“If she’s working alone,” James says, “that means no one’s watching Dorian’s ex-wife, or your mom. If she dies here, that means there’s no one out there to hurt them.”
“Or, it means that their bonds were tighter, or they were locked in a room and can’t get out,” I say, “and if Nora dies then she can’t tell us where to find them and they’ll die anyway.”
James shifts uncomfortably next to me, knowing that I’m right.
“Or, it means that she isn’t working alone,” I go on, my gaze still fixed on the street, “and that your daughters getting away was all just part of her plan.”
I glance over. James has that look on his chubby face, the one where he feels stupid and regrets saying anything.
“I’m sorry, James,” I say. “I know you’re trying to be positive and I appreciate that. I really do”—I sigh long and deep and change the subject—“I really hate that woman. I’ve said it a hundred times, to Victor, to myself, but I feel like I can’t say it enough. I hate her but at the same time, I wish I was more like her.”
“Why?” He seems shocked by such a ridiculous confession. “She’s just a manipulative, wicked leech, Izabel. She gets off on messing with people’s heads. You’re so much more woman than she is. And I think you’re sexier, too.”
I glance over again and he’s grinning dopily.
I allow him a faint smile, just enough to let him know that I appreciate that, but it fades just as quickly.
“She’s almost everything I want to be,” I admit, looking out at the dark, quiet city again. “She knows what she’s doing. And she’s good at it—I wish Victor had more time to train me. To be better. I thought I was doing all right for a long time, but with Nora being here, pulling out every single fucking one of my flaws—even ones I didn’t know I had—and flashing them around, I just don’t feel so good about myself anymore. I feel like I’ve taken ten steps backward.”
“Then do something about it,” he says. “At least you can fix your flaws. You’re young and beautiful and healthy. Me”—he points at himself with both chunky hands—“I’m not so easy to fix. I’m a disgusting fat fucker who gets winded going up three flights of stairs. And I’m too old and too unhealthy to lose weight or better myself at all, really. My hair is almost gone. I’m unfaithful to the only woman who has ever really put up with my shit. It’d take more than a treadmill and hair implants to help me.”
“First of all,” I say, pointing my finger at him, “don’t call yourself a disgusting fat fucker. I admit you’re not exactly my type, but you’re a good guy, James. A little creepy sometimes and you need to work on your dependent personality, and, Jesus Christ lose that choke-the-fuck-out-of-me cologne, but otherwise there’s nothing wrong with you—and you must be doing something right with the ladies—you have enough kids.” A grin sneaks over my lips briefly. He blushes. “You’re a good father—I never had one. And you’re an asset to Victor. He wouldn’t have you here involved in this business, trusting you with top secret information, if he didn’t think you were important and had something worthwhile to contribute. So, don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“Hmmm,” he says, “sounds like somebody should take her own advice.”
I look at him and hold my gaze this time.
“You think someone like Victor Faust would keep a woman around just because he was sleeping with her, or had feelings for her?” he says, making a point that I easily get. “He’s too careful, and has way too much invested in this to make mistakes like that. If he didn’t think you were an asset, he may still be in love with you, but you’d be more like a Tessa than an Izabel.”
My gaze drifts as I sit in thought.
“So, whatever you’re unhappy with about yourself,” he goes on, “just fix it.”
A black car pulls up in front of the building below and the headlights shut off. Pushing myself to my feet, I look down from the roof of the building to see a tall, dark-haired devil getting out of the driver’s side door.
“Holy shit…it’s Fredrik.” I’m so shocked all I can do for a long moment is stare from the rooftop at the top of Fredrik’s head until he disappears from my sight heading into the building.
James gets to his feet with difficulty.
“Are you sure?” he asks once he’s standing upright.
We’re five-stories up and it’s dark, but I know that’s Fredrik. I just know it.
“Definitely. Let’s go!”
I walk briskly toward the rooftop door. James follows closely behind, the sound of his dress pants shuffling over the concrete as he tries to keep up. Placing both hands on the lever handle running horizontally across the door, I give it a heavy shove and it swings open, hitting the brick wall behind it with a bang that echoes through the stairwell far out ahead of us.
“Wow, I…didn’t really think he was…gonna show!” James says from behind, winded.
I take the steps one at a time, but quickly, until we reach the industrial-sized elevator.
“I didn’t either,” I say once James is inside with me.
The door slides closed and the elevator moves with a slight jolt. The light above us flickers for a moment until the elevator settles.
“Looks like the game just changed in our favor,” he says with an air of excitement. “She may have met her match.”
“That’s what worries me,” I say, staring at my warped reflection in the silver elevator door. “Nora was right about Fredrik—he won’t break. So, if he can’t break her, we’ll never know where she’s holding Dina. And he might kill her.”
“Oh, I think Mr. Gustavsson will definitely break her,” he says with confidence and a smile in his voice.
“I’m not so sure this time…” I say distantly, worried.
“Well, either way,” James says, “things just got more interesting.”
“Yeah…they have…”
17
Izabel
I burst through the door at the end of the hall, engulfed by bright lights and shiny tile and white walls. James is behind me. As we’re hurrying down the long stretch of hallway, I see three tall figures appear at the other end—Fredrik, carrying a briefcase, is in front of Victor and Niklas. He’s dressed in a posh black suit and shiny black shoes; a gorgeous, frightening man who was once my friend and who I loved like a brother.
My breath catches when his eyes sweep over mine so briefly that I begin to question if it ever happened at all. My steps slow as we draw closer. I feel like this is my first time ever laying eyes on him, as though I never laughed with him or helped him when he was at his weakest—he is a different man, I’ve known this for months, but only now am I seeing just how different, because I feel like I don’t know him at all and never did. He scares me. In the deepest depths of my soul, he truly scares me…but I still love him.
Victor and Niklas look at me simultaneously as I walk up; Niklas with a grim look in his eyes full of anticipation but little hope; Victor with…nothing, as usual, and now more than ever it’s really beginning to bother me.
Fredrik punches the code on the door panel and says nothing as he disappears inside the room with Nora. The sound of the door shutting softly is the only sound for a long time as the rest of us just stare in the direction of where Fredrik just stood. We look at each other once more, all wondering the same thing—can he break her, and if not, will he kill her? The answer is yes to at least one of those questions.
Without a word, I break into a full-on run down the hallway, dashing past Victor and Niklas and heading toward the elevator. But then as I approach it, I take a sharp left and go for the stairs instead because I think I can run faster to the fifth floor than the elevator can take me there.
In under a minute, I’m pushing my way through the surveillance room, around a rolling chair and to the television screens on the tables.
Victor, Niklas and James join me shortly after.
“Where’s the volume on this thing?” I ask anxiously, running my hands along several dif
ferent buttons and then the computers. I know where it is, have even used it myself before, but my mind is so scattered right now by the turn of events that I’m not thinking straight.
Calm down, Izabel…this is the worst time to lose your head.
Victor steps up next to me and clicks a computer mouse a few times until Nora’s voice gradually fills the surveillance room.
Fredrik says nothing.
Calmly and methodically, he opens his black briefcase on the table pushed against the wall. A shiver moves up my spine and an uncomfortable chill settles in the pit of my stomach when I see his ‘tools’ and syringes and the stuff of nightmares, all fixed perfectly inside the case, each piece placed in its spot with fine precision.
“Izabel,” Victor says beside me, “you shouldn’t get your hopes up on this.”
I glance over. “Why? Because even if Fredrik breaks her—or confesses—you’re going to be the one who gets Dina killed?” I look back at the screen, not knowing if my accusation cut him or not.
I love Victor—I love that man so fucking much—but right now, I can’t even look at him.
And the only faces I see, or want to see, are Nora and Fredrik’s.
Leaning on the table with my palms pressed against it, I stare into the middle screen, consumed by what’s going on in that room, but afraid to watch just the same. I feel like I’m in a movie theatre, watching a horror film, knowing that at some point I’m going to have to cover my eyes and watch through the slits in my fingers. I’ve never been able to stomach seeing the things that Fredrik does to people during an interrogation. And I never will. I may be a killer, I may have seen and experienced many horrific things, but some things you just never can get used to.
“What shall I call you?” Nora says from her chair with a deep smile in her voice and equally on her lips. “The Specialist? Interrogator? Or perhaps,”—she narrows her eyes and looks at him in a sidelong manner, preparing to push a button—“The Jackal?”
Fredrik doesn’t flinch. Just watching him as he moves certain tools from the briefcase to the table with absolutely no emotion, tells me that he isn’t even flinching on the inside, either.
“How about a first name basis then?” Nora offers with a restricted shrug. “Since you’re about to get very personal with me, I think it’s only fair.”
No answer. Not even the skirting of an eye.
Fredrik very casually removes his suit jacket and lays it neatly across the table about a foot away from the briefcase. Then he breaks apart the buttons on the cuffs of his dress shirt, very slowly, as if he were just coming home from a day at the office and is preparing to shower. He rolls his sleeves past his elbows. Still, he doesn’t look back at her, or say a word, or even remotely show a sign that he hears anything she’s saying.
But Nora doesn’t seem to be discouraged—her smile just gets brighter, her eyes seem to fill with intrigue and playfulness.
If I were the one in the chair, I would’ve pissed myself already.
“What, no conversation?” Nora taunts. “No dinner and a movie before our first kiss? I happen to like the foreplay, Fredrik, so maybe you could give in a little.”
He snaps a pair of white latex gloves onto his hands.
Then he approaches her casually with a pair of pliers.
Oh god…not the teeth.
He always pulls the teeth. I can’t imagine what he went through as a child to make him take so much pleasure in pulling his victim’s teeth.
Nora’s eyes skirt the pliers as he walks up, and I expect to see even the smallest inkling of fear in her face, but I don’t.
Her mouth turns up on one corner.
Without a word, Fredrik takes Nora by the chin, digging his long fingers into her jaw and forcing her head back on her neck. Her mouth opens as he squeezes, but Nora doesn’t scream or cry or beg. She does nothing. Only when he clamps the pliers around one of her back teeth does Nora begin to show signs of discomfort. She gags as the pliers hit the back of her tongue, and then she cries out a little in response to the pain as he wrenches the pliers back and forth, side to side, until he gets the tooth out.
“Goddamn!” Nora shouts; laughter mixed with pain. Blood drips down her chin. “Not one word? Talk about playing hard to get.”
Fredrik walks casually back over to the table where he drops the tooth.
“You have thirty-one more of these,” Fredrik says impassively, approaching her again. “Now tell me, where are the people you abducted?”
Nora smiles and doesn’t answer.
He gags her again and removes another back tooth.
Two more teeth later, he begins to change his questions.
“Where did you get your information on Dorian Flynn?”
Nothing.
“Where did you get your information on Victor Faust?”
Nothing.
“Where did you get your information on Niklas Fleischer?”
Nothing.
He takes out another tooth.
“Fuuuck you!” she growls. Her breathing is rapid and unsteady. Blood pours down her chin and from the corners of her mouth.
He finally has her attention.
“Where did you get your information on James Woodard?”
Still nothing when he finally gets around to naming me.
Nora spits blood at him, and he pulls away from her with a blood-flecked white dress shirt.
Seeing that Nora may need something more intense than the pulling of her teeth, I step away from the screen and put my back to it when I watch him retrieve a vial of needles from his briefcase.
I can never watch this. Just the thought of needles being shoved underneath anyone’s fingernails, makes me shake.
A minute later, Nora’s screams are so blood-curdling that I have to cover my ears, pressing both hands firmly over them.
Suddenly, the surveillance room door swings open and I’m outside in the hall. James joins me.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he says, trembling underneath his plaid shirt with sweat at the armpits, “I just can’t watch that.”
“I thought you admired him,” I say, still trembling.
“I do,” he says as he slips a finger behind the neck of his shirt and pulls it away from his skin, “but I never claimed to be able to stomach what he does. I admire him because he’s not afraid of anything. Because everyone I know is afraid of him.”
Nora’s screams make it to my ears out in the hall since the surveillance room door is still open. I clasp my hands against the sides of my head again, wincing.
Niklas appears in the doorway and starts to close it after seeing how much it’s affecting me, but I shake my head and stop him.
“No,” I say, “leave it open. I want hear if she says anything.”
“Are you sure, Iz?”
“Yeah,” I nod in a rapid, uneasy motion. “I’ll be fine.”
He shakes his head with a sigh as if he doesn’t really believe me, and then goes back inside to watch with Victor.
Thirty minutes later I’m sitting on the floor in the hallway with my back pressed to the wall and my knees drawn up.
And Nora still hasn’t answered a single question.
I’m starting to fear for her. I may want her to die, but I wouldn’t want to die like that and I just wish she’d talk. Say something to ease her pain and mine.
“What’s he doing?” I hear Niklas say with curiosity.
Hesitantly, I get up from the floor, and with a bit of talking myself into it, I go into the room to look at the screen.
Fredrik has cut her out of her bonds and unlocked the cuffs from her ankles and wrists.
“I won’t tell you anything,” Nora says in a pain-filled, raspy voice as he forces her to stand on her feet.
She doesn’t struggle or even try to get away, but I think the pain she’s coping with has a lot to do with it.
“Faust tells me you’re a daughter of the SC-4,” Fredrik says, as calmly as ever. He strips off her black silk shirt and wa
lks her over to the wall. She doesn’t struggle when he presses her against it. “Raise your arms,” he says, and she does.
Her hands are stained with blood, the tips of her fingers swollen and red. Her body shakes pressed against the wall from the front. But still, she doesn’t relent. She’s in undeniable pain and I know she wants to end it, but she doesn’t break.
My god…her back…what did they do to her?
Nora’s back is covered in deep scars, crisscrossing in a horrific pattern from one shoulder to the other and from the top of her spine to the top of her hips. Old scars. Made by a whip of sorts, or maybe even a blade—from the looks of them, probably both.
Fredrik slips a knife underneath her bra straps and cuts them off. The black bra falls to the floor, leaving her exposed.
“It was a question,” Fredrik says from behind her. “Are you a member of the Shadow Sect?”
Fucking answer him! I scream inside my head. Please, Nora!
I don’t know why I care, but I do.
Answer him!
“Yes,” Nora says. “My father was Solis.”
“And where is Solis now?”
“I killed him.”
So that’s who she killed for her freedom. That’s who she wouldn’t tell Victor about.
Victor and Niklas glance at each other.
“Is she talking?” James asks as he decides to join us again.
“Yes,” Victor says, staring at the screen, “but she’s only telling him things she wants us to know.”
I look at Victor, as hard as it is to tear my eyes away from the screen.
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