I zip my lips when he holds up his hand to hush me as Niklas answers on the other end of the phone.
“Javier Ruiz has been eliminated,” Victor says, as calmly and professionally as any other time I’ve heard him speak to Niklas.
“Yes,” he answers a question I can’t hear but I still dumbly push my head forward a little as if it’ll amplify the volume in some way. “Police arrived at the scene before I made it out of the neighborhood. It was not a clean kill.” He listens to Niklas for a moment and goes on, “I believe Samantha led them there. The girl was alive when I arrived just before I took Javier out. He had shot her, but she managed to tell me that she overheard Samantha on the phone with someone just after I left for Tucson. Yes. No, Samantha is dead. Inform Vonnegut that Safe House Twelve has been compromised. A Cleaner should be sent there immediately to confiscate her files. Yes. Yes.” He glances at me. “That will not be necessary. The girl died of her wound. I left her there.”
My stomach twists into knots. I cross my arms over it.
“Niklas,” he says, dropping the professionalism in his tone a degree. “Come to my New England location as soon as you can. We will get the payment squared away and then…I wish to tell you what happened in Budapest.”
I tilt my head gently to one side upon hearing those last words. Everything else that Victor told Niklas, I understand it all for what it was: a lie, a ploy to get him here. But the last part felt real, personal. The fact that he said it in front of me strikes me as peculiar. I know it has nothing to do with me, so why would he include it in this particular conversation? It’s in this moment that I begin to understand that Niklas is something more to Victor than his liaison, more than someone he works with and that whatever happened in Budapest needs to be said because his conscience needs to be cleared.
That’s what people do when they say their goodbyes.
I don’t know why, but despite Niklas trying to get me killed, I feel this pain and sadness inside. Because I know what Victor is going to do. I know he’s going to kill him. Yet, I feel like it’s the last thing that he wants...
He sets his phone on the glass end table next to the chair and breaks apart the buttons of his vest.
“I have nowhere else to go,” I tell him from the couch again. “I know I’ve been a burden and I’m sorry. Samantha told me that you’re risking everything, even your life to help me and I don’t have anything to give you in return. Other than my gratitude and I know that’s not much.”
I sigh and add, “And I’m sorry about Samantha.”
He tosses his vest and afterwards his tie over the back of the chair with his jacket.
“It was my decision to help you,” he says while untucking his dress shirt. “And Samantha was a good woman.”
“Did she love you?”
I fold my hands together within my lap.
“No,” he says, not looking at me. “She wanted to, but she was incapable.”
My brows wrinkle in confusion.
“Incapable of love?” I ask. “No one’s incapable of that.”
“You can’t fall in love with someone who isn’t there,” he says matter-of-factly. “I left before she had the chance.”
“Did you love her?” I mentally hold my breath.
“No I did not. Love is an impediment in this business. It’ll only get you killed.”
Although his answer leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, I can’t deny that maybe he’s right. Though I think about how Victor, or anyone for that matter, could go through life without loving someone. But then I realize that I’ve never loved anyone, either.
“And I know you have no place to go,” he adds, “but when this is over and I know you’re safe, you will have to be on your own. I will help set you up, give you a decent start.” He stops and looks at me intently, his eyes locking on mine as if to seize my undivided attention. “But this ends soon. You’ve been with me too long already as it is.”
It feels like suddenly he’s angry with me, or at least angry with himself for helping me. Maybe it has to do with whatever’s going on between him and Niklas, I could never know, but since his phone call with Niklas, Victor is different.
And it fills me with dread.
He turns and walks through a marble archway that leads to another part of this massive house. In a way it reminds me of the places Javier used to take me all dressed up and on his arm, but this house, although massive from what I’ve seen, is smaller than the others were. And darker, with dark cherry hardwood floors so shiny I can see my reflection, and covered with expensive rugs of the deepest reds and browns and grays. Tall rust-colored curtains dress the expansive windows that cover the entirety of one wall from ceiling to floor and overlooking the turbulent ocean below. Even outside the beach isn’t a bright ocean-side paradise with white sands and blue skies. Here it’s gray and gloomy and the waves crash angrily against the rocks many feet below, yet it’s not even storming.
For the next several hours, Victor stays out of sight. I don’t feel like he’s intentionally ignoring me, but I know that he wants to be alone.
I think a lot about Samantha. And Lydia. And Izel. And Javier. I’ve seen so much death. I killed a man tonight, yet, the only thing that picks at my mind more is the fact that I’m already over it. For the most part, that is; I still can’t get it off my mind. I still see Javier’s dark, almost black eyes staring back at me with that jammed gun in his hand. I still shake—I’m shaking right now—when I think about pulling the trigger, when his eyes followed mine all the way down until his body hit the floor. And I’ll never forget what he said to me just before he died:
“I knew you had it in you, Sarai.”
And I hate myself for it, but I…well, I feel an out-of-place sense of sadness over Javier. A void. That part of me which grew to accept him as being the only life I had, whether I wanted him to be or not, misses him. I guess because I was used to him after so long.
“Sarai?” Victor’s voice snaps me out of the memory.
I look up at him standing over me. I never heard him walking up, or noticed his tall form approaching the couch, I was so absorbed.
“Niklas will be here in about twenty minutes,” he says. “You’ll need to stay out of sight. You’ll go in my room and keep the door closed. Is that understood?”
“Yes.”
I hate how cold he feels again, just like he felt when I first met him. All traces of empathy and openness that I felt grow within Victor over the time we’ve been together are gone.
“What are you going to do?”
“What I have to do.”
He walks past me wearing a long-sleeved black pullover shirt and black pants. It’s refreshing to see him dressed in something so casual after only ever seeing him in suits. He is attractive in whatever he chooses to wear, I admit to myself.
I follow him to whatever part of the house he’s going.
“Victor?” I call out behind him, but he just keeps walking. “I-I could help you.” I can’t believe I’m saying this. “Have you ever…trained anyone? You know, to be like you?”
Victor stops mid-stride underneath the entrance of some spacious, marble-floored room out ahead.
I see his shoulders rise and fall. Then he turns to me.
“No,” he says, “and I never will.”
He leaves it at that and walks into the room where I continue to follow and once I’m inside, the beauty of it takes my breath away. There are four life-sized statues of Greek women wearing flowing gowns, standing tall in all for corners of this round, dome-shaped room. To my right another wall-sized window overlooks the turbulent ocean and in front of it, sitting proudly on display is the most beautiful piano I’ve ever seen.
I try to tear my eyes away from it.
“But why not?” I ask, coming up behind him. “What else am I going to do with my life? I can’t go back out there. I have no education, didn’t even get to graduate. I have no friends, no family, no work history. Victor, I don’t even have a real d
river’s license or a birth certificate and social security card. I have no identity, at least not a legal one.”
He leaves the room with the piano, walking through an exit on the other side and I stay close behind him.
Now we’re in a smaller side room with a ceiling-to-floor bookshelf situated on the back wall, filled to the brim with books—mostly leather-bound—and an antique-looking black lacquer desk on one wall. A leather recliner sits in the center of the room with a small table and lamp beside it.
“You can get those things back,” he says walking toward the table beside the recliner. “It will take some time, but you can get them. As far as an education, you can get a GED, go to a community college.” He glances at me and adds, “It will be hard, but it’s your only option.”
He takes a writing book of sorts from the table and begins flipping through the edge-tattered pages.
“But that’s not what I want,” I say. “I want to…do what you do. I know it sounds ludicrous but—”
“It is ludicrous,” he says, snapping the book shut in his hand. “The answer is no. It will always be no, so do not waste your time or mine going on about it anymore.”
He walks past me again.
And I follow him out again, through the room with the piano and back into the living room area.
He starts to leave me standing here again, but I stop him.
“I want to stay with you.”
With his back to me, he just stands there, quiet and immobile as though my admission stole his movements and voice away. I didn’t mean to say that out loud, but I felt it was the only thing I had left with which to throw at him.
For a long moment, I think he’s going to respond, even if only just to tell me no again and lecture me about how I don’t know what I’m talking about or what I’m asking. But he says nothing. And then finally rounds the corner heading back to his room.
Feeling defeated, I sit down on a barstool in the kitchen and watch the video surveillance television fixed inside the wall to my left; one screen split four ways to show four different areas of the property simultaneously. And each individual square also changes to another camera every few seconds to show yet more areas of the property.
Minutes later, a sleek black car, much like the one Victor had that I hid in when leaving the compound, pulls up to the front gate.
Victor, probably watching the same screen in another room, comes into the kitchen.
“He’s here,” he announces and gestures for me with one hand. “Remember what I said: stay quiet and don’t come out of my room until I tell you.”
I nod nervously.
My stomach is swimming again, my heart already beating twice as hard as seconds ago.
I get down from the barstool and walk quickly into Victor’s immaculate room where there’s, unsurprisingly, another wall-sized window. A massive king-sized bed is pressed against another wall, dressed by black and gray bedding pulled tight over the mattress so that no wrinkles or imperfections can be found. It seems that’s the case in every room I’ve seen thus far: devoid of imperfections and signs of even the slightest disarray.
Victor shuts the door behind me and I try to mentally prepare for what is about to happen.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Victor
When Niklas and I were just boys, before we were taken by the Order, he was my best friend. We fought a lot, hand-to-hand, always trying to size the other up, and although we both often came out with bloody noses and once a broken wrist, nothing could make us turn on the other. We would walk off the battlefield, carrying on about what we thought our mother’s would have waiting for us for dinner when we got home. And we’d wake up and attend school the next day with matching black eyes.
The ones I gave him were bigger, of course, but then Niklas would say the same about those he gave me.
After we were taken by the Order, things between us began to change. Vonnegut, although rarely ever making a face-to-face appearance—and that hasn’t changed even today—said that I showed promise. But he said nothing about Niklas. And the first time I saw Niklas’ face when Vonnegut promoted me—younger than any assassin he had ever promoted—to Full Operative when I was just seventeen-years-old, I saw something in Niklas that hardened me against him: a jealous heart.
I knew at that moment that one day I might be forced to kill him.
Niklas is the only family that I have left. And as much as I wish it didn’t have to be this way, that I could be wrong about him and go back to the way things were, I know that’s not entirely possible. The truth is, I have been watching my back where my brother is concerned since last year.
And our father is to blame for that.
I suppose I should’ve listened to him….
I meet Niklas at the front door. He walks in, calm and collective as always except when he’s angry with me for having my own mind and choosing to do things the way I see fit.
I shut the door behind him.
“This is a much nicer place than the last one,” he says, looking up at the scaling ceilings with his hands folded together behind his back.
I find myself privately studying his features, looking for traces of me and our father in him. We have the same eyes, though his are bluer than mine; mine tend to appear more green at times than blue. His face is rounder, mine slimmer. But I think what separates us the most are our accents. Our father and his mother were both German. I was born in France, my mother a French spy for the Order. My father moved us to Germany when I was two-years-old and I did not meet Niklas until I was six. I helped him learn to speak English and French, but he did not have the knack for linguistics that I had and so he never was able to fully lose the accent. But despite the differences we have, I still see only a younger version of me when I look at him. Especially right now as I try to grasp the fact that I’m going to kill him. I don’t want to. I want to walk away from this and forget that it ever happened, but that’s not an option.
He smiles at me.
We have the same smile, too. I remember our father telling me this.
“Yes,” I say about the house, “I thought it was time I slept in something more upscale. I hoped I might get to stay here for a while.”
“Has that changed?” he asks curiously, having reason to believe that judging by my tone.
“Unfortunately.”
I gesture toward the living room. “Let’s sit down,” I say and he follows. “We have a lot to discuss.”
He takes the chair next to the marble side-table.
I remain standing.
I sense that he wonders why I don’t sit down as well, but the curiosity disappears from his eyes and is replaced with attention when I begin.
“Niklas,” I say, “last year on my mission to Budapest, I wasn’t being entirely honest with you.”
Niklas laughs lightly, adjusting his back against the chair. He props his left ankle on top of his right knee and interlocks his fingers in front of him, his elbows propped on the chair arms.
“Well, that wouldn’t be the first time,” he says, still smiling as if this is any other casual conversation between two brothers. “You never were one to tell even me your secrets.”
“I went to see our father,” I announce.
The smile drops from his face. He turns his chin slightly at an angle, clearly confused by my admission.
“He sent for me,” I add.
“What for? Why would he send for you, Victor? After all those years of never seeing him once, why would he send for you and not me?”
I don’t answer. I find it more difficult to tell him the truth than I imagined it would be. I always knew it would be hard, but not this hard.
“Victor?” Niklas’ eyes are filled with concern and…pain.
He stands up from the chair.
“Just tell me, brother, please.”
I swallow hard and take a steady breath.
“Niklas,” I finally go on, “your mother was eliminated by the Order because proof was
found that she was selling information. You already know this.” He nods. “But after that, because she was your mother, the Order could not trust you. Even Vonnegut felt you were unstable, that one day, sooner or later, you would avenge your mother’s death and betray the Order.”
He continues to listen, his face shadowed more and more by pain and rejection. And it kills me inside to see it.
“I went to Budapest to meet with him,” I say and can no longer look at my brother. “He spoke with Vonnegut and they both agreed that you should be eliminated even if only as a precaution, to prevent the inevitable. I was given the order to carry it out.”
Niklas’ head snaps around.
I meet his eyes.
“Vonnegut, of course,” I go on, “did not know that we were brothers and being his Number One, he knew I could carry out the job also because we were so close, you as my liaison. Father wanted me to be the one to kill you because he felt it would be the honorable thing, that if anyone should take your life it should be me because we are family and no other should have that privilege.”
Niklas can hardly get his thoughts together. He can barely speak, but finally manages and when he does, it hurts my heart as much as his expression continues to do.
“Father wanted you to kill me?”
“Yes,” I say gently.
He starts to pace the floor and then brings his hands up to the top of his head, pushing them roughly over his hair. He looks across at me, his eyes brimmed with tears. I have never once in our lives seen my brother cry. Never. Not even when we were children, or when his mother was killed.
I grind my jaw, forcing my own tears back. I grit my teeth so hard that I feel the pressure in my skull. But I keep a straight face, as much of one as I can manage.
“Then why didn’t you?” he lashes out. “Why am I still alive? Tell me that, Victor.” The first of his tears streams down one cheek and he reaches up instinctively to wipe it away, angry at it for betraying him. “You should’ve killed me!”
“I refused,” I say. “You were the one job I could not carry out, Niklas. And so then Father had only one thing left to do: he was going to do it himself.”