[English] Killing Sarai

Killing Sarai
Killing Sarai Page 30



I don’t say a word, but I’m not afraid. I don’t know for sure if he would kill me or not, but I don’t fear him either way.

He winds his fingers tighter against my scalp and I feel the cool barrel of the gun trailing down the center of my neck. But more than that I feel his hardness between my legs and the knowledge of the gun being anywhere on me takes a backseat.

“If you’re going to let me go,” I whisper, unable to see his eyes, “then let me have this one last thing from you.”

He pulls my head back even farther. The gun is pressing into my stomach now.

“I’ve never been with a man that I wanted to be with,” I say. “I want to be with you. Just once. I want to know what it feels like to be the one in control.”

He’s conflicted, I feel it in the heat emitting from his skin, in his tense, uncertain movements. In one instance the gun digs deeper into my gut and I feel like my hair is about to come out within his hand. But then he relents, loosening his grip just a little, allowing my neck some reprieve. I can see his eyes now, peering up at me so deadly and yet so seductive even though I know he’s not doing it on purpose.

“You can’t be in here,” he says, also in a whisper.

I feel his eyes on me, sweeping over my body, my bare br**sts, downward to where my nak*d thighs are latched loosely around his hips.

“I don’t care, Victor.”

His gaze moves back to my face where he studies the curvature of my lips.

Then I witness something else flash over his eyes, something frightening that I’ve never seen before in him and I tense up within his grasp. He studies me quietly as if I’m something to be ravaged and then ultimately…killed. Despite my growing fear, I still want to be right where I am, trapped in the merciless arms of a killer.

Without releasing me he raises his back from the bed, the arm with which his hand is speared painfully within my hair is pressed against my shoulder. I sit straddled on his lap, both of my nak*d thighs touching his sides which warm my skin in the same way I pictured it. I can tell that he is completely nak*d underneath that thin sheet that separates us.

“If you want to kill me, then do it.”

His lips move closer to mine.

“But if you do,” I say breathily, “let me be with you first, please….”

My eyes close of their own accord. I wait for whatever is going to happen; death or *** I welcome both, my body stiff against his, my heart beating so fast I feel it in my head and in my fingertips. When I feel his lips brush against my own, I wilt.

But when I feel the cold metal against my temple, my eyes slowly open to look into his again.

“This can’t happen, Sarai,” he says.

I lower my lips to his. “Yes, it can,” I whisper onto them before covering them with my own.

My thighs tighten around his waist and I feel myself pressing against his erection, tremors moving through my pelvis and down into my knees. I lift myself up and yank the sheet from between us, setting myself back down on his nak*d lap, instantly feeling the stark difference the sheet made. I grind myself against his ****, feeling his hardness through the fabric of my panties and it makes me tremble.

But I can tell he doesn’t want this. He doesn’t push me away, but he’s conflicted.

“Please, let me have my way with you,” I say, looking down into his beautiful eyes.

He searches my face, his fingers gently touching my cheeks, a look of uncertainty in his features as though this exchange between us is something entirely new to him. I can tell that he’s probably never been with a woman he could not ravage and spoil and tame. And while I think I prefer him that way, right now in this moment I want to be the one who makes all of the decisions.

I’m unsure why, but that doesn’t matter.

I feel his body relent even more.

I press the palms of my hands against his rock-hard chest and push him gently against the bed, hoping that he’ll let me.

He does. He lies down, leaving his hands to rest on the tops of my thighs. We look at each other and no words are spoken. They aren’t needed. Tucking my middle finger behind the elastic of my panties, I slip them off one leg at a time, and I never move my eyes from his.

Feeling him between my legs, skin on skin, alone is overwhelming. I lay forward, wanting all of him, the warmth of his chest against mine, the heat of his breath against my neck. Everything. I kiss him hard and deep, his tongue tangling with mine in a dance of dominance, his fingers pressing into the back of my head until he drags one hand down the length of my body and to my hip. He squeezes it, thrusting his h*ps toward me. He wants the control so bad, but I remind him that it’s mine by pushing my h*ps back against him and holding them there.

When he gives back the control, I peck him lightly upon the lips and then both sides of his jawline.

He watches my face, glimpsing my lips, wanting to taste them.

And then I start to cry.

I always cry when I’m angry.

I’m becoming someone else, that girl lost at fourteen-years-old, forced to live a life of bondage and pain and broken dreams. Flashes of Javier’s face go through my mind erratically. I feel like I’m on a merry-go-round and it’s spinning so fast, all of the faces of Javier come and go before I can reach out and grab one. I can’t get my hands on just one so that I can beat it to death. And I just cry harder, screaming out into the night and before I realize what I’m doing, Victor has become the face of Javier that I can’t otherwise catch. I swing my fists at him, beating him over and over again on the chest and on his arms and he doesn’t stop me. Because I know only he can understand why I need this moment so desperately.

Yelling into the night, I let it all out. Tears barrel from my eyes.

I collapse on him and he engulfs me in his arms. I can’t catch my breath as I sob into the crook of his neck.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Victor

Beautiful but defeated and damaged. Damaged for the rest of her life and no amount of emotional mutilation will ever fully give her back her innocence. The girl is a ticking time bomb, a danger to herself and very possibly to others. I wasn’t sure before, but now I know that she is more unstable than I ever could have imagined. And because she is so skilled at hiding it, not only from me but also from herself, she is more dangerous than I am. I am discipline. Sarai is rage. I am aware of my choices at all times. Sarai’s choices are more aware of her, lying in wait to decide for her based on the severity of her mood with no intention in leaving her any conscious control over it.

I know what I have to do.

I cradle the back of her head in the palm of my hand, my gun resting beside me on the bed in the other. I feel her tears soaking my shoulder, her body wracked by sobs that coalesce into my muscles. And her sweet spot still presses against my c*ck every time her body tenses. But I leave her there despite the moral need to pull away.

“Sarai,” I whisper against the side of her head, “I am sorry.”

I raise the gun slowly behind her.

She tilts her head and lies her cheek against my chest and I pause, waiting, though I don’t know for what. Her sobs begin to settle, her left hand drawn up near her chin where her fingertips rest lightly against my collarbone.

“I have an aunt in France,” she says softly, distantly. “My mother’s older sister. I know France is a long way, but you don’t have to take me there, just help me get on the plane.”

I raise the gun a little higher, settling the barrel at the back of her head, but not touching it. I don’t want her to be afraid before she dies and although I know she fears nothing, death is something we all fear in our final moment even if only the smallest part of us is conscious of it. I don’t want her to fear it at all and she can’t if she doesn’t know that it’s happening.

“How old were you when you became what you are?” she asks.

Caught off guard by the question and maybe more-so by the shifting of the mood, I hesitate before answering.

“I was nine.”

She sniffles and wipes her eyes with the hand near her cheek.

“You were very young,” she goes on. “I guess in a way like me, you never had a chance to live a life of your choosing. I guess maybe we aren’t really so different from each other.” She pauses. “Except I might be more like your brother than I care to admit. He’s as angry as I am.”

I release my finger from the trigger and slowly, so she doesn’t know, move the barrel away from the back of her head.

“It must’ve been hard growing up with Niklas,” she says.

I set the gun back on the bed next to me and before I know what I’m doing I’m cradling the back of her head in my hand again.

“Yes,” I answer, “considering the unconventional circumstances.”

“Instead of who’s the better baseball player it was who’s the better killer.”

“No,” I say. “Niklas never tried to be better than me, he only wanted to be my equal. We never competed with each other, but he’s been competing with everyone else who has ever been close to me for as long as he’s been alive.”...

Killing Sarai
Killing Sarai Page 31



I stand silent and still at the arched entryway leading into the piano room. And I watch her unlike I’ve ever watched her before. She owns me in this moment.

I close my eyes and let the music course through me; shivers sweep over my skin like faint ripples on the water’s surface.

But I’m awoken from the lure all too quickly.

The music stops as Sarai becomes confused by the keys. Although disappointed that it came to an end so abruptly, I stay where I am hoping that she’ll pick up where she left off and finish the piece out. Her soft form appears vulnerable, fragile in the faint moonlight enveloping her from the window, a halo-like light around her body, illuminating the ends of her hair.

Please, just play it, Sarai. Don’t think about it, just play it.

She starts again from where she stopped, but after a few keys she gives up. Frustrated with herself, her upper-body arches forward, her hands gently touch her forehead.

I sit down beside her on the bench.

“I’ll teach you,” I say, arching my fingers on the keys. “If that’s what you want.”

She turns her head to look at me and as she does, I know that she’s wondering if I’m only referring to the music.

She nods slowly.

I start from the beginning and play the piece all the way to the point where she stopped. And then she tries again. And again, until my guidance sees her through and she’s in control of the keys the way she was before, the way she brought me into this room. It haunts me, every somber second of it, so much so that my closed eyes brim with tears, but only my heart can manage to shed them.

The piece ends at the end this time and silence fills the space around the two of us.

“I don’t want to sleep alone,” she says gently.

And I don’t force her to. Sarai falls fast asleep curled up next to me in my bed. Right where I want her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Sarai

When I wake up the next morning the sun is bright through the massive window even though the curtains have been drawn. I’m alone in the bed, but I know I’m not alone in the house. It was Victor’s dress shoes tapping against the floors outside the room that woke me. My heart is exhausted, but my mind and my body feel refreshed. I can’t remember the last time I slept that soundly.

I don’t think I ever have.

I raise my body from the mattress, untangling myself from the sheet. I can’t believe I did that last night, but I did and it’s over with and I can either face Victor and not be ashamed, or hide away inside this room for the rest of my life.

I choose the realistic.

As I step outside of the room, I wonder why we didn’t get up before dawn to leave like he had planned.

He’s sitting in the living room alone when I walk in, fully dressed in his best suit with his usual bags sitting on the floor next to his feet, minus the bag with the money. There’s a newspaper in his hands and a mug of black coffee on the table next to the chair.

“Why didn’t we leave earlier?” I ask walking the rest of the way into the room.

He lowers the newspaper and then decides to fold it halfway and set it on the table next to the coffee.

“I thought you could use the sleep.”

My face flushes inwardly, failing at my attempt to not be ashamed of my ***ual tirade, but really I doubt his answer had anything to do with that.

“Thank you,” I say.

I raise my eyes to him again. “Looks like you’ll have to buy me another pair of shoes,” I point out, pressing my bare toes into the cool, hard floor, my hands clasped together lying on my backside.

The shoes he bought me before had been left at Samantha’s when we had to get out of there in a hurry. I’ve not had the best of luck with shoes as of late.

“It has already been taken care of,” he says crossing one leg over the other and straightening his vest.

I gaze around the room, looking for department store bags or maybe some women’s clothes that had been left here for whatever reason.

A short middle-aged woman wearing a navy blue scrub uniform comes through the front door carrying a gaudy purse on one arm and several oversized store bags on the other. A set of keys jangle in her hand after she closes the door with her hip. She manages to drop the keys into her purse, twisting her wrist awkwardly to reach it.

“Oh, you must be Izabel,” the woman says bright-eyed. “I’m Ophelia. It’s nice to meet you.” I nod and introduce myself even though she apparently already knows my name, well the name that Victor gave me, anyway.

She drops her purse in the middle of the floor and walks across the large space into the living room towards me, the store bags still dangling on her arm and by the looks of it, starting to cut off the circulation.

“You were right about the size,” she says looking to Victor. She sets the bags down on the immaculate couch. “And I have a daughter your size,” she says looking at me now, “so hopefully I chose wisely. Meleena was a handful growing up, that’s for sure.” She gestures her hands dramatically. Rings adorn her fingers. “Of course, it was my fault for raising her on Versace and Valentino but she is the most envied girl when she walks into any room, so I suppose the **** she gave me and my bank account was worth it. Here, let me see you.” I try to conceal the awkward look I know I’m giving her as she pulls a cute sun dress of sorts from one bag and holds it up against me.

I decide to look across at Victor instead, hoping maybe he’ll tell me exactly who this woman is and what she’s doing here.

His eyes smile at me.

I do a double-take. Did he just smile at me?

“Perfect fit,” Ophelia says.

But then she sets that dress aside and begins to pull other items of clothing from the same bag. The next bag is full of gift boxes where she opens each one and unwraps an outfit engulfed in extravagant tissue paper and tulle that probably cost more than it should. As she goes on and on about her spoiled, yet ‘deserving’ daughter she goes through each and every outfit, holding them up against me as if to imagine what I might look like in them. Or, perhaps, picturing what ‘Meleena’ might look like in them.

She is very odd, that one.

“Of course, after her father left us, I had to get a job,” Ophelia shakes her head and looks right at me as if her having a job is the most unfortunate thing ever. “So, *****pport Meleena and her expensive fashion sense, I went into the business. Here, try this one on. It’s a pretty day so you should wear something that suits it.”

“What business exactly?” I ask.

I turn around so that my back is facing them and then I slip off my shirt. I barely look at the dress Ophelia is holding out to me, more curious about her, really.

Victor sips his coffee and pretends to be reading his newspaper. Or, maybe he’s not pretending. I can’t tell with him half the time.

“Housekeeping,” she answers.

I’m a little confused and I’m sure she can tell that.

“You can…afford to buy Versace and Valentino on a housekeeper’s wage?” I ask incredulously. “No offense.”

“None taken,” she says, slipping the dress over my head. “But yes, I can. I only work for those who can afford to pay me. Celebrities, musicians; you know, people who have more money than they know what to do with. Wealthy people are quick to hire someone to do the pettiest of things just because they can. I profit from their foolishness.” She glances back at Victor. “No offense.”

“None taken,” he says and takes another sip of his coffee.

“Ah, I see,” I say as the cool, thin fabric rolls down over my skin.

I turn around once I’m dressed.

“Yes, I’d say this one is just right,” she says, propping her hands on her hips, looking me up and down. “Though you should wear a strapless bra at least.”

Ophelia reaches inside another bag while glancing over at Victor. “Looks like you were right about her cup size, too,” she says and I feel my face flushing again.

I guess he would have a pretty good idea of my size, considering.

“The undergarments were the only pieces I had to stop and buy on the way here. Raided the rest of it from my daughter’s room. There’s a purse and a few other necessities in there too.” She puts the bra in my hand. “I bet there’s enough money in the stuff she’s never worn in her room to buy a Bentley.”

I put on the strapless bra she gives me after ripping off the tag and she helps me to fasten it in the back since I seem to be having so much trouble doing it myself. Then she zips the back of the light pink floral lace dress against my back and I attempt to admire myself in it. It’s very short, stopping a few inches above my knees. And it itches around the high neckline. I’m not used to wearing things like this, at least not anywhere but a few hours at a social gathering where all I had to do was stand there quietly and look pretty. With Victor, I seem to do more running for my life than standing around quietly.

Next are the shoes.

“I-I don’t think anything with heels on them are a good idea,” I protest kindly as she opens the first box.

There’s...

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Victor nods.

“I will do that,” he says.

Ophelia turns to me with a big close-lipped smile.

“You keep him in line,” she says. “And just try the heels. You’d look fabulous in them.”

I smile back. “I’ll think about it.”

She pats me on the arm as she walks past, taking up her purse from the floor on her way to the front door.

Long after Ophelia leaves, I’m still looking at the door, not with her on my mind, but I can’t bring myself to look at Victor.

He walks around in front of me and fits my elbows in his hands. I stand with my arms crossed loosely over my stomach.

“Sarai,” he says.

I raise my eyes to look at him and before he can say whatever it was he had planned to say, I blurt out softly, “I’m so sorry for…Victor, I’m not crazy or…well, I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he says.

I just look at him.

“You play beautifully,” he goes on. “Have you ever considered playing professionally?”

Many long seconds go by before I manage an answer.

“I did think about being up on a stage somewhere,” I say and his hands fall away from my elbows. “But I really have no interest in anything like that anymore. I just like to play for myself.”

To avoid eye contact again, I walk over to the couch and start arranging the clothes in a neat pile on the cushion.

With my back to him, I go on:

“I don’t have any idea what I’ll do when I get to my aunt’s, but I’ll figure something out. An education of sorts and then after that maybe I’ll go into…,” I can’t finish because I don’t know what to say. I dodge it, fidgeting the fabric anxiously in my hands now. “At least I’ll look nice when I see her. Maybe she’ll accept me now that I’m wearing clothes that didn’t come from the half-off rack at the dollar store.”

“Can you promise one thing?” Victor asks.

I turn to look at him.

“I guess I owe you that much,” I say. “What?”

“Just that you’ll play for me from time to time.”

“What do you mean?”

He leans over beside a bookshelf and takes another suitcase into his hand. Then he walks toward me and sets it down on the couch, flipping the two latches on the sides.

When he opens it, it’s empty. He points briefly at my pile of clothes.

“Our plane leaves in an hour,” he says. “From here on out until I tell you otherwise, you are Izabel Seyfried and you are confident in your skin. You are strong-minded and sharp-tongued but you let me do all of the talking except when you feel the need to state your opinion on whatever matter you choose, even when it’s not asked for. You fear nothing, yet you exude a sense of vulnerability that you know, privately of course, will drive a powerful man’s need to know what it’s like to be the one to break you. You are wealthy, though no one needs to know where your money comes from, only that you have enough of it to wipe your ass with one hundred dollar bills every time you take a ****. And the only man in any room that can tame you is me, which we will, almost certainly, have to demonstrate at least once during this mission. So, keep in mind that whatever I do to you, play along accordingly. And whatever I tell you to do, do it without question because it could be the difference between life and death. Do you understand?”

I stare at him blankly.

“You’re taking me with you?” There are about fifty questions swirling around inside my head, but that’s the only one I could pluck from the disarray.

He steps up to me. “Yes,” he answers. “I’ll take you with me on one mission because I want you to see what it’s like. You need to understand that the life I lead is not the life for you.” He takes my hands into his and sits down with me on the couch, pushing the suitcase aside. “Hopefully, this will help you to be more accepting of a life out there instead; one with college and a job and friends and boyfriends.”

He encloses his fingers around my hands more firmly and I begin to gaze beyond him, thinking about what he said, about his reasons for doing this. Momentarily, I wonder which one of us he’s trying to convince.

“Sarai, listen to me carefully,” he says. “If you choose to go with me you need to know that you could be killed. I will do everything in my power to keep you safe, but it’s not a guarantee because no matter how much you trust me, you should never, under any circumstances trust anyone fully. In the end, you can only trust yourself. I am not your hero. I am not the other half of your soul who could never let anything bad ever happen to you. Trust your instincts first always, and me, if you choose, last.”

I nod apprehensively.

“So what will it be?” he asks. “France or Los Angeles?”

I don’t really have to think about it because I know what I want, but I pretend to think about it to make me appear less irrational.

“Los Angeles,” I say letting out a breath.

Victor gazes into my eyes for a moment, a look of contemplation and even a bit of wavering settles on his expression.

He stands up and straightens his suit.

“Then pack your things,” he says as he walks away. “We leave in ten minutes.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

Victor

I had hoped she would choose France, but I knew she would choose to go with me. I could still very well take her to France and set her up with everything she needs and my conscience would be clear. But I bypassed the meaning of rational where Sarai is concerned a long time ago. She may very well die in Los Angeles, but I gave her a choice. I all but spelled out the potential consequences of her decision. I didn’t exactly tell her everything, but there is a method to my madness. I can’t allow her time to contemplate what she might do because in this business sometimes a life or death decision comes when you least expect it. And that is the kind of scenario she needs to experience.

Perhaps a part of me hopes she doesn’t make it through the mission because then I will be free of my…shortcomings when it comes to her. But the other part of me, the part that I’m still struggling with that brought her with me as far as I have…

That’s an entirely different issue.

If she lives then I’ll find it necessary to confront it.

If she dies…If she dies then I will go back to my normal life and never find myself in a situation like this again.

“His name is Arthur Hamburg,” I say, laying a manila envelope on Sarai’s lap next to me on the private jet. “He owns Hamburg Sthilz, the most successful real estate agency on the west coast. But his most lucrative business is more underground.”

Attracted by my silence, she looks up from the photo she removed from the envelope.

“What is his other business?” she asks, as I knew she would.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “The information that I choose to give you is all that you need.”

She ****s her head to one side. “But you know more,” she accuses.

“Yes, I do,” I admit. “But as your employer, you never ask questions about the personal nature of any mark unless you’re unclear as to how you’re going to eliminate him. What he does for a living, who his wife is, his children, if he has any, his crimes, if he has any of those, they don’t matter. The less you know about his personal life, the less of a risk there is for you to become emotionally involved. I give you a photo, tell you his frequent whereabouts and habits, designate a manner in which I prefer the hit to be carried out: messy and in public to send a message, or discreet and accidental to avoid an investigation, and then you take care of the rest.”

She thinks about it a moment, the photo of Arthur Hamburg clutched in her fingertips.

“Wait,” she says, “so you’re saying that you don’t only kill bad people. You also kill innocent people?”

A small smile, I admit unbecoming of me, lifts the edges of my mouth. “No one is innocent, Sarai,” I repeat something she said to me once. “Children, yes, but everyone else, they are as innocent as you or I. Think of it this way if it makes you feel any better: to have a hit placed on you, you must’ve done something or be involved in something illegal or ‘bad’ as you call it.”

“I thought you said that I was innocent,” she reminds me. “And that’s why you didn’t kill me.”

“You were,” I say. “And I wasn’t ordered to kill you by my employer. Javier’s offer was considered a private hit, it didn’t go through my employer first. Private hits are the ones that get innocent people killed. Wives wanting their husbands deaths to look accidental so they can collect their inheritance. Scorned lovers pay private parties to kill their girlfriends out of jealousy and vengeance. I don’t take jobs like those and my employer has never given me one. My Order deals only in crime, government corruption and a host of other things that make bad people bad. And sometimes we eliminate people who might be considered innocent, but who are a threat to a large number...

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I take the photo from her hands.

“This hit was designated clean,” I begin. “But Arthur Hamburg is rarely alone on his estate. He throws elaborate parties three to four nights a week, only for the wealthiest of people and always by invitation only. The security at his estate is top notch. Hamburg hand-picked every one of them. They are not unskilled security guards hired off the cuff. It won’t be like it is in the movies where I get onto the property unseen and take out all of his men before they get a shot off. It doesn’t work that way in this case.”

Her face has grown weary and anxious over the course of the last few seconds.

“Then how do you get in?”

“We get in by invitation,” I say. “Hamburg has a weakness, like all men, and you and I are going to use it to our advantage.”

Now she looks a little nervous.

“What’s his weakness?”

“***, of course,” I say as if she should already know the answer. And I know she did.

She flinches a little underneath that soft skin.

“Is this going where I think it is?”

“Probably not,” I say, “but it will still be unpleasant.”

Sarai

My stomach ties up in a knot. Victor puts the photo of the old man away inside the envelope. And I can’t seem to get these disgusting images out of my head of him lying nak*d on top of me, the creases and folds of his obvious weight problem smothering me like way too much jelly on a PBJ. I shudder. Surely Victor wouldn’t expect me to sleep with this man even for the sake of a mission. I’m not a hooker in any form and I’ll be damned if I become one. Not even for this. I may have slept with Javier every night for years even though I didn’t want to, but that was different. That was my way of surviving. And Javier, dare I say it, was attractive despite his unforgivable faults.

That was definitely different…

I can’t look at Victor right now, not because I’m mad at him for this even though I feel like I should be, but because…goddamn, I’m still contemplating it. There has to be something more to it, something that separates what whores do from what he expects me to do.

He won’t let it go that far, I resolve to believe. Yes, that’s it. It has to be.

A bit of turbulence shakes the plane and pulls me out of my thoughts. I’m gripping the armrests when I turn to see Victor again.

“So then what’s the plan? It’s obvious you brought me along because being the girl I fit perfectly into it.”

He nods. “Yes, being a woman has its advantages in cases like these. Just remember the things I told you before: you’re submissive to me but sometimes your tongue gets you into trouble. You’re a wealthy, stuck up little bitch and more than anything, you fear nothing.”

I laugh derisively. “Well, according to you, I’ve got that fear thing down pat already.”

“Yes,” he says retaining his serious expression, “but you might feel differently once you’re there and the threat is all around you. You need to make certain that nothing will break you of the control you have over your fear. Hamburg will be turned off by you the moment he senses it. Fear to him is weakness and he likes strong, reckless young women. And even stronger men.”

I feel my face distort with disgust and mild shock, but I don’t ask about the obvious. I just try to let it all sink in, what exactly we’re going to do and how we’re going to do it. Because everything I theorized before has just been tossed out the window.

Victor did say that what I assumed would happen probably wasn’t right, but I’m only slightly relieved by the truth in that. And ‘slightly’ will continue to be the measure because he also said it would still be unpleasant.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

We arrive in Los Angeles just after six in the evening. We check into the most extravagant hotel the city has to offer and Victor is in character before we even make it up to our room on the top floor overlooking the cityscape. He demands, with his chin held high and his dominant demeanor that we get the best suite and will accept nothing less. And the front desk clerk, bewitched by his dark, flickering eyes, erases a reservation a guest had booked for tonight and gives Victor the keys to the suite. He is so good at pretending to be someone else that he almost tricks me into believing he’s a rich bastard who cares nothing for the people beneath him, who just so happens to be everyone. But he does it with so much grace and composure that his rich arrogant attitude doesn’t induce dislike for him, but instantly demands respect.

I’m seriously beginning to doubt my ability to act compared to his. I did it for nine years with Javier. My whole life was an act and I like to think I have enough experience, but Victor intimidates me.

I straighten my back and walk alongside him in my Valentino dress and flat sandals with my head held high. I am strong, powerful, rich, and I can’t be touched.

At least that’s what I hope I’m pulling off.

“It begins tonight,” Victor says setting his bags on the end of the bed and then he hangs a tall black garment bag with a zipper down the front on a hook on the wall. “If all goes as planned, it’ll end tomorrow night. You’ll need to wear make-up and pull up your hair. You have to look the part as well as play it. Oh, and put on the heels.” Flipping the latches on his gun case he retrieves one of his handguns and starts to attach a suppressor on the end of the barrel.

“What is the plan then?” I ask, ignoring my need to complain about the shoes he wants me to wear that I hope I can even walk in.

“Tonight we go to his restaurant,” he begins, still inspecting the gun. “Before we can get into the mansion, we’ll need an invitation and the restaurant is where we’ll get it. I’ll play my part and you play along as Izabel, not as Sarai. Remember that always when in public even when you think no one is watching.” He glances at me and goes back to inspecting the gun. “Hamburg is at this restaurant every Friday night like clockwork. But we’ll never see him. He hides out in a private room with two other men: his assistant and his restaurant manager. But Hamburg is always observant to what goes on in the restaurant. And he’s always assessing the guests. We may not see him, but it’s a certainty that he will see us.”

“Assessing them?”

Victor sets the gun on the bed and closes the case.

“Yes,” he says. “He’ll be looking for a couple. We need to make an impression.”

This is worrying me more by the second.

“Well, I’m sure there will be plenty of couples in a restaurant in L.A.” I meant for it to sound sarcastic, but he’s not fazed by it.

“Of course there will be,” he says. “But unlike everyone else in the restaurant, I know exactly what he’s looking for.”

He points to my bag. “Now get ready. We leave in half an hour.”

I pull out the make-up kit Ophelia included with all the clothing she gave me and take it into the bathroom. I’m kind of excited to wear it. I didn’t have such a luxury while with Javier except when he’d take me with him to the parties and such. And I always took my time putting it on because I wanted it to be perfect. I wanted to savor my only moment alone where I felt like an average teenage girl, standing in front of the mirror dolling myself up before another day at school. I always pretended that’s what I was getting ready for and I mastered making myself believe it. That was until Izel burst into the room uninvited and dragged me out by the arm because I was taking too long.

But this time, I don’t pretend I’m somewhere I’d rather be. I’m focused and determined and naturally nervous. I apply my makeup in record time and brush out my hair until it’s like cool, soft silk lying against my back and then spend more time than I want trying to pull it up. After struggling for fifteen minutes, I finally manage to make it look ‘rich bitch’ nice, pinned to the back of my head with pretty silver hair clamps.

Victor is dressed in his usual when I emerge from the bathroom, but somehow he manages to be even ***ier. I quietly gape when I see him standing there in his Armani suit, polished black shoes and tall height. I glance down at my dress and even though it had to cost a few thousand dollars, I feel like I don’t compare standing next to him.

Maybe it’s the sandals, maybe once I put on the heels they’ll make me feel more like his equal.

“No confidence,” he says and I look up. “You reek of it right now. You need to reverse that before we step out of this room.” He walks up to me. He smells faintly of cologne and I inhale deeply of his scent. “You know you’re the most beautiful and most important girl in the room,” he says and for a moment I get lost in those words, not wanting to accept them as merely instruction. “You’re always in competition with other women, proving to everyone around you that you can never be matched and if one ever tries, you’ll snuff her out of the picture with the flick of your wrist. You don’t smile, you grin or smirk. You don’t say thank you, you assume you are being thanked for the...

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Victor comes around to my side of the car and I loop my arm through his again as he walks me inside.

The restaurant is two stories with a balcony upstairs overlooking the bottom floor. The conversation all around me sounds like a constant humming, but it’s not so packed that every table is full. Other than the voices, it’s quiet in here with low lighting and semi-dark walls to create a tranquil atmosphere. Victor pulls me alongside him gently as we follow the waiter to a circular-shaped booth with shiny black leather seats near the back. I sit down first and then Victor slides in next to me.

The waiter presents us with two leather-bound menus, but before he can place mine fully on the table in front of me, I sweep my hand toward it, waving it away with a look of boredom. “I won’t be eating,” I say as if food might somehow ruin my path to enlightenment. “But I will be having wine.”

The waiter looks at the menu in his hand and then back at me briefly, appearing confused.

Victor gives me a look which I can’t quite place, but I know it’s not a good one. He opens his menu and after studying it for a moment, hands it back to the waiter and says, “La Serena Brunello di Montalcino.” The waiter nods, takes the menu, which is apparently the wine menu and I’m about to die from embarrassment, and he walks away.

“Sorry,” I whisper.

Victor’s eyes lock on me warningly. It takes me a second, but I understand what I’m doing wrong and wipe that embarrassed look off my face fast, straightening my back against the seat and crossing my legs beneath the table. I set my purse on the table at my right.

This staying in character is stuff harder than I thought, but now that I’ve already screwed up twice within minutes, I’m more determined than ever to get it right.

In seconds, I fully become Izabel Seyfried.

I reach into my purse and pull out a compact mirror and a tube of rose-colored lipstick and begin applying it at the table. I make sure to stare at myself a lot, turning my head subtly at different angles and gently pursing my lips.

“Put the lipstick away,” Victor says as the rich a**hole and not the man I know.

I glare softly at him and do as he says, but take my time about it.

The waiter comes back to our booth with a bottle of wine and with both hands puts it into Victor’s view. Victor visually inspects it and then nods to the waiter, who then pulls the cork and places it on the table in front of Victor. He inspects that, too, and while I’m quietly wondering why so much effort is being put into this on both of their parts, I say nothing and pretend not to care. The waiter pours a small amount into Victor’s glass first and then takes a step back. Victor swirls the wine around in the glass for a moment and then brings it to his nose and sniffs it before taking a sip. After Victor approves, the waiter fills my glass first and then Victor’s.

I don’t look the waiter in the eyes because like the valet, he’s not worthy of my precious attention.

Victor declines food for the both of us and the waiter leaves our table.

“I never enjoy this city when I come here,” he says, taking a sip of his wine.

I fit my fingers delicately around the swell of my glass and do the same, afterwards placing it carefully back on the table.

“Well, I personally would prefer New York, or France,” I say, having no idea where I’m going with this.

“I didn’t ask you what you’d prefer.” He doesn’t look at me.

He sets his glass down.

“Why bring me out with you then?” I ask, ****ing my head. “I was only trying to engage you in conversation.” I look away, crossing my arms over my chest.

Victor looks right at me. “Izabel, don’t sit with your arms crossed like that. It makes you look like a stubborn child.”

Slowly, my arms fall away and I fold my hands together within my lap, straightening my back.

“Come here,” he says in a gentler tone.

I slide over the few inches separating us and sit right next to him.

His fingers dance along the back of my neck as he pulls my head toward him. My heart pounds erratically when he brushes his lips against the side of my face. Suddenly, I feel his other hand slip in-between my thighs and up my dress. My breath hitches. Do I part them? Do I freeze up and lock them in place? I know what I want to do, but I don’t know what I should do and my mind is about to run away with me.

“I have a surprise for you tonight,” he whispers onto my ear.

His hand moves closer to the warmth between my legs.

I gasp quietly, trying not to let him know, though I’m positive he definitely knows.

“What kind of surprise?” I ask, my head tilted back, resting in his hand.

Just then another couple walks up to the table, a tall blonde-haired woman with mile-long nak*d legs and an even taller man with his hand around the back of her waist.

Victor stands up to greet them. I stay right where I’m at, staying in character, yet at the same time not really having to pretend to be disappointed by their presence because I was enjoying the moment with Victor before we were interrupted; for a few minutes I had forgotten why we were even here.

“Aria,” the woman introduces herself.

“A pleasure,” I say with obvious distaste.

She sits down on the other side of the rounded booth. The man takes the outside seat after her, just as Victor sits.

“It has been a while, Victor,” the man says with an accent that I can’t place.

How do they know each other?

“Yes, it has, my friend,” Victor says as he gestures for the waiter.

The waiter comes right over and takes the man’s wine order.

“Izabel,” Victor says, “this is my old friend Fredrik from Sweden. He’ll be running my offices in Stockholm when the expansion goes into effect next month.”

“Oh, I see,” I say, taking another sip of my wine, sizing ‘Aria’ up as I look at her over the rim of my glass.

Her br**sts are practically busting out of the top of her dress and I feel inadequate all of a sudden. But I don’t let it show. I am the most beautiful and most important girl in the room, I remind myself. It doesn’t matter in the slightest that her double-D’s dwarf my C’s or that she’s quite beautiful and has the most magnetic blue eyes I’ve ever seen on a woman before.

I round my chin proudly and look away from her.

“What is my present, Victor?”

Victor’s lips lengthen subtly and he places his glass back upon the table.

“Fredrik and Aria, of course,” he says. “You’ve been so good lately and I’ve been neglecting you while away in Sweden that I wanted to celebrate you tonight.”

Fredrik smiles seductively across the table at me with his lips pressed to the rim of his glass. He is gorgeous, with dark wavy hair and strong cheekbones.

“Couldn’t we celebrate alone?” I ask, giving Fredrik no more of my attention. “I don’t understand what you’re getting at. Surely you don’t mean for me to f**k them.”

Victor’s smile is openly sly but secretly proud by how easily I caught onto the plan.

I just hope it doesn’t go farther than this table…

His hand moves away from between my legs and he places both arms upon the table, bent at the elbows.

“No, of course not,” he says and that surprises me. “I would never share you, you know that.”

Aria smiles at me, continuously trying to make eye contact which makes me want to look at her less. Fredrik’s left hand disappears underneath the table and probably between her thighs like Victor had his between mine just seconds ago.

“Victor tells us,” Fredrik leans forward just a bit and lowers his voice, “that you prefer an audience. Aria and I would very much like to watch. If that is something you’d be willing to allow.”

I’m not sure when the act ended for me, but right now I’m struggling to swim my way through feelings of lust and pleasure to find my way back into the real world. For a long few seconds I don’t say anything at all. All I can think about is Victor having his way with me and Fredrik and Aria watching as he does it. I’m suddenly tingling between the legs. But I’m ashamed of my own thoughts and try to force them out of my mind.

“Izabel?” I hear Victor say.

I snap back into the moment, not entirely sure anymore how I’m supposed to act. Maybe Victor should’ve prepared me better by giving me the particulars of important details like this. I fumble over my thoughts, using my wine glass as a distraction as I finger the stem with my right hand all while still trying to exude this self-possessed personality of Izabel Seyfried that I’m not exactly feeling anymore.

“I would like that,” I say. But then I glance coldly at Aria and add, “But not her. Only Fredrik.”

Aria’s face falls and then twists faintly into something bitter.

Victor’s expression remains standard and I take that as a secret sign of his approval for my decision to exclude her.

Before I lose my confidence, I keep the dialogue flowing.

“You should’ve known better than to invite her, Victor.”

He...

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The waiter comes back over to our table to offer us more wine and to check on things. Victor indicates with a nod that we need our glasses topped-off. As the waiter pours more wine into mine, I notice Victor’s hand move along the edge of the table toward me and just as the waiter pulls the bottle away, my glass falls over spilling wine onto my dress. It happened so fast that if I hadn’t of been watching Victor I never would’ve known that it was him who did it and not the waiter.

I gasp and my mouth falls open. And as I go into full-on Izabel mode, the waiter scrambles to clean the wine from the table and apologizes profusely in the process.

“Un-believable,” I say, standing up from the booth with my hands up and my mouth fallen open, my eyes rife with ire. “You idiot; look what you did to my dress.”

“I-I’m so very sorry,” the waiter says.

“I want to speak with the owner,” Victor demands, standing up at the booth now, too.

We have successfully caused a scene, at least.

“Yes, sir,” the waiter says. “I will get my manager right away.”

He starts to walk off quickly but Victor says, “No, I said the owner. Do not waste my time with anyone else.”

A little bit terrified, the waiter bows and scurries off through the restaurant.

Staying in character, I ignore my need to ask about what’s going on. Fredrik is still sitting with us, after all, and as far as I know…Who am I kidding? I don’t know anything, really.

“Look at my dress, Victor!”

Victor picks up the cloth napkin on the table in front of him and starts wiping my dress with it.

“It’s ruined,” I hiss through my teeth.

“I’ll buy you a new one,” he says. “Or better yet, the owner of this restaurant will buy you a new one.”

Fredrik sits quietly sipping his wine.

In less than two minutes, the waiter is approaching us again following behind a tall, broad-shouldered man with salt and pepper hair and a dimple in the center of his chin. The man walks with his head held high and his hands folded together down in front of him.

“I do apologize for the waiter’s accident,” he says. “Your wine and your meal if you have one tonight will be on the house.”

“Oh, but that just won’t do,” Victor says stepping right up to the man. “And I am offended that you would not offer to pay for the dress along with the dining. What kind of restaurant is this? Certainly one I will never come to again. Are you the owner of this…establishment?”

The man reaches out his hand for Victor to shake it but Victor declines.

“I am Willem Stephens,” he says, withdrawing his hand. “I run this particular restaurant.”

“So then you’re just the manager?” Victor accuses.

The waiter looks down at the floor to avoid Victor’s angry gaze.

“I asked for the owner,” Victor adds.

Willem Stephens nods. “Yes, Marcus here did inform me of your request, but I am afraid that is not possible this evening. Mr. Hamburg is not here.”

Fredrik stands up from the table now and all of our eyes avert to him. He takes one last sip of his wine.

“I apologize,” Fredrik says to Victor, “but I should go.” Then he looks at me briefly. “I will meet you at your hotel in two hours.”

I don’t offer him any secret looks or smiles, I just nod and turn back to Victor and the issue with my dress.

Fredrik and Victor exchange quick farewells and then Fredrik leaves us at the table with the manager.

“On behalf of Mr. Hamburg,” Willem Stephens says, “the dress will be paid for in-full and you are welcome to enjoy a meal on the house.”

Victor’s hand hits the tabletop and then suddenly a bouncer in a suit is standing next to Willem Stephens as if he’d appeared out of nowhere. The skinny waiter uses this opportunity to move back several steps to put distance between him and the rest of us.

“Please, sir,” Willem Stephens says, gesturing one hand toward Victor and trying to diffuse the situation. “There is no need for a scene. Would you like to speak with me somewhere more privately?”

Victor steps right up to him, confidence and intolerance emanating from every pore. Likewise the bouncer steps right up to Victor. Two seconds of silent tension passes between the two, but neither of them make a move. I know Victor could easily take him and this is all part of the plan.

“I want the dress paid for tonight,” Victor demands. “Thirty-five-hundred dollars. Cash. And I’ll think about not suing you or Mr. Hamburg for the dress and my girlfriend’s emotional distress.”

I find that ridiculous, but at the same time, I’ve heard of people suing for dumber things and getting away with it.

Willem Stephens nods. “Very well,” he says. “I will go and get your funds. If you’ll excuse me.”

Victor’s solid nod matches his and then Willem Stephens walks away, the waiter and the bouncer following close behind. Once they make their way through the quietly watching tables, Victor turns to me and gestures for me to sit down with him.

“I loved this dress,” I say with gritted teeth.

With the same cloth napkin as before, Victor delicately dabs the fabric on my chest for show. “Everything will be right once we leave here,” he says. Then he kisses me on the forehead. “I think you’ll like Fredrik. He has control.” He kisses me again a little lower between the eyes. “He’ll wait until we’re finished before he masturbates.”

“How do you know this?”

“Because I’ve known him a long time,” he says.

I can’t believe I’m even having this conversation. Or that every bit of it is a show. I don’t understand why we’re even putting on a show at all with no one here to witness it. But what confounds me even more than that is how easily I’ve been forgetting that it’s a show at all. Either I’m having way too much fun playing this dangerous game with Victor, or something is seriously wrong with me.

Victor traces my eyebrow with the pad of his thumb and I get completely lost in his eyes.

“What are you going to do to me?” I ask coyly. “You said I’ve been good.”

He lightly kisses the eyebrow he just touched.

“Whatever I want to do with you,” he says in a calm, controlling voice.

He brushes the other eyebrow with the pad of his thumb and traces it along my jawline.

I shut my eyes softly and breathe his scent in, savoring his closeness and trying to force myself not to believe the truth, that none of what he’s saying to me is real.

His lips brush against mine.

“Do you have a problem with that, Izabel?”

“No,” I shudder the word out, my eyes still closed.

But they pop open when Willem Stephens makes his way back to our table.

“For your troubles,” he says, holding out an envelope to Victor. “There is four grand here.”

Victor takes the envelope into his hand and tucks it into his suit jacket pocket hidden on the inside.

Willem Stephens then produces another, more square-shaped envelope from his own pocket and presents it to Victor next. “Mr. Hamburg would like to extend his apologies by inviting you to his mansion tomorrow evening,” he says.

Victor hesitantly takes the envelope, looking at it skeptically and uninterested at first.

“It is a private affair,” Willem Stephens goes on. “I can assure you that if you choose to attend, Mr. Hamburg will make it financially worth your while.”

“Do I appear to need financial assistance in any way whatsoever?” Victor asks, pretending to be offended by the notion.

Willem Stephens shakes his head solidly. “Not at all, sir,” he says. “But one can never have too much. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Victor contemplates it a moment and then reaches out for my hand. I take it and we step out of the booth.

“I will consider it,” Victor says and we leave the restaurant.

~~~

“How did you know that would work?” I ask excitedly the second we get into the Roadster and shut the doors. I can’t contain it anymore. I just hope it’s OK to be out of character now.

“I didn’t,” he says.

“But how—.”

He glances over at me, one hand resting casually on the top of the steering wheel. “All of the tables in the restaurant are bugged,” he says and looks back out at the road. “Hamburg sits up in that private room of his watching guests come and go, picking couples from the crowd first based on how they look. When he sees a couple that piques his interest the next phase is to listen in on their conversation.”

I’m totally understanding it all now.

“But why didn’t you tell me this before we went? I probably could’ve pulled off the acting better if I knew the guy was listening.”

“Well, technically I didn’t know if he was listening. And I didn’t tell you some things because I wanted to see how well you could improvise under pressure and having limited information about what’s going on.”

“That explains...

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Victor takes me out to buy a new dress with that four thousand dollars he conned from the manager. We go back to our hotel long enough to change clothes. I gape at him when I see him fully dressed. He wears a slim-fitting gray V-neck cardigan over a long-sleeved white button-up shirt. Very casual, untucked from his dark blue jeans. A pair of black leather lace-up shoes adorn his feet. I’ve only ever seen him wear expensive suits and dress shoes, so it’s a bit of a shock to see him in anything else. Though he still manages to pull off sophistication and wealth, flawlessly.

I wear a silk sun dress and another pair of expensive flat sandals, glad to be out of those painful heels.

We do end up meeting up with Fredrik, after all, though it’s entirely innocent. The three of us go out to a ****tail party on the rooftop of another luxury hotel and although I have to stay in character as Izabel Seyfried the entire time, I get the feeling that Fredrik knows I’m not really the bitch I portray myself to be. I find him refreshing and the longer Victor and I are with him throughout the night, the more I enjoy his company.

It almost feels…normal, like I’ve found some small way to enjoy the things around me like everybody else and to fit in with society. In the back of my mind I know that it won’t last, but at least I’m experiencing it without having to constantly look over my shoulder.

We part ways with Fredrik just after midnight when Victor feels it’s best we get back to our hotel and get some rest. Tomorrow night is going to be very different from this night and it should have me worried. But I’m already playing the game. I’m in too deep, too involved with my alter ego who has had more fun in one night than Sarai has had in a lifetime. I’m anxious and excited for tomorrow to get here, not afraid and having doubts like I think Victor secretly wants me to be.

No, this underground world he’s opening me up to slowly isn’t having the effect on me he had planned.

It’s only making me want it more.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Victor

“Fredrik tells me you had a girl with you,” Niklas says on the phone. “Izabel, was it?”

“Yes,” I answer. “Obviously it was necessary.”

He knows. I’ve never been so divided before. Niklas or Sarai? I feel this dire need to be selective about anything I tell him from here on out. But I can’t lie to him about Izabel and Sarai being one in the same because there are too many ways for Niklas to find out the truth. He likely already has the proof he needs. If I lie to him he’ll know I don’t trust him with her and that could put Sarai in even more danger.

“I gave Sarai a choice of where she’d like to live and she chose California. That is the only reason I brought her along.”

I hear Niklas take a concentrated breath.

“But you brought her along for a mission? Why?”

“Because for now, she is convenient,” I say. “Considering the short amount of time I was given to carry this hit out, there wasn’t time to fill anyone else in.”

I know this is not the greatest of explanations. There are several women in Los Angeles who work for the Order like Fredrik and one of them could have easily taken Sarai’s part and played it as flawlessly as Fredrik played his. But hopefully Niklas will take my word for it. He doesn’t play the field like I do. He isn’t as intimate with the process of carrying out an actual hit as I am. He has killed people just as I have, but not on the same level and he doesn’t have my experience.

“She will only get herself killed,” Niklas says.

“Yes, you’re right.” I stop and contemplate my words and then decide a different approach. “It’s the reason I brought her, if you want to know the truth.”

I can tell right away that his concerns have changed, that I’ve finally offered him an explanation he can be content with accepting.

“I can’t bring myself to kill her,” I go on as if finally admitting this to him. “I will if I have to, but you’re right, Niklas, to believe that I’ve been affected by her in some way. Only you noticed it before I did, or rather, you noticed it before I let myself believe it. The girl has to be removed entirely from the picture.”

“I could kill her for you,” Niklas says with sincerity and not out of spite or hatred for a change. He is empathizing with me and my plan is working. “Regardless of your nature, Victor, you are human. I understand. I can help you. Let me kill her for you.”

I sigh lightly into the phone. “No. She is my problem and I will deal with it. She wants to be what we are.” Niklas scoffs at hearing that. “There’s no better way to make her understand that it’s entirely unfeasible than to give her what she wants by throwing her into a mission head first. I’ll let the mission kill her.”

“And what if it doesn’t?”

“Then I will do it,” I say. “No matter what happens, Sarai will die in California tomorrow night.”

“I am sorry, Brother,” he says with real sympathy. “To have relations with women other than ***, it never works, you know this. We don’t do it for a reason and this situation you’ve gotten yourself into with her is only proving the vali***y of that reason.”

“I am aware, Niklas,” I say and change the subject quickly. “Give me the details of the mansion.”

After a brief pause and I sense his acceptance of my lies, Niklas begins, “There are ten bedrooms and a master suite which is Arthur Hamburg’s room located on the fourth floor. Six bathrooms. A Jacuzzi room on the ground floor, east side. A game room with five pool tables. A theatre room is located on the back north end of the mansion. There is a hidden exit behind the projector screen that leads underneath the house and outside near the back gates. There is another hidden door on the third floor, south end near the hallway with the black marble flooring. That one we’re not sure about where it leads, but the maid said that it, like the secret room in Hamburg’s suite, is locked by a keypad. She doesn’t have the access code. You won’t have time or the opportunity to break the access code of either door so you’ll have to do it the old fashioned way.”

“What about cameras?” I ask.

“There is one in every room except Hamburg’s suite.”

“I suppose there wouldn’t be,” I say. “Can’t imagine one like him foolish enough to record the evidence needed to put him away for life. This works in my favor.”

“Yes,” Niklas agrees. “Whatever you do in that room only those inside will know it.”

“And the maid?”

I mentally jot down all of the information he is giving me.

“The one you should look for is a woman named Manuela. She wears a nametag like all of the staff. Meet her near the Jacuzzi room at precisely eight o’clock. But do not speak to her. She will be working near the towel shelf where the envelope has been hidden. When you make eye contact with her, simply nod once to acknowledge her and she will place a stack of three towels on top of the towels where the envelope can be found. But this cannot be carried out until eight o’clock, so if Hamburg invites the two of you to his room before that, you’ll need to stall him.”

“And nothing that we discussed last night has changed?” I ask.

“No. Everything is to be carried out as planned. Hamburg’s gun is located in the nightstand on the side of the bed nearest the window. There is another gun in an unlocked briefcase on the floor of the closet.”

I let the scene run through my mind for a moment. “This is a first for me,” I say. “And I thought I have seen everything.”

“I agree,” Niklas says. “But it is what it is and it’s no different from any other hit from our perspective.”

He is right about that. Despite the unique circumstances, I have no problem carrying out this job. Sarai, on the other hand, I doubt will be able to stomach it.

“Contact me as soon as the job is complete,” Niklas says. “I would like to get the information back to Vonnegut as soon as possible. Hopefully it will make up for the delays and problems you encountered and created on the mission with Javier and Guzmán.” I hear the faint accusation in his words, but it’s to be expected and I let it go.

“I will do that,” I say.

Before I end the call, Niklas says, “Victor, you know it has to be done. For your sake and even for hers.”

I won’t kill Sarai and I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that no one else in the mansion does, either, but deep down I know that what my brother said is true. I should kill her for my sake and hers. But I can’t. And I won’t.

Sarai

It’s the night of the mission and my adrenaline is already pumping so hard through me that I can’t sit still. After a shower I get dressed after Victor chooses which dress I should wear and once again I’m back to being bra-less.

“I feel nak*d,” I say looking down at the thin, practically see-through silk dress.

Instinctively, I try to tug the ends of the dress down to cover more skin,...

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CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

On the way to the mansion, Victor reminds me one last time, “Never get out of character. No matter what happens, or how uncomfortable things might become for you. Don’t break character.”

“I understand,” I say. “No matter what, I won’t break character. I promise.”

That look he just gave me, although indistinct, tells me that he has his doubts.

We arrive at Arthur Hamburg’s estate at seven-thirty and are met by a tall electronic iron gate and a security guard. Victor holds our invitations out the car window to him. The guard inspects them first then walks over to a panel set in the side of a small rock security station and puts a phone to his ear. I hear him faintly through the opened window describing us and then describing the invitations. A few seconds later he hangs up and gives the invitations back to Victor.

He slips back inside his station and soon after the iron gate breaks apart allowing us access onto the enormous property. After going over the cobblestone driveway the length of at least two acres, we park our car in front of the mansion next to a plethora of equally expensive cars.

We get out and Victor loops his arm through mine and we walk toward the house. We approach the giant front double-doors, passing two marble pillars on either side and then underneath a scaling balcony. We’re greeted at the door by another armed security guard and this is when I notice all of the other security guards posted about the property. I remember what Victor told me about them and I start to feel a little uneasy. But after our invitations are inspected again and we walk inside, the uneasiness fades away, replaced by awe. I have been to many wealthy houses before, but this one is the most stunning by far with tall ceilings that rise four floors in the center of the mansion, opening up into a massive circular skylight. Beautiful Greek statues are displayed on the ground floor underneath it. Whenever someone walks by, the sound of their shoes tapping gently upon the marble echoes as though I’m inside a museum instead of a privately-owned California mansion. I hear what sounds like a small waterfall and then notice to my right, underneath a fifteen-foot archway is a beautiful white-rock fountain situated in the center of that room.

Before I’m caught ogling at this place the way a girl who has never seen such wealth in her life would, I shift my expression to look mostly inattentive, narrowing my eyes gently as if a part of me is bored. And when someone does catch my eye, I pick and choose whom to nod subtly in recognition to and who to ignore. Mostly, I ignore the women, or gaze upon them briefly with disapproving eyes.

Victor walks with me through the enormous room and we are then greeted by a man, though this man is not Arthur Hamburg. He is much younger with sandy-brown hair and brown eyes.

“Welcome to the Hamburg estate,” he says. He reaches out a hand and Victor shakes it. “I am Vince Shaw, Mr. Hamburg’s assistant.”

“I am Victor Faust and this is my lady, Izabel Seyfried.”

I hold my hand out to the man, palm-down and he takes it into his fingers and leans over kissing the top.

I wonder if that’s really Victor’s last name. He doesn’t seem worried about using his real first name…unless ‘Victor’ isn’t his real first name, either…

I can’t think about that right now.

‘Vince’ takes a glass of champagne from a tray when a server walks up carrying it. The server presents the tray to us next.

“Please, have a glass,” Vince says and Victor takes one from the tray and gives it to me before getting one for himself.

“I apologize,” Vince says, “but I was curious as to where you obtained your invite.”

Victor takes a sip and is slow to answer as though he’s important enough to make the man wait for it.

“Izabel and I were guests at Mr. Hamburg’s restaurant last evening. There was an incident.”

“Oh, yes of course,” Vince says with a knowing, but respectful smile. Then he turns to me. “You were compensated with interest for your dress, I presume?”

“Yes, I was,” I say and take a sip. “But I must say, I think it could’ve been handled differently.”

“Oh? In what way do you mean?”

“Well, it happened to be my favorite dress. Sentimental to me, if you must know. The waiter should’ve been relieved of his job.”

“Ah, yes,” Vince says. “Well, that certainly can be arranged. I will speak with Mr. Hamburg about it personally. That is, if you don’t want to speak to him yourself about it when he meets with the two of you later.”

“No,” I say and bat my eyes. “I trust that you will save me from having to repeat myself.”

I look at Victor who seems to be pleased with my performance.

“Of course,” Vince says. “Say no more. It will be done.” He smiles, revealing his straight, white teeth.

I feel terrible about being the reason that poor guy will get fired, but I make myself feel better by telling myself that he shouldn’t be working for a man like Hamburg anyway. After all, if we were sent here to kill him it can only mean he’s a bastard in some way, shape or form.

We mingle with Vince for a short while, but mostly I just sip on my champagne and listen to the two of them talk. Every now and then I’ll bring up my hand, folding my fingernails over and into view, nonchalantly studying them out of boredom. I notice Victor glance at his watch once.

“Mr. Hamburg will be down to greet his guests in no time,” Vince says. “For now, feel free to enjoy the champagne and hors d'oeuvres. Ah, there she is!” He waves a hand toward us and we turn around. “I would like for you to meet Lucinda Graham-Spencer.” He smiles at Victor. “Surely you know of her?”

A stunning woman wearing a tight white dress that hugs her hourglass curves approaches with a man in a suit.

“Yes, I have heard her play,” Victor says. “At a concert in London last year. She is brilliant.”

“Darrrling, how are you?” the woman named Lucinda Graham-Spencer asks holding out her arms dramatically to Vince. Victor and I step aside and she flits between us to plant two almost-kisses on each of Vince’s cheeks.

I roll my eyes. Not just in character, either.

“Lucinda,” Vince says, turning to Victor, “meet Victor Faust and,” he gestures to me, “Izabel Seyfried. They are guests of Mr. Hamburg.”

Lucinda leans in to Victor the same way she did with Vince and they kiss each cheek. Then she turns to me. Victor’s eyes narrow at me privately, but it’s not enough of a hint and I sure as hell can’t read his mind.

So, I act as my gut tells me to.

“A pleasure to meet you,” I say politely yet without letting my air of self-importance diminish. I kiss her cheeks in return, my hands fitted gently around her arms as hers are on mine.

Victor’s eyes smile at me now, approving of my choice and probably relieved by it. Apparently, this woman is of a much higher stature than I could ever be, and although I have no idea what kind of musician she is or why she is so important, I know that she must be famous in her own right and I would only make myself look like an idiot if I shunned someone as respected as her. In fact, we’d probably get kicked out on our asses if I did.

Vince leaves Victor and me alone as he walks with the woman through the room to introduce her to the other guests. I listen to him, noticing that he says the same thing to everyone that he said to us and that everyone here is introduced as ‘guests of Mr. Hamburg’. I start to wonder just how Victor plans to get Mr. Hamburg’s sole attention with so many other people in here, couples included, to compete with.

Victor drapes his free hand around the back of my waist and we walk through the room slowly, pretending to talk about the paintings and the statues. He’ll point subtly to this and that and comment on the detail or the color or the emotion it portrays. It’s all pointless, uninteresting observations that really don’t warrant verbal recognition in my opinion, but I play along anyway. Soon, I see that he was using that time to get across the room without looking lost or as though we needed the company of someone else to make us feel more welcome.

“I need to find the facilities,” Victor says, placing his glass of champagne down on a table at the hallway entrance. “Will you be alright on your own?”

“Of course,” I say with an air of annoyance. “I’m perfectly capable of standing by myself.”

He kisses my lips and then walks down the hallway. I watch until he turns the corner at the end. I know he’s not looking for the ‘facilities’ and I start to get nervous when he’s gone for more than a few minutes and I’m still standing here alone. I hope I don’t look in need of social rescue.

I get it anyway.

“I’m Muriel Costas,” a woman says stepping up to me with another woman and one younger man. “I’ve never seen you here before.”

“Izabel Seyfried,” I say and sip my champagne very slowly, letting her know it has more of my attention than she does. “And I suppose you wouldn’t since I’ve...

Killing Sarai
Killing Sarai Page 38



I don’t offer my hand to these three men, just my charming, confident conversation that I would never offer a woman. I least expected for this to happen, but it’s in this moment when I take things entirely upon myself that I see not only am I more into this role than I thought I could be, but I’m beginning to give Izabel Seyfried her own traits. Traits that Victor never technically told me to give her. I choose—because it feels right—to make her despise women a little too much and love men a little too intensely.

After all, if I’m going to play the role of someone else I might as well fill in all of the missing pieces of her personality and make her entirely realistic.

During my conversation with these men whose names I’ve already forgotten, Victor joins us. I feel his hand around my upper arm, squeezing it harshly.

“You know I don’t like it when you walk away from me,” he says.

The men say nothing, but listen to us intently as if intrigued by Victor’s display of dominance over me.

I smile slyly. “I know you don’t like it,” I say, “but it was getting…stuffy over there with your great-grandmother.”

Muriel’s eyes lock on mine upon hearing and I smirk at her faintly in return. She and her sidekicks walk in the opposite direction toward another small group of people.

Victor wrenches my arm, causing the champagne in my class to slosh around.

The spiteful smile disappears from my face in an instant.

He leans toward my ear and says in a low voice, “I can’t bear the thought of doing it, Izabel, but if I have to, I will let you go.” His breath dances along the side of my neck, raising chill bumps to the skin.

“I won’t do it again,” I say breathily, turning my neck at an angle so that my mouth reaches his.

I close my eyes to kiss him and feel his lips near mine so close that I can almost taste them, but then he pulls away. The men standing next to us are gawking in their own private way when my eyes open again.

Arthur Hamburg emerges from the fountain room with four men in suits and all attention turns to him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The man looks even older than he does in his photo. And heavier. I estimate he must be in his late sixties, average height but not quite six-feet tall and no less than three hundred pounds, most of it in his stomach and cheeks. As he stands there at the head of the room with his henchmen at his sides, I don’t see a simple overweight man of mature age, I see an evil man who is going to die tonight. It’s all I can think about: he’s going to die. And I’m going to be there to witness it. Suddenly, my insides lock up, my chest constricting, my stomach a hard knot, and I feel like I can’t breathe. I suck in air through my parted lips and let it out very slowly through my nostrils. Calm Sarai. Just remain calm.

I didn’t think it would affect me this way, knowing a man’s fate, practically controlling whether he lives or dies simply by having the knowledge that he doesn’t have. But despite the anxiety I feel as the reality of the situation catches up to me, I don’t regret coming here. I may not know what Arthur Hamburg has done to deserve death, but I trust in Victor’s words and I know that he is far from innocent or we wouldn’t be here.

Arthur Hamburg addresses his guests, thanking us all for coming tonight and he carries on and on about superfluous things to which everyone nods and agrees and smiles and offers their own input. And he makes jokes to which he laughs at before anyone else, but they always laugh too, because it would be rude not to, of course. Even I find myself chuckling lightly at a joke that everyone else seems to find funny and that I really don’t.

Victor moves me around to stand in front of him, pressing the back of my body against the front of his. His mouth explores my bare shoulders, his hands rest on my hips. But the affection is brief, just for show, and his attention is back on Arthur Hamburg, who I notice in that short timeframe singles us out with his gaze fixed on us from across the room. I can see the deliberation in his eyes, the sudden shift in his demeanor. After a few more announcements, he wraps up the small talk and leaves everyone to mingle and enjoy themselves the way they had been doing before he came into the room.

Next thing I know, he’s walking straight towards us.

Victor

Arthur Hamburg shakes my hand as I introduce myself and Izabel.

“My assistant tells me that you encountered a problem in my restaurant last night.”

He knows very well that it was the two of us. He watched us from that private room of his, listened to our interactions at the table through the tiny microphone situated inside the table centerpiece.

“Yes,” I say with a nod. “Forgive me for saying it, but I believe a change in the way your management hires your staff is in order.”

Hamburg smiles to cover up what he’s really doing: studying me and Sarai, getting a feel for us more than he already had at the restaurant, imagining us with him in his room. He could care less about the incident at the restaurant or being sued. That has nothing to do with why he invited us here.

“Are you from L.A.?” he asks.

“No,” I say, pulling Sarai closer to me with one arm around the back of her hip, my hand resting near her pelvic bone. Hamburg’s eyes stray to see it there. “Stockholm.”

He looks intrigued.

“You don’t sound foreign,” he says.

I respond by saying in Swedish, “I am fluent in seven languages.” And then I repeat it in English, so that he understands.

He nods with an impressed smile. Then he looks to Sarai.

“And what about you?”

“She is from New York,” I answer for her.

Sarai keeps quiet this time.

Hamburg turns to me again and asks, “Is she your…,” he searches his mind for the safest way to ask the question.

“My property?” I say for him, letting him know that it’s perfectly acceptable to talk about otherwise taboo things. “Yes, she is. And for the most part, she enjoys it.”

He raises a bushy graying brow. “For the most part?” he asks inquisitively. “What does the rest of her think?”

He glances at Sarai, a faint grin at the edges of his aged lips.

“The rest of me has a mind of my own,” Sarai says as Izabel.

I sigh and shake my head, brushing my fingers along her hipbone. “Yes, that she does, I admit,” I say. “I prefer a woman who puts up a fight.”

“So, you’ve already been down the other road, I take it?” Hamburg asks and I know he’s referring to full submission, owning a woman who will do anything and everything she’s told without cracking the slightest expression of discomfort or refusal.

“Once,” I answer. “I am content with Izabel, regardless of her mouth sometimes.”

Hamburg watches her more closely now, as well as me. He likes both women and men, after all. And he also likes women who put up a fight, like Izabel. The only difference is that the ones he’s enjoyed were forced here against their will.

Suddenly, Hamburg raises his chin proudly and says, “I would very much like to speak to you privately. In my suite. If you’re interested in lucrative offers. You are interested in lucrative offers, aren’t you?” He smiles and wets his lips briefly with his tongue.

I think on it a moment, playing with his head, letting him know just by the look in my eyes that I’m interested but I’m not desperate.

“I am willing to hear the offer, at least,” I say.

His eyes light up. He turns to the man in the suit beside him, whispers something in his ear and turns back to us as the man takes the glass elevator up to the top floor.

“Walk with me,” Hamburg says and the two of us follow him toward the elevator.

Hamburg tells us about the construction of his mansion while we wait for the glass elevator to make its way back down empty. And he rambles on about how much money he has put into it as if to covertly explain to me that he can spare whatever my price. I can sense Sarai getting more nervous as we rise toward the top floor. At one point, she clutches my hand and I glance down to see her delicate fingers tangled in mine. I squeeze her hand gently, letting her know that I’m here and that I’m going to do everything in my power to keep her safe. I glance over to see her eyes and right now all I see is Sarai looking back at me, the brave but anxious and complicated girl that I’ve grown very protective of.

We walk down one massive hallway where out ahead is the entrance to his room, intricate and overdone like the rest of the house. Two men in suits stand guard outside of it. Each of them, like the ones downstairs, carry guns hidden beneath their clothes. But I don’t. Not this time. Because I know Sarai and I will be checked before we’re let inside and to find one on either of us, two wealthy but otherwise simplistic individuals that have no reason to be carrying firearms, would change Hamburg’s initial assumptions about us. He might feel threatened and change his mind about letting us inside.

We stop at the entrance and I raise my arms out at my sides to let one guard pat me down.

Sarai does the same, but isn’t so quiet this time.

“Is this...

Killing Sarai
Killing Sarai Page 39



He grins and for the first time since I walked in here, his eyes skirt me.

While I’m secretly having an anxiety attack, Victor ponders it for a moment, making it seem as though he’s taking the offer into consideration.

Victor glances at me.

“No way,” I say right on cue. “He’s disgusting, Victor. I don’t agree to this.”

Victor stands up and casually takes me by the elbow.

“You’ll do what I tell you to do,” he says.

I shake my head back and forth, looking between them, trying not to break character, but finding it more and more difficult to achieve.

I can do this, I tell myself as the loud pounding of my heart rises over my voice in my head. Victor won’t hurt me. In any way. I have to believe that.

Why doesn’t he just kill the pig now? I don’t understand…

With my elbow still clenched in his hand, Victor turns to Arthur Hamburg and says, “Fifteen thousand,” and Hamburg’s face lights up. “And it’ll be another fifteen if I let you go down on me.”

I feel my eyes widening in my skull.

“It’s a deal.”

“No,” I say and try to wrench my arm free, but then Victor narrows his eyes at me and I give in.

“Bend over the table,” Victor says.

What?...

He looks at the heavy square marble table to my right, moving nothing but his eyes.

“Now, Izabel,” he demands.

Oh my God…

Hesitantly I step over to the table and lay my stomach and chest across it from the waist up. Already I feel the air in the room brushing against the fabric of my panties. I swallow hard.

Victor comes up behind me and raises my short dress the rest of the way over my butt, resting it on my lower back. One of his hands squeezes my cheeks.

“Make her cry,” Arthur Hamburg says from the chair behind me. “I have things you can use if you’d like.”

“I can make her cry without them,” Victor says, pulling my panties down and letting them fall around my ankles. I gasp uncomfortably as I’m exposed. “But I might use them still. It’s been a while since I really hurt her.”

Arthur Hamburg makes a strange noise I’ve never heard before. “Oh yes, I’d very much like to see that.” He smacks his hands together and adds with creepy delight, “How small is she? I have a rubber bat.”

I freeze against the table, his comment sucking the breath right out of my lungs.

Are you f**king kidding me?

I’m ready to kill him now. He could be my first kill. I’m ready to do it!

My hands begin to shake underneath my chest.

Stay in character, Sarai…no matter what.

Then suddenly, as if we’re no longer in the room with this sick f**king bastard, I feel Victor’s fingers slide into me and I’m instantly wet. I gasp sharply, the warm breath emanating from my lips coats the marble table inches from my face with moisture. I watch it appear and disappear with every rapid breath I take.

“Spread your legs,” Victor instructs.

At first I don’t, but when he wedges both hands between my thighs and forces them apart, exposing me fully, I don’t fight him, I just grapple the edge of the table with my fingertips and straighten my back.

My mind struggles with the wrong in this. I know it’s wrong and disgusting because that man is sitting there watching this happen. But the other part of me, the part that is starting to block Arthur Hamburg’s presence from my mind entirely, wants Victor to have his way with me. I try to shut my eyes and picture only Victor in the room and it works a minute or two until I hear Arthur Hamburg’s voice again.

“Yes, she’s very pink. Very small,” he says and I grit my teeth.

Victor begins to stall.

“You know,” he says, “maybe you could show me what you have. I’ll f**k for a little bit first, open her up some, and then—”

“Say no more,” Arthur Hamburg says with a sadistic smile in his voice.

I hear him get up from the chair and then his dress shoes tap against the floor as he walks by. I see his pants have already been unbuttoned, his shirt untucked sloppily about his grotesque stomach. He’s already been touching himself. As he approaches what looks like a large closet, he stops about mid-way and turns back to Victor. He seems to be contemplating intensely until he says, “Would it be OK if I allowed my wife to watch with me?”

After a momentary pause, Victor answers, “An extra person wasn’t part of the deal.” He mulls it over. “But I suppose that would be alright. Is she downstairs?”

“Oh good,” Arthur Hamburg says, rubbing his fat hands together. He continues onward toward the closet, opening both enormous doors to reveal a walk-in bigger than an average bedroom. “No, I keep her in here.”

Huh? You keep her in there?

Sensing that this has gotten more than just Victor’s attention, I look up just as he walks past me. Having no idea what he’s doing, I’m not sure if I should stay like I am, or do what I’d rather do and stand up to let my dress drop back over my ass. I wait it out a few more minutes.

“Don’t be too shocked when you see her,” Arthur Hamburg says. It looks like he’s punching in a series of numbers on a silver keypad in the wall on the inside of the closet. “In a way, my Mary is just like your Izabel.”

“Is that so?” Victor says stepping into the closet with him.

Another massive door breaks apart from the wall inside the closet to reveal another room.

“Yes,” Arthur Hamburg goes on. “Though she’s much more submissive than yours.”

Then I hear a loud thump and a bang as the two of them disappear somewhere inside the hidden room. I scramble to pull my panties up and run across the space to see what’s going on, nearly tripping on my way there because of the heels.

“Victor!”

“Get in here, Izabel, now!” I hear him shout and though he called me Izabel, I know by the urgent tone in his voice that he’s speaking to me as Sarai.

Once I make my way past the tall shelves inside the closet and burst through into the hidden room, I’m shocked and confused by what I see, unable to form thoughts much less words. Victor has Arthur Hamburg pressed face-first against the wall with a tie wrapped tightly around his thick neck. His face bulges over the restricting fabric, his skin turning dark red and purple. A woman lies on a cot next to the wall wearing a long, see-through white cotton gown that has been soiled by urine and blood.

“In the closet,” Victor says, pressing his body against the struggling man, “there’s a briefcase on the floor with a gun inside. Get it.”

I nod rapidly and run back into the closet behind me to search for the briefcase, finding it in seconds. I take the gun out and rush back inside the room.

He frees one hand and I give it to him.

Victor shoves the gun against Arthur Hamburg’s temple and releases his body. He gasps for air, making desperate choking sounds as he tries to regain control of his breathing. Then Victor pats him down, checking for weapons. When he’s satisfied there are none, Victor reaches into his pants pocket and pulls out a pair of rubber gloves and tosses them to me, indicating for me to put them on.

I do so quickly.

“Now here are how things are going to happen,” Victor says to Arthur Hamburg. “Unfortunately, you get to live. If it were my choice, I’d of killed you last night at the restaurant, or any other Friday night before that. But you get to live.”

What. Is. Going. On? I can’t wrap my mind around this unexpected turn of events.

“If you didn’t come here to kill me,” Arthur Hamburg says, his voice shaking with fear but laced with amusement, “then what the f**k are you here for? Money? I’ve got plenty of money. I’ll give you anything you want.”

Victor shoves Arthur Hamburg onto the floor and keeps the gun trained on him. Sweat is pouring from the man’s face and neck, soaking his white dress shirt. Then Victor reaches inside his hidden suit jacket pocket and hands me a small yellow envelope.

“Open it,” he instructs.

As I’m doing that, Victor turns back to him.

“The death will be ruled as a suicide,” Victor says and I’m growing even more confused. “She left a note signed by her hand. All you have to do is wait one hour after we leave to call it in.”

“What the f**k are you talking about?” Arthur Hamburg snaps, despite a gun being pointed at him.

I can’t decide who to look at more, the sick man on the floor or the poor woman lying on the cot.

Suddenly she looks up at me with sad, weak, tormented eyes and a chill runs through my body.

“Victor we have to help her.” I start to move toward her.

“No,” Victor says. “Leave her be.”

“But—”

“Remove the contents of the envelope,” he interrupts.

I take out a folded piece of paper first, trying to grasp the feel of it through the tight rubber gloves sealed to my hands.

“Read it,” he says.

Carefully, I unfold it and look down into the pretty handwriting...