“Yeah well,” I say with a smirk, “count me out of this one.” I look over at her. “Might want to count me out of the next, oh I dunno, all of them?” I set the burning cigarette in the ashtray, swig down my shot, and go back to staring at the television. “What’s Psycho Bitch Barbie doing here?”
Nora laughs lightly, unfazed by the insult.
“That’s a long story,” she says. “Come with us to Italy and we’ll tell you all about it.”
“Not interested,” I come back quickly. Then I turn and look directly at Nora. “You’re still one of my least favorite people in the world after what you did, so you might wanna stay the fuck away from me.” I turn back at the television.
Izabel sighs and rests both arms on the bar, loosely knitting her long, slender fingers together. I kind of want to look at her, because as much as she pisses me off, she’s the only person in our Order who…I feel sorry for. She doesn’t belong there. She’s a naïve girl with ridiculous ambitions that are going to be the death of her one day. A couple years ago that wouldn’t have bothered me at all—I even tried to kill her myself—but things have changed since then and now she feels more like a responsibility than a threat. I think somewhere along the line I started seeing myself in my brother’s woman: forced into a life she didn’t want at a young age, abused in unimaginable ways, but a fighter and a survivor, and who, because of what she went through, isn’t afraid to kill. I still can only tolerate her so much, but out of us all, Izzy is the closest thing to a human being, and I guess I respect that. Admittedly, she’s even more human than I am.
“Niklas,” Izabel says with surrender, “this is an important mission, and—”
We lock eyes. “Important to my brother,” I point out icily. “I’m kind of not in the mood to make his life easier. He can do the job himself. What, is this his way of trying to bring me back into the fold? Your way maybe?” My eyes find the television again; my cigarette finds my lips. “I’m not interested in making amends, either, so spare me the fucking runaround and either have a drink in this fine establishment”—I wave my hand about the room—“run by this gentleman named Jay”—and then at the bartender—“or find someone else to buzzkill.”
“Stubborn to a fault,” I hear Nora say, and I turn around fast and find myself in her face so close I can smell her toothpaste and that crimson lipstick she wears and the perfume she dabbed between her tits.
“Don’t think I won’t kill you in front of all these people,” I growl under my breath, daring her to say one more fucking word to me.
Nora casually slides off the stool in her black high heels and tight black dress that hugs her hourglass curves.
“I’ll leave this one to you,” she tells Izabel indifferently, and then walks away toward the restrooms.
Fuck that bitch.
I look back in front of me again, curling my fingers around the tiny shot glass, absently grinding my teeth together.
The only thing I find odd about any of this now is that Izabel hasn’t started running her mouth; normally she’d be butting heads with me by now, telling me how much of an asshole I am; her face would be red-hot with anger; she’d want to claw my eyes out of my head—so what’s her problem? She must really be desperate.
“Look,” she finally speaks up, “I’m not here to try getting you and Victor to talk. I would be—I’ve wanted to do that since the day you left—but I know that’s not going to happen overnight, and overnight is all the time we have to get everything together before we leave for Italy in the morning.”
“My brother can get someone else,” I say, steadfast. “It doesn’t have to be me—that’s bullshit.”
“No,” she says, leaning toward me so that I’ll look at her, but I don’t, “it’s not bullshit.” She sighs deeply, preparing her attempt to change my mind, because she knows with me that it better be good. “I know you don’t owe me any favors, Niklas, and I know you’d rather it burn when you piss than to help me with anything, but I’m asking you…please come with us on this mission.”
“Why?” I crush the cigarette in the ashtray.
“Because…” Her words trail, and that alone makes me finally look at her face. What’s she searching for in that impetuous head of hers? Whatever it is, she seems sullen, frustrated by the answer.
“I’m not going,” I cut in, resolved to get this over with so I can go back to watching a football game I don’t care about, drinking whiskey that’ll probably give me the shits later, and eventually going upstairs to my room to pass out on a bed that hurts more than any bullet ever has.
Finally Izabel answers, “If you don’t go, Victor won’t let me go.”
That certainly gets my attention, but I’m careful not to let Izabel notice the extent of it. I have my suspicions about what could be the reasoning behind Victor’s stipulation, but I need more information.
Suddenly I’m lighting up another cigarette.
“Still in need of a chaperone?” I taunt her, smoke streaming from my lips. “Is my brother afraid you might end up in the closet with a boy more your age? Or out of the closet with that bimbo?”
“Don’t be a jerk,” she says defensively, and I feel better now that I’ve finally gotten under her skin a little—I was beginning to think I’d lost my touch. “Just let me explain everything before you say no,” she adds.
Giving in so this can’t be dragged out any more than it’s going to, I turn fully on the bar stool and give Izabel my full attention, careful not to give her any impression that I might change my mind.
“Explain away,” I say with a straight face, motioning my hand. “But the answer will still be no.”
Izabel swallows nervously, and looks around the room for a moment. Then down at her hands still resting atop the bar. Then eventually making her way back up to me. I wish she’d just get on with it, but for some reason, I can’t help but wish she’d just sit there like that, too: quiet and calm and in need; I guess I just find a strange comfort in her complicated innocence.
Her green eyes meet my blue ones.
“He’s sending us to Italy to find and kidnap a madam named Francesca Moretti…” the rest of her words fade into the darkest folds of my mind.
Francesca Moretti was all she had to say—I knew the basic details of this mission before she told me. And, in turn, I realized why my brother will only allow me to escort Izzy there. I don’t know whether to be relieved by the stipulation, or to think of my brother even less than I already do because he’s letting her go on a mission like this at all, with or without me.
Izabel tells me everything, mostly in a quiet voice and choppy sentences that stop and start up again after Jay and nearby customers move in and out of earshot. Then she reaches into her boot and slides a flash drive across the bar to me, in which I pocket immediately.
“The password is MX37A,” she says in a soft voice, leaning toward me. “Nora and I got a chance to look over everything before we came here.”
“Izzy,” I say, not looking at her, “why in the hell do you want to do something like this? After what you went through in Mexico—I just don’t get it. There’s something fundamentally wrong with you, woman.”
Izabel snarls and shakes her head, leaning away from the bar and dropping her hands in her lap.
“It really pisses me off enough that Victor still thinks I’m some messed up girl traumatized by her past—I’m sick of that being thrown up in my face, Niklas.” Her expression hardens, her jaw tightens. “I’m not afraid of it. I don’t flinch and recoil when Victor touches me because I was raped. I don’t have debilitating flashbacks of my old life when someone says a trigger word around me—maybe I should but I don’t. I’m over it, so why can’t everybody else just get over it?” It was more a heated statement than a question.
The light smell of Nora’s perfume wraps around my head again as she walks back up.
“I’m going to wait in the car,” she says and Izabel passes a set of keys to her. Before she leaves, she steps up be
side me and says against my ear, “I look forward to working with you, Niklas. Let’s learn to get along—I’m not the one who betrayed you. Try to remember that.” She walks away through the small crowded bar and clouds of cigarette smoke like a goddess making her way through a crowd of peasants.
“So she’s working for my brother now?” I’m at a loss.
“Like Nora said, it’s a long story, but yes. Niklas, just like with this thing between you and Victor, that’s not what I came here for—I need you on this.”
“You were right,” I say, “I’d rather it burn when I piss.”
Jay walks over to re-fill my shot glass, but Izabel stops him, placing her palm over the top of it. With an uneasy look, Jay walks away.
She leans in closer to me, her darkly painted eyes boring into mine indignantly, her nostrils flaring; she’s fed up with my shit—now that’s the Izzy I’m used to.
I smile to myself.
“Get over yourself, asshole,” she growls and slides the shot glass beneath her palm, away from me. “We’ve all lost people we love. We’ve all done things we regret, things we wish we could take back—every one of us, Niklas.” She leans in even more, closing the space between us so that only I can hear, or probably more-so so that I fully understand the intensity of her words. “But Victor has only ever had his love for you in mind—he killed his father to protect you. And if I remember correctly, before you ever knew about what really happened to Claire, you tried to kill me to protect him.”
She pulls away, but her eyes never leave mine.
Izabel speaks the truth, and I’m not above admitting it, but there’s one thing she fails to understand.
I lean in toward her now, my jaw tightening, my eyes as hard and as cold as hers are.
“My brother wasn’t in love with you yet when I tried to kill you,” I whisper into the small space between our faces, and I see her frown, just a little, enough to show that I’ve already won. “But he knew…he knew I loved Claire when he killed her. He may not admit that to you, or even to himself, but my brother knew and that’s why he killed her—not because she was a job. And nothing he can ever say to me will make me believe otherwise.”
Izabel’s gaze veers from mine and she stares off toward the television behind the bar.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“For what? For something he did? You’re sorry that she died?” I shake my head and look out ahead of me, having nothing more to say—I’ve said more than I wanted to already.
“I’m sorry that the woman you loved died, and that I didn’t.”
My head snaps around.
At first, I think she’s looking for me to pity her in some fucked up way, but when I look at her and see the gravity of her words all over her face, I can’t help but believe she meant what she said, that her guilt runs so much deeper than I could ever know.
“Niklas,” she continues in a low, angry, pain-filled voice, “I live with the guilt of being alive every single day. So many people have died in my place. And when I think about Claire, I feel guilty that I’m here and she’s not, because you loved her and you deserve to be loved the same way that I love your brother, no matter how much of a dick you are.” She pauses, her small shoulders rising and falling with a breath. “I don’t blame you for hating me. But it is what it is, Niklas, and all I can do is at least try to make myself useful. You could do the same, instead of hanging around here with your whiskey and what’s left of your pathetic life.”
She slides off the bar stool, indignation in her movements.
The urge to tell her off, maybe even squeeze her little throat in my hand, is there, somewhere deep inside of me, but instead, I do and say nothing. My silence bothers me more than anything she said—I don’t think any woman has ever managed to shut me up like she just did.
“I’m going to Italy,” she says with resolve, sliding the shot glass back within my reach. “Y’know, you’re wrong when you tell me I’m not cut out for this life, that I shouldn’t be here, that I’m weak and delusional—you’re wrong.” She steps up closer, seizing my gaze. “I can do this job as good as you can.” She slams the side of her hand on the bar top. “Jet leaves at eight-forty-five in the morning; please don’t be late.”
Then she steps away and begins to slip between two tables.
“What the hell makes you think I’m going?” I call out to her over the music.
She keeps on walking, but looks back once long enough to answer, “Because you took the flash drive!” Her tall, slender form dressed in black weaves its way through the bar, past six more full tables and then out the front door.
I turn back to Jay just as he’s walking up.
“Another shot?” he asks, one bushy brow raised higher than the other.
“Keep em’ comin’.”
Damn that woman.
Fredrik
Dante Furlong, my trusty former heroin addict turned personal assistant, stands in my dimly lit living room. His heavily lined face beams with giddy excitement; his eyes wide and bright underneath curly black hair; his brand new teeth—because I pulled out the originals when I tortured him—on display as his lips spread broadly in his smiling face.
“I told you I’d have you one tonight,” he says eagerly. “I mean, I did worry at first, having only a day to pull it off, but I did it.”
“Where is he?” I ask casually as I walk past him and set my briefcase on the floor beside the sofa.
“In my trunk right now,” he answers and points at the front door just steps away. “Want me to drag him into the basement?”
“Yes,” I say, fishing my car keys from my pocket. “I’m going to shower first.”
Dante’s laugh sticks in his throat. He shakes his head¸ smiling.
“Shit, I’d think you’d wanna shower after the bloodbath.” He puts up his hands in surrender when he sees the look of disapproval on my face—he knows I don’t like him to question the details of my…obsession. “But hey,” he defends, “I’m sure you have your reasons.”
I look away and drop my keys on the coffee table.
“I’ll be away for a few days after tomorrow,” I tell him as I break apart the buttons of my dress shirt. “I want you to clean my house and not be here when I return.”
“Oh sure, sure,” Dante agrees, nodding quickly. “Whatever you say, boss. Are ya’ bringin’ a woman back?” A wicked grin deepens in his face; his thick eyebrows dance in his forehead. “That last one I saw you with at the hotel, the black-haired one”—he stops to wet his lips—“goddamn she was beautiful. I don’t know how you do it, hook up with women like that. I’m lucky to bring a skank home to my apartment. You’re a lucky guy, Gustavsson. Lucky, lucky, lucky!”
Uninterested in talking about my sexual encounters, which have only been with one women as of late, I don’t respond. Dante isn’t my conversational type—he’s disgusting and unprofessional and has never said anything I can recall that came close to being profound or intelligent. I only keep him around because he can get me the criminals I need to put in my chair. He knows where to find them at a moment’s notice, how to lure them into dark alleys and abandoned buildings to knock them out and bring them to me. Of course, I’m perfectly capable of doing these things myself, but I haven’t the time. And I pay him well to do it for me.
Dante starts for the front door, and stops in front of it, looking back at me.
“Maybe you could…you know, find me a woman like that.” He smiles squeamishly, unsure if he should be suggesting such a thing.
“I pay you enough that you can buy your own woman, Dante.” I wave a hand, palm up, in front of me. “Every city has its high-dollar whores.”
“Oh, but I don’t want to pay for one,” he says. “I want one who wants to sleep with me, y’know? Just like they do you.”
I shake my head and drop my dress shirt on the arm of the sofa.
“I’m sorry, but that’s not really something I can help you with.”
He sighs with disap
pointment and then reaches for the door knob.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he says. “But maybe you could at least tell me how you do it—give me a few pointers sometime.”
“I’ll think about it.” This is a ridiculous conversation, but it won’t do any good to tell him that.
When he opens the front door, which I realize far too late had never been closed all the way, I’m surprised to see Emily standing on the other side of it, clothed in her dress uniform from the diner she works at.
I close my eyes momentarily and inhale a breath laced with regret—because I know she must’ve heard everything.
Dante looks back and forth between us, as surprised as I am to see this young woman standing there. I never bring women to my home—always to hotels—but I have been bringing Emily here. Because I was beginning to like her. I’d never told Dante about her.
Emily, with long, golden-brown hair draping her shoulders, folds her hands down in front of her; her face is downcast, wounded.
“I-I’m sorry…” she says, pausing, searching, but instead of continuing, she turns on her heels and goes to leave.
“Emily, wait a second.” I move past Dante, shutting him off inside the house and following Emily down the rocks steps. “I don’t know what all you heard”—suddenly I feel panicky inside, hoping, more than anything that she didn’t hear the parts about the man in the trunk—that’s a much larger problem to fix.
Emily stops on the sidewalk and turns around to me.
“Look, you’re a wonderful guy—at least, I thought you were—but I’m just…sorry Fredrik, but I’m not going to be one of your whores.”
Her long hair swishes behind her as she whips back around and heads for her car parked on the street.
I don’t go after her.
I never should’ve perused her to begin with. She’s a sweet, innocent, beautiful girl who wants to be a nurse to help save lives—I’m a dark, wicked monster that feels great pleasure in bringing bastards to the brink of the end of their lives. And that darkness grows inside of me more every day. Sometimes the torture isn’t enough anymore. And that scares me. A little.