Seeds of Iniquity

  That gets my attention.

  She tilts her head. “I really hope for your sake that no one is listening in on our conversation this time.”

  “You don’t know anything about me,” I snap, unconfident. “My real name—so what. That’s not hard to find out. Just like James’s birth record information. I think you’re a fraud.”

  Nora smiles and motions to the chair again.

  “A fraud, maybe,” she says, taunting me as always, “but a fraud who controls whether Dina Gregory lives or dies, nonetheless. Please, have a seat, so we can be at eye level.”

  I round my chin, gritting my teeth, but once again she has my attention.

  “Are you asking or telling?”

  “I’m asking,” she says calmly. “Please. Sit.” She opens her hand in gesture.

  Her strange change of attitude catches me off-guard, but it’s only after I finally sit down that I realize she still got me to do it. She doesn’t say anything in the way of mockery, but I know, just by that faint look of satisfaction in her eyes that she’s jotting down another win in her mental notebook.

  I say nothing, and try to maintain my own influence; what’s left of it anyway.

  “How about this,” I say, crossing my legs and my arms, “you tell me a little about you first, just so we can get more…comfortable with each other. And then I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

  “Did my blood not suffice?” she asks with a knowing smirk. “I gave it to them freely, you know. Because they’ll find nothing on me.” She holds up both hands, palms facing me. “Fingerprints?”—she chuckles elegantly—“won’t find anything on those either, I’m afraid.”

  “So then let’s talk,” I say.

  Nora leans forward, laying her arms across the table, though they only reach from the middle of her forearms, the chains hooked to the handcuffs preventing them to go any farther.

  “I told you,” she says, “I’m not here to answer your questions.”

  I stand up and boldly move my chair the rest of the way over and place it at the table within her reach. I’m not afraid of her and I want her to know it.

  She grins looking up at me and her eyes follow mine all the way back down as I take my seat again, just a couple of feet across from her. Then I lean forward just like her, laying my arms across the table in front of me and enclosing my hands.

  I glance at my fingers and then look her dead in the eyes. “I have all of mine,” I say with cruel mockery. Then I lay my hands flat on the cool metal tabletop, spreading my fingers outward—unpainted manicured nails, a white-gold ring on my pinky finger with a three-carat diamond, another one—silver with a black onyx stone—on my right thumb. I slide the ring off the right pinky finger and place it on my left, afterwards holding my hand up in front of me as if to admire it.

  Then I turn it around, my palm facing me, so that she can see it, too.

  “There’s something about a woman’s hands that’s irresistible to some men,” I begin, taunting her in my most controlled tone. “The same kind of men who love the shape of a woman’s neck, or the slope of her shoulders, or the daintiness of her wrists. These are the sophisticated men, the kind of men who can offer a woman a more…intelligent relationship.” I turn my hand back and forth slowly in front of us, looking at that ring shining on my pinky finger, and the more I talk, the more a sort of darkness begins to shift in her eyes—I’m pulling at straws here, but it seems to be working. “Then there are the breast and ass men. Most of them just horny amateurs who have no sexual control.” I glance at her pinky finger again. “You’re a beautiful woman,” I say. “Nice breasts, nice ass, but that hand of yours really isn’t doing you any favors. I hope the one who took your finger got what was coming to them.”

  Nora slides her hands off the table and rests them in her lap. And although I seem to have pinched a nerve somewhat, her sly smile stays intact.

  Maybe vanity is the kink in her armor instead of confidence.

  “You’re exactly as I’ve always imagined you’d be,” she says, seemingly unscathed. “Young, inexperienced, mouthy, overly confident, quick-tempered, and too far in over your head.” She leans forward again, but keeps her hands in her lap; the light beaming from the dome-shaped fixture centered high over the table makes her blonde hair and red lipstick glisten. “But you won’t last in this underground world, Sarai Cohen. You think that being a sex slave for nine years, subjected to horrific abuse and death and the darkest side of human nature, makes you fit for a lifestyle of professional killing, suitable to sit at that table among men who are so far out of your league.” Her sly smile stretches amid her creamy, but bruised face. “But more than that, you’re certainly out of your league when it comes to me. So, if I were you, I’d drop the desperate attempt to trump me at my own game, and play the only pathetic hand you have.”

  Her words did sting, more than I thought they could, but I don’t let it show on my face. At least I hope not.

  I smile and enclose my hands on the table again.

  I know deep down that I should keep my mouth shut, that I should let her get on with this, but I’m pissed and I can’t help it—she has the quick-tempered part right at least.

  “Just tell me who it was,” I say, spurring her on, “who cut it off. Was it a man? An ex-lover? A husband? No?” I purse my lips. She shifts a little in her chair. “A woman then? Ah, that must be it—you’re a lesbian, aren’t you?” I grin.

  But I think I’ve lost her now, gone too far off the track because her smile returns, so I go back in the opposite direction.

  “Was it your daddy then?” My eyes are alight with excitement, my lips turning up on one side—I’ve definitely struck a nerve. “It was, wasn’t it? Why did your daddy cut off the tip of your finger, Nora?”

  Her smile disappears from her face in an instant. Her breathing becomes deeper, exhaling audibly from her flaring nostrils.

  “You tell me your secret,” I say, “and I’ll tell you mine—why did Daddy cut off your poor finger?”

  White teeth bared behind red lips come toward me over the table so fast my eyes close and my hands come up instinctively to block myself from the force of the blow. I feel like I’m falling only seconds as my chair goes backward with Nora on top of me, until it hits the hard floor. A flash of light and spots spring before my eyes and pain sears through my skull as my head bounces off the tile.

  Victor

  Niklas and Dorian run toward the door, intent on rushing to Izabel’s aid.

  “Stop!” I order them, keeping my eyes on the screen.

  “Victor, she might kill her,” Dorian says.

  “How the fuck did she get the cuffs off her hands?!” Niklas shouts.

  Woodard stands off to my left, watching the violent scene unfold on the screen, one arm crossed over his rounded stomach, the other hand dancing on his lips nervously.

  “You can’t leave her in there,” Dorian adds with determination.

  Izabel and Nora take turns serving blows. Nora is on top of Izabel, raining her fists down on her head, and while it is rather difficult for me to watch, I know I must let it run its course.

  I turn to Niklas and Dorian.

  “Izabel can handle herself,” I say.

  “I’m not so sure,” Niklas says, clearly concerned for Izabel. “It took three of us to get a hold on her in the auditorium.”

  I look right at my brother.

  “She’ll be fine.”

  Both of them hesitate before giving in and they walk back over to stand in front of the screens.

  “I hope you’re right, brother.” Niklas crosses his arms.

  Keeping my eyes trained on the fight, all I can think is that…I hope I’m right too.

  Izabel

  The metal chair I had been sitting in is turned over onto its side. I reach out for it blindly with my right hand, struggling to get any part of it into my fingers, and when I finally do, I don’t know how but I have enough strength with one hand to raise it high enough
off the floor and bash her in the side of the head with it.

  Nora falls over sideways and off my waist, covering her head with her hands that somehow are no longer bound by cuffs.

  Not wasting even a second, I scramble to my knees and grab the folded chair again with both hands this time and send it crashing down on top of her head again.

  Nora manages to roll out of the way just before the chair comes down a third time. It clanks loudly against the floor as I drop it and get to my feet to go after her. She tries to push herself into a stand, but the cuffs and chain binding her at the ankles are still in place, making it difficult for her to move anywhere higher than the floor.

  I’m on top of her in a flash, the same way she was on top of me moments ago, with my knees straddling her on both sides.

  Grabbing both sides of her head, a bang sounds when I bash the back of her skull against the floor. Once. Twice.

  “Ahhhnnn! Bitch!” she screams out, her hands gripping my biceps, digging her fingernails into my flesh and breaking the skin. Her body shifts underneath my weight as she tries to bring her legs up from behind to lock them around me like she did in the auditorium, but she can’t get her legs spread far enough because of the chain between her ankles.

  I jump off of her, biting harshly on my bottom lip out of rage, my eyes swirling with heat and anger as I lean over her on the floor and grab a fistful of blonde hair, my fingers pressing against the back of her scalp, and I drag her body across the tile floor on her back. Both of her black heels come off, left in a trail behind her.

  Before I get her all the way back around to her side of the table, I lose my footing and come crashing down when she grabs my ankle with both hands and pulls back with all of her strength. Blood springs up in my mouth when my face makes contact with the floor.

  Suddenly I can’t breathe. My eyes roll into the back of my head as she tightens the chain between her ankles about my throat, her legs scissored tightly as she lays across the floor, her body held up on her forearms, all of her power shifted to her feet, locking me in place. My fingers come up quickly as I try desperately to wedge them behind the chains. I feel my whole head becoming hot, bloating stiffly on my neck and turning beet red and purple.

  She tightens her ankles even more, rendering me immobile; the smell of her tight leather pants heavy in my nostrils. I want to give up, I feel like it’s all I can do. My body begins to betray me as my limbs begin to soften. I gasp for air that just won’t come and tears of exhaustion fill the corners of my eyes.

  “Out of your league,” I hear Nora’s voice say amid the vociferous pumping of blood in my head.

  Something inside of me snaps, and my eyes spring open wildly in my face. I scream out something I can’t even decipher and finally get my fingers between the chain and my throat. I pull it away with everything in me, spurred on by rage and vengeance and the will to live, until I overpower her and set my neck free, slamming her legs down against the floor.

  She starts to crawl away on her hands and knees in the direction of my overturned chair.

  I leap to my feet, pulling Pearl from my boot before I’m fully upright, and I’m standing over her with the blade against her throat and the back of her hair in my fist, pulling her neck back as far as it’ll go without snapping.

  “I’ll cut off more than your finger, bitch!”

  She freezes. Her hips and pelvis and legs are pressed against the floor, the whites of her eyes visible to me as I stand over her from behind.

  “Where is Dina?!” I yank on her scalp, pulling her neck back even farther; if she even flinches the wrong way the blade will break the skin and she knows it. “Fuck these games of yours! Tell me where you took her!”

  “Come closer and I’ll tell you,” she says with difficulty, her voice strained.

  Without even thinking about it I do, but I keep the blade against her throat as I sit down on her back.

  “Try anything and I’ll kill you,” I growl, my lips next to her ear.

  She doesn’t try to fight back, but I’m not feeling defeat from her. It’s something else. That confidence about her that I’ve grown to despise. Even though I’m the one sitting on top of her, the one with the knife pressed to her throat, I can’t help feel like she’s still the one in control.

  “Where is she?” I whisper harshly against the side of her face.

  “Nine years as a sex slave in a Mexican compound,” she whispers back. “Something tells me they didn’t care much for condoms. Did they, Sarai?”

  My entire body, every bone, every muscle, solidifies in an instant.

  “If you want Dina Gregory to live,” she says, still in a whisper too low for the audio to pick up, “then you and I need to have a talk about the specifics of the relationship you had with Javier Ruiz.”

  It feels like an eternity that I sit on top of her, straddling her back, lost in some kind of stunned submission. I can’t find words. Or my heartbeat. And my mind is running away from me.

  Then my knife hand begins to tremble and my breathing becomes unsteady.

  I slide the knife away from her throat, push her head down forcibly against the tile with the other hand, shoving myself angrily to my feet and off of her. I don’t look at her when she gets up, struggling into a stand with her ankles bound. And I look only at the floor when she shuffles right past me, picking up her black heels along the way, and goes back over to her seat on the other side of the table.

  I keep my back to her, unable to move; my eyes beginning to burn from the angry tears pushing their way to the surface. My knife is gripped within my hand firmly, resting down at my side. I feel like using it on myself.

  “Shall we begin?” Nora says as calmly as ever, waiting for me at the table. “I’m eager to hear all about your time in Mexico.” She says it in a more audible voice, glancing at a camera.

  Raising my head slowly, I look up toward the tiny hidden camera fixed in the vent near the ceiling to my right. I look right at Victor, or at least I hope he realizes that’s what I’m doing, my eyes filled with regret and shame and…sorrow.

  A tear tumbles down one cheek, but I don’t have the energy to wipe it away.

  My eyes fall away from the camera and look at the floor instead.

  Victor

  “Turn off the audio,” I instruct Dorian.

  Niklas argues, “Wait, we need to leave it on in case—”

  “I said turn it off.”

  For the first time since I entered this room, I feel the need to sit down.

  “Victor, this is a mistake,” Niklas says. “Anything Nora says could be of use.”

  “I am aware, Niklas.”

  The audio goes dead as Dorian switches it off at the table to my right.

  I keep my eyes on the screen. A hidden hatred for Nora begins to make itself known inside of me, seething beneath the surface and growing darker the more she hurts Izabel.

  “Victor—”

  “Izabel suffered enough,” I cut him off with acid in my voice. I turn only my head to look at my brother. “You have no idea what she went through in Mexico, Niklas—none of us really do. This woman may be forcing her to tell her things I’m sure Izabel wants no one to know, least of all us, or me. But we’re not going to listen in on her confession. Whatever it is, it’s her secret. Her business. And when she’s ready to tell you or me or anyone else, only then will we hear it.”

  Niklas relents easily.

  Nodding he says, “No, you’re right. Besides, if Nora says anything that Izabel thinks we can use, she’ll let us know.”

  I nod and turn back to the screen.

  A chip bag rattles behind me in the vicinity of Woodard.

  Aggravated by it, I say, “Leave us and see if you’ve gotten anything on this woman’s blood or fingerprints. I want to know who she is before this night is over.”

  “Yes, sir,” Woodard says and leaves the room hurriedly.

  I stare at the screen, at Izabel’s auburn hair disheveled about her shoulders; the
pain in her green eyes, and all I can do is watch as she is forced to relive something she has only ever wanted to forget.

  6

  Izabel

  Absently I reach up a hand and wipe blood from the corner of my mouth, and then tongue the swollen tissue on the inside where my teeth broke the flesh.

  “Sit down, Sarai,” Nora says.

  “My name is Izabel.”

  “Your new name is Izabel,” she says, surprisingly with a little less mockery, “but you can’t bury who you used to be no matter how hard you try. None of us ever can.”

  I sheathe my knife and sit—might as well stop fighting the inevitable.

  I don’t look at her.

  “What the fuck do you want to know…exactly?” I ask icily.

  “You already know the answer to that.”

  I raise my head and look at her with cold, hooded eyes.

  “I’m still going to need you to elaborate,” I say. “I did a lot of things I’m not proud of. And I’m only willing to tell the one you’re here for, so how about you help me out a little so we can get this over with.”

  I still don’t want to believe that she really knows anything; maybe if I continue to probe her for clues she’ll eventually trip herself up. But deep down I feel like she knows far more than I want her to know. And I can’t risk Dina’s life.

  Nora spears her fingers through the top of her hair, pushing the fallen strands away from her face. Another bruise accompanied by a lump is forming on her cheekbone. A tiny vertical sliver of blood is evident in the very center of her plump bottom lip; lipstick is smeared across her mouth again. She reaches up a hand and wipes it all away, leaving her lips pinkish and slightly swollen.

  I don’t even bother asking about the handcuffs. If she got out of them once she can probably get out of them again. Whoever comes into this room next will have the job of detaining her.