Reviving Izabel (30 page)

He knows I dislike it when he smokes inside, but I suppose I need to cut my brother some slack, seeing as how he has done so much for me, and for Sarai, in the past several months.

“No disrespect, brother,” Niklas says as smoke streams from his lips, “but what are you going to do about her? You can’t juggle both lives, and you know it. And we can’t use our resources forever for babysitting, not when it’s someone like her who isn’t so easy to keep up with. She’s as reckless as I was at twenty-three.”

I nod. “Yes, you’re right about that,” I say. “She is more like you than I care to admit.”

Niklas grins and flicks his ashes in the little plastic ashtray.

“Oh come on, brother, I’m not so bad, am I?”

I don’t need to answer that question and he knows it.

He takes another short pull from the cigarette and sets it down on the edge of the ashtray.

“So then what are you going to do?” he asks.

He leans his back against the chair again and interlocks his fingers fitted behind his head.

“Are you sure you want to know the answer to that?” I ask.

That seems to have piqued his curiosity.

“Hell yes, I want to know.” His hands come away from the back of his head and he leans over forward, resting the length of his arms across the tabletop. He looks worried. “What have you done?”

I pause and answer, “While at Fredrik’s house, after a lot of pleading, and Sarai threatening me with her safety, I agreed to help train her.”

“
What
?”

“Yes,” I confirm it for him because he seems to need the confirmation. “She’s adamant about killing Hamburg and Stephens herself. I could do it but—”

“You
should
do it, Victor.”

“No,” I say, shaking my head, “I gave her my word—”

“So fucking what,” Niklas argues. “Victor, it’s suicide. What the hell were you thinking?” He seizes the cigarette back into his fingers and takes a longer pull as if needing the nicotine to calm his nerves. Craning his neck, thick smoke streams from his lips into the air above him.

“It isn’t something I haven’t thought of before,” I admit, “long before she pulled this stunt with Hamburg, long before she gave me the ultimatum. I want her with
me
, Niklas. I want to teach her. I believe she is capable of succeeding. And she refuses to be babysat. By anyone. Particularly me.”

“And what if she
doesn’t
succeed?” Niklas looks upon me, sincerity and concern hardening his features. Concern for me and not necessarily for Sarai. “Victor, you’re setting yourself up for a lifetime of pain. Falling for a woman.” He laughs derisively, though more at himself, I know. “I fell for a woman once—you remember—and you see what it got me. What it got
her
. She ended up dead and I ended up destroyed because of it.” He shakes his head. “And do I need to remind you what happened when Fredrik fell in love? No, I didn’t think so.”

He stands up, snuffing the cigarette out in the ashtray.

“I’m sorry, Victor, but I think this is a really bad fucking idea.”

“But it’s the only idea,” I say calmly. “And I hope that you will respect it enough that we don’t have a repeat of Los Angeles.”

I knew my words would sting him, using the incident when he shot Sarai in a hotel, an incident that he thought we had gotten past. Niklas looks down at me, resentment and pain in his eyes.

“
Really
, brother?” he asks with disbelief, propping his hands on the edge of the table and leaning forward. “After everything I’ve done all these months to help
protect
her? After I gave you my word, as your brother, as your
blood
, that I’d never do anything to harm her again? If I wanted her dead, I could’ve killed her a thousand times over. You
know
this, Victor. I thought we were over this.”

I lower my eyes, letting the guilt of my accusation do what it wants with me. Niklas is loyal to me. He always has been. When he shot Sarai in Los Angeles and tried to kill her, it was only because of his love and loyalty to me. Because he knew that the way she had compromised me was going to be my undoing, that it was going to get me killed. And while although I don’t excuse what he did and I will never forgive him for it—and he knows this—I understand why he did it, just the same.

In our kind of life sometimes terrible things must be done to those we love to clear a path for new beginnings. My brother, as intolerable as he may be, is no exception. In fact, he is a prime example of that rule.

And today things are different. He will not kill her, but he will not hesitate to kill
for
her.

“I do trust you, Niklas,” I say. “I hope you believe that.”

He nods slowly, forgiving me, appearing absorbed in deep thought.

“I’m not asking you to prove it, Victor,” he says, “but there’s something that needs to be done. For the sake of our business. For the sake of our lives.” He begins to pace, back and forth near the length of the table.

“What is it?” I ask, looking up at him from my chair.

He stops at the center of the table, crosses his arms and looks down at me with a look of uneasiness on his face.

“If Sarai is going to be involved in our operations in any way whatsoever,” he begins cautiously, “you know she must be put through the same level of tests that anyone else working for us would be put through. Because you have feelings for her doesn’t make that rule any different.”

“What are you saying?” I ask.

I know precisely what he’s saying, but what I really want to know is how far he wants to take this. Niklas has never been known to half-ass anything.

“I’m saying,” he goes on, “that I know you don’t want to go through what Fredrik went through with Seraphina. And I know you don’t want a repeat of Samantha. Sarai’s loyalty to you must be tested. I’m not saying this because I have some kind of underlying vendetta against her, or because I want her to betray you so that I can prove a point.” He puts up his hands. “I only want to know that she can be trusted, that if she’s ever compromised, that she can’t be broken and compromise the rest of us.”

“I trust her,” I say. “I know she wouldn’t betray me. I trust her.”

It doesn’t matter how many times I say those words aloud or in my head.
I trust her. I trust Sarai. I trust her.
I know that Niklas is right. There is too much at stake. Our black market business, our lives and the lives of the many people who work under us. And with Vonnegut and the Order incessantly in search of me, I cannot take any chances.

“What do you propose?” I ask, accepting the truth.

Niklas nods, relieved by my cooperation and understanding.

He takes a breath and prepares to explain.

“I will approach Hamburg,” he begins. “I will gain his trust by falsely selling you out to him. He’ll believe that I’m just an unforgiving brother who has been commissioned by my own Order to kill you since you went rogue and betrayed us all. All for the sake of one girl. A girl who, it is no secret to people like me, Hamburg wants dead now more than ever.”

I’m already nodding in agreement before he’s done explaining, a vivid image of the scenario playing out in my mind.

“When the time is right,” he continues, “I’ll lead Hamburg’s men straight to Sarai…”

Niklas goes on about the plot to initiate Sarai and at the same time, get Hamburg and Stephens where we want them.

“But I don’t want her hurt,” I say. “If we do this, you have to give me your word that you will not let anyone go too far. That
you
will not go too far.” I narrow my gaze on him.

“How much can she take?” he inquires.

“She can take a lot,” I say. “She is strong. But before it goes down, I want her to train as much as she can. I can take her to Spencer and Jacquelyn in Santa Fe. The experience will toughen her up some more. Let me prepare her as much as I can in the little time we have before we do this.”

“OK,” Niklas agrees.

“You know she’s going to hate you even more when this is all over,” I point out.

Niklas nods. “Yeah, I imagine she will. But I don’t care how much she hates me. I’m not the one who has to sleep with her.” He laughs lightly. “It’s a risk I’m willing to take for the sake of everything. The real concern is, how much will she hate
you
once it’s all over?”

I look away, staring off toward the wall. “It’s a risk I’m also willing to take,” I say distantly.

“Maybe she’ll understand,” he says, trying to ease the worried thoughts written all over my face. “If she’s going to be a part of us, to be a part of
you
, she’ll need to know how and when to separate your working relationship from your emotional relationship.”

“Yes,” I say, “she will need to learn that.”

He slaps his hands gently against the table.

“And if she’s as strong as you say she is, then she’ll understand and be able to get past it.”

I say nothing more.

“So then it’s settled. I’ll head to Los Angeles tonight. I have a meeting with Fredrik, anyway.”

“I take it he still hasn’t mentioned anything about me to you?” I ask.

“Nope,” Niklas says. “The guy is as solid as a Catholic behind a confession booth. He’s not going to betray you, Victor. Why do you still worry that he will?” Niklas grabs his cigarettes and car keys from the table. “He passed your test months ago. How long did they have him in that room for? Six days? Fredrik is loyal. He can’t be broken.”

“I’m not so sure,” I say, staring down at the wood grain in the table. “You seem to forget what Fredrik’s specialty is. He brutally tortures people and quite enjoys it. I think if anyone can get through an interrogation without breaking, it’s Fredrik Gustavsson.”

Niklas looks at me in a sidelong manner.

“What are you thinking?” he asks, intrigued by my train of thought.

I look up at him.

“I have one more test to put Fredrik through,” I say. “If I leave him alone with Sarai, he will believe that I trust him fully. It will seem as though I’ve let my guard down.” I stand up and walk toward the bookshelf, thinking long and hard about this new plan that I’ve only just devised. “If he contacts you and tells you that he has Sarai, then we’ll know that his loyalties truly lie with the Order. Sarai is the perfect bait. What better way to allow Vonnegut to lure me than to use the girl I…,”

Silence ensues. I feel Niklas’ inquisitive eyes on me from behind.

“The girl you’re falling in love with?” he says.

I pause. “Yes…,” I whisper.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Sarai

I haven’t spoken to Victor in hours. Three at least. I’ve let him undress and bathe me and tend to my wounds. I’ve listened to him ‘explain himself’, though in a manner only someone as relationship-challenged as Victor Faust can be. He didn’t resort to pleading with me to speak to him, to stop giving him the silent treatment. He just talked. As calmly as any conversation he’s ever had with me, though this time it was very one-sided. But I did detect the worry in his voice, although he masked it well. I did sense when he touched me, brushing my hair, cleaning the debris from the wounds on my back, that he had wanted to touch me more affectionately. He wanted to pull me close and hold me there in his arms. But I knew he didn’t want to cross his bounds.

And he was smart not to, because I would’ve punched him in the face.

By nightfall, although exhausted and still in pain from my head to my feet, I’m well enough that I can walk about the house on my own, though carefully because my back is pretty messed up. Victor had left me to be alone in the bedroom of his Albuquerque house. I needed time to myself, to think about everything that happened, about what he and Niklas put me through. I needed time to take into consideration Victor’s reasons. I could give a shit less what Niklas’ reasons were or what part he played in it. Niklas isn’t worth my time much less my thoughts. Victor, on the other hand…A part of me wants to feel betrayed, as if it’s the normal thing to do. I feel like I should curl up on the floor and cry, to beat the walls with my fists, to dwell in my own self-pity, also only because it seems the normal thing to do. But that’s not me. And I’m not normal. And nothing about my life or Victor’s life even comes
close
to normal.

I know Victor wonders what I’m thinking. He worries about how deeply my anger towards him runs, if it’s so deep that I’ll never be able to pull myself to the surface long enough to forgive him. I know he’s probably convinced that my silence is the only answer I’m ever going to give.

But he’s wrong.

I stop him before he leaves the bedroom after coming in to get something from his briefcase.

“Was it Niklas’ idea?” I ask from the bed.

I hope like hell that it was.

Victor stops in front of the door with his back to me, and instead of opening it the rest of the way, he shuts it. He sets the black file folder he took from the briefcase down on the tall chest of drawers near the door, and comes over to me. His black dress shirt hangs untucked over the top of his pants. His long sleeves are pushed up against his elbows, exposing the masculinity of his forearms and the strength of his hands.

I raise my shoulder from the headboard and sit on the edge of the bed, dropping my feet onto the floor. I’m dressed in a thin, loose red top that doesn’t rub against my back too much, and a pair of jogging shorts.

“Yes, technically it was,” he answers.

“
Technically
?” I ask with a scowl.

He sits down beside me, his arms resting atop his dress pants, his hands touching his knees.

“No one is exempt from the trials,” he says. “Niklas simply had to remind me of that when it came to you. It’s all about trust—”

“You didn’t trust me already?” I counter.

“Yes, I trusted you,” he says evenly, looking ahead. “But what we put you through was necessary, Sarai. You wanted in.
I
wanted you in. If that was going to happen it had to be done by the book or there would always be conflict among the rest of us. My judgment would constantly be questioned. You would always be held in suspicion. No one is exempt. Fredrik wasn’t. That man at the back of Hamburg’s restaurant who helped you get away. The man who carts Mrs. Gregory around to safe-house locations.”