths as we make our way quickly up the concrete steps.
“No, the elevators are too slow,” Nora says; the sound of our boots hitting the concrete echoes down the stairwell behind us, much louder this time. “I counted the time it took for the elevator to make it to the ninth floor when the guard from the surveillance room made his way up, as well as the time it took us on the stairs on the way down—we’re faster.”
She never ceases to amaze me. And make me feel like an amateur.
Just a few more steps.
Not knowing how many seconds we have to spare, when we make it to the top, I shove both hands on the door knob and grit my teeth, pushing it open with all my strength, wincing as I brace myself for the sound of the alarm.
It doesn’t trigger. We made it.
Nora shuts the door quickly and instantly it locks from the inside. A tiny red light shows up on the door panel, a light that had not been there before when it was locked, which can only mean that the alarm has just set.
Even though we’ve certainly bought ourselves some time by not triggering the alarm, we don’t stop for even a second to rest—there is a trail of dead bodies left in the building and it’s only a matter of time before someone stumbles upon one and calls it in. I would like to rest, more than anything, because this stupid mask sticking to my head like a thick pair of pantyhose is making my head itch like crazy, just like it did when I had lice in the compound in Mexico—I’ll have to endure the itch for a little while longer.
Nora and I retrieve our black backpacks hidden in a dark corner on the roof.
“I’ve never done this before,” I say as I swing mine onto my back and latch it in place by the straps crossing my chest.
“You said you weren’t afraid of heights.” Nora’s backpack was secured to her back before mine even was.
She grabs the metal contraption from the rope cable I’m to descend from and attaches it to my harness, locking it securely into place.
“I’m not afraid of heights,” I tell her and swallow nervously. “It’s just that it’s a long fucking way down.”
She grins at me as she jerks one last time on my harness to make sure it’s secure.
“Then don’t fucking fall,” she says with a smile.
I smirk and follow her to the edge of the roof.
And without time to give it any second thoughts, I grab my rope cable tight in my gloved hands and step over the roof wall and begin to propel myself down.
By the fifth floor, down the side of the building, that tiny ounce of fear I had has drained completely from my body.
We keep to the building face, staying out of view of any windows as we scale carefully the rest of the way down, coming to a safe stop on the ground at the back of the building where there is no traffic and there are no people; just a row of stinking dumpsters and a dark alley that will lead us back to our car parked on the side of the road.
After unlocking myself from the rope cable, the first thing I do is peel off that damn face mask and shove it into the front of my bodysuit, between my breasts. Instantly I feel relief as the air washes over my itching, sweating skin.
Nora leaves hers on.
We make it to the car in under three minutes and are on our way back to Boston without a hitch.
Izabel
During the drive back to Boston, Nora talks a lot as usual, but she refuses to talk about the mission.
“I think it went well,” I say as we ride down the dark, nearly empty highway. “No one alive saw us; the timing was cutting it close, but it was perfect, and—”
“Come on Izabel,” she cuts in, glancing over at me briefly from the driver’s seat; long, disheveled hair draping her shoulders. “Let’s not get into this right now. I want to relax, enjoy the drive back.” She looks over again and grins suggestively before putting her eyes back on the road. “So, about Niklas.”
I sigh and shake my head, slouching farther down against the passenger’s seat to get more comfortable.
“He’s a dick, Nora,” I say. “That’s about as much as I know, and it’s shit you already knew yourself—why don’t you try getting to know Fredrik instead? He needs a woman. Niklas…well, I think all you’ll ever get out of him is a good fuck or two.”
That didn’t come out right; I didn’t mean to insinuate that I think he must be ‘good’ in bed. Thankfully we turned the mics off a long time ago and Victor isn’t listening in anymore—talk about awkward.
Nora catches my eye, and when I look back over there’s a grin dancing on her lips.
“A good fuck or two is all I want.”
That doesn’t surprise me much, really, but it does spark a whole new topic.
Uncrossing my arms, I sit up straighter and look right at her with interest. “Just out of curiosity,” I say, “have you ever had feelings for a man before?” I raise my back from the seat, turning at an angle so she has my full attention. “I mean, something a little more than sex?”
Nora pooches out her unpainted lips and shakes her head. “Nope,” she says. “I have no interest in anything more than sex.”
I laugh lightly and fall against the seat again.
“Well, you never know,” I say with confidence. “That dirty little L-word has a tendency to sneak up on you, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it when it does.”
“I’d kill a man before I fell in love with him,” she says and I look over, quietly stung by her words. “I never get too close.”
For
a moment I’m not sure what to say to that.
“Well then I take back what I said about Fredrik—Niklas is a better option for you. Besides, Fredrik might have something with that waitress.”
Nora chuckles. “If you believe that, you’re lying to yourself.”
“Why? He seems to like her. It’s been two weeks and he hasn’t lost her or gotten rid of her yet—I think she’s sweet. He needs someone like her.”
“Oh, Izabel,” Nora says in a pitying manner, “that man cannot be with a sweet, innocent girl like her. Trust me on this: no one can ever replace Seraphina except a woman who is practically her equal—mark my words.”
I don’t want to believe that. I want Fredrik to be happy, and so far Emily, a kindhearted waitress who knows nothing about any of us, seems like she might be someone to give Fredrik that happiness. I choose not to believe Nora. Of course, in the back of my mind, I can’t help but wonder if she’s right. Because she usually is.
“What about you?” she asks.
“What about me?”
“Don’t you think your life would be easier if you didn’t let attachments get in the way?”
I think on it.
“Sometimes,” I answer, looking out the windshield, watching the double yellow lines get swallowed up by the hood of the car, because sometimes Nora tends to drive down the center of the road for some reason. “I know that attachments to people are a hindrance in this line of work, but I also think it’s a disadvantage not to be able to love and feel love.”
“Why?”
I pause, thinking about Victor, about Dina.
“Because I believe love makes a person stronger,” I answer.
I see Nora shake her head from the corner of my eye.
“Stronger?” she says. “No, Izabel, it’s exactly the opposite. To love someone is to take on the responsibility of keeping them safe, of worrying about them. It’s just a burden.”
“Well, I think you’re wrong,” I say. “To love someone means you have something in life to fight for, something to live for—I guess you wouldn’t know, you’ve never felt love, so you can’t possibly understand.”
I decide to leave it alone, concluding that there really is nothing more I can say to someone like Nora because she’s, in a sense, not as human as the rest of us.
But then she says, “I loved my sister,” and I swallow my thoughts.
“In fact,” she goes on, “I loved her for a long time before I knew that I was going to have to kill her because of my feelings for her. Live and learn—I’ll never make that mistake again.”
I smile over at her with a trace of sarcasm.
“You say that, Nora, but one day, you’ll see that I’m right—you mark my words.”
She shrugs and then flips on her blinker.
“So then you don’t regret being in love with Javier?”
That catches me off-guard; it takes me a moment to gather my thoughts. I’ve said on more than one occasion that I’m ashamed to have ever loved a man as cold and brutal as my captor, Javier Ruiz. And I am. The part of me that knows it’s not acceptable in society, is ashamed. But the rest of me is grateful to have loved him.
“No,” I say, “I don’t regret loving Javier. Because that love I felt for him was the only thing that kept me alive the nine years I spent in that compound. It gave me strength—it kept me alive. It wasn’t the same kind of love I feel for Victor, but it was love, nonetheless, and it saved me.”
For the first time ever, since Nora and I met, she seems to have no worthy response.
~~~
Victor is not in the bed when I wake up the next day. He’s always up early, sometimes before dawn. But usually he wakes me with him—says he functions better throughout the day if he can fuck me first thing in the morning. Certainly no arguments here.
I’m disappointed that’s not the case on this day. The only thing left of him is his delicious scent on the pillow next to me, and all over the sheets, and the welcome ache between my legs from the sex we had last night.
I crawl out of bed naked and hop in the shower to get ready for my meeting with everyone eight a.m. sharp about the mission last night. I get dressed in a black pants suit and a pair of black heels. Doing my hair up in a ponytail high at the back of my head, I pull it tight, staring at myself in the mirror for a long, drawn-out moment. I don’t know why I’m so nervous this time; maybe it’s because neither Nora nor Victor would talk about the mission when I was alone with them. Usually they say something, even if only small comments here and there—they’ve never called a meeting to discuss my missions before. Everyone will be there—minus Niklas—even Dorian Flynn; it’ll be his first time joining us at the table again since Victor let him out of the cell, since finding out that Dorian’s loyalties not only lie with Victor Faust, but also with U.S. Intelligence.
Maybe that’s what this is all about, why a meeting has been called: Dorian is being reintroduced into our circle.
Yeah, that’s got to be it, I try to tell myself as I take a deep breath and step away from the mirror. But it doesn’t quell the nervous feeling in my gut.
The large double-doors to the meeting room are closed when I come upon them carrying a bottle of water in one hand and my cell phone in the other.
“Thank you,” I tell the guard standing outside the doors as he opens one for me.
I inhale a deep breath as I step into the large room and five sets of eyes are on me, following my every move as I make my way down the length of the table to my seat on Nora’s right. She sits to Victor’s right now, which bothers me on so many levels, but I know better than to say anything aloud about it.
To break my own tension, I look at Dorian first, and smile.
“It’s good to see you back,” I say as I sit down in my chair.
“It’s good to be back,” he says with a smile even bigger than mine.
His bruises, inflicted by his interrogation by Fredrik, have disappeared. But I notice there are two matching cuts that are still healing, running along both sides of his neck, starting just behind his ears and moving down toward the center of his throat to create an almost perfect upside-down triangle. I shudder and swallow nervously when the image of Fredrik drawing his blade across Dorian’s flesh passes through my mind. But Dorian, so far, seems to be the same as he ever was, sporting that short, spiky blond hair framing a handsome face equipped with a devilish smile and multi-faceted blue eyes he’s famous for.
I turn to Fredrik now, setting my water bottle and cell phone on the table, and I offer him a slim smile, more in my eyes than on my lips. He nods at me in return, which doesn’t seem like much, but is a good sign, considering. I’ll take what I can get, because I love and miss my brother, Fredrik, even if he’s a sick, demented bastard with a bloodlust unmatched by any killer I’ve ever seen.
“Let’s get this underway,” Victor speaks up, raising his back from the chair; he folds his hands together on the table in front of him.
Every one of us turns to look at him simultaneously.
“If it isn’t already obvious,” Victor begins, “I have come to an agreement with Flynn”—all eyes glance at Dorian briefly—“I let him live…at least long enough to see what his employers have to say regarding this deal that Flynn spoke of. I will be meeting with them in two days to discuss an arrangement.”
This isn’t the first I’m hearing of this; Victor has talked with me privately about his decisions concerning Dorian, but as always, I’m sure he didn’t tell me everything, and so I hang on every one of his words just like everybody else at the table.
“In any other case,” he continues, “Flynn would be dead by now, but this is a delicate matter. I do not trust him”—Dorian eyes me regretfully across the table—“but I do not believe he is deceptive in his reasons for being here, either.”
“So you’re going to make a deal with his employers?” Nora speaks up with suspicion in her voice.
“That is still in question,” Victor answers. “As I sai
d, I will be meeting with them first. What decisions are made during and after that meeting will depend on many factors.”
“I think it’s signing a deal with the Devil,” Nora warns. “If you agree to work for them, we’ll all pretty much be under their control—”
“No,” Victor cuts in, and then looks right at Dorian with a sort of quiet threat. “My Order will remain my Order, as Dorian and I have discussed. Nothing will ever be carried out that I do not fully agree to. No changes in my organization will take place unless I am the one to make them. I will owe them nothing and they will abide by my terms, or they will get nothing.” Victor’s eyes fall on each of us in turns as he explains with stiff assurance. “If a deal is made, nothing will change other than the addition of a new client. I will not be intimidated by the government; I will not be threatened; I will not be controlled.”
He turns to Dorian again and holds his unwavering gaze.
“Flynn knows that because his employers are seeking me for help that they are incapable of protecting those he loves from me—including Tessa.”
I swallow hard, knowing that Victor never makes a threat he won’t carry out. But Tessa? She’s an innocent woman—would he really kill her if Dorian or these men he works for, betrays him? I have to believe that he wouldn’t, that this is just for show so that he can keep Dorian in line.
“For the most part, I think Dorian is trustworthy,” I speak up. “I don’t know about his employers—they, probably not so much—but I believe in Dorian.” He smiles gently at me, thanking me with his eyes.
“Even so,” Victor says, “you, nor anyone else in my Order is ever to give Flynn any information that I do not authorize. From here on out, Flynn will take orders only from me; there will be no passing of orders or information of any kind to Flynn unless I specifically command it. Flynn will not go on missions alone, nor will he lead any missions. He must be accompanied by one of you, Niklas, or an agent from the First Division, at all times.”