Текст книги "Reviving Izabel"

Автор книги: J. A. Redmerski

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

“I won’t…you can’t,” I shake my head.

Sarai gives up and starts to push her way past me intent on leaving. But I can’t let her go anywhere. I can’t because I know that she meant every word of what she said.

I grab her by the wrist, stopping her in her angry march toward the glass door. Fredrik steps out of the way, watching the scene unfold with an odd glint in his eyes that I can only make out as fascination.

“Let go of me!”

“You’re not leaving.” I hold her wrist tight and grab the other one as she begins to struggle against me.

She wants to take all of her anger out on me, to scream into my face, to curse me with words she desperately wants only to say to Hamburg and Stephens before she kills them, but she can’t do any of it. The anger, as always, gets the best of her and she bursts into tears.

She told me once that she always cries when she’s angry.

The tears roll down her cheeks in rivulets. She tries once more to break free from me, but I hold on tight and put painful pressure on her wrists, hoping to allay her.

“Victor please! Just fucking teach me, goddammit! Even if it’s only to kill the two of them! That’s all I ask! I’ll never ask you to help me again! PLEASE!”

She finally stops struggling and collapses against my chest. I wrap my arms around her small form, cradling the back of her head in my hands and I press the side of my face against the top of her hair. The cries roll through her chest violently, her body trembling in my embrace. These are not cries of sadness and pain, they’re cries of guilt and anger and the dire need to avenge the deaths of people—even Lydia—who might still be alive if it were not for her.

Fredrik looks over at me and I know what that calm look on his face reads. He thinks I should give Sarai what she wants.

But it’s not Fredrik’s opinion that ultimately makes up my mind, it’s my need to protect Sarai that decides, even if by doing so she still might end up dead.

I choose the safer of the two ill-fated paths.

“I will help you.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Sarai

I raise my face from his shirt, sniffling back the damned tears that once again have betrayed me in a weak moment.

“You’ll help me kill them?”

He nods. “Yes.”

“Thank you,” I say softly.

I push up on my toes and kiss him lightly on the mouth.

The housekeeper speaks up behind us in a small voice, standing at the sliding glass door, “Breakfast is ready.”

She looks at us through dark and beady curious eyes, surely having heard the commotion while she was inside.

“Marta makes the best scrambled eggs,” Fredrik says with a gleaming smile, as though nothing had happened. “Cooks them in bacon grease.” He puts all of his fingers against the center of his lips and kisses them. “I love American food.”

He follows behind Marta. “Though I understand scrambled eggs cooked in bacon grease is a southern thing?” he asks looking back at us as we follow in behind him.

Victor shrugs.

“Well, Marta isn’t exactly from Alabama,” he goes on as we all enter the kitchen, “but she can cook like she is.”

Fredrik and Victor ramble on about food, I know probably trying to take my mind off what happened. But I don’t care about anything right now other than Dahlia and Eric’s faces in my memory. I know I’m being punished. By Life. By Fate. I don’t know by who or what, all I know is that I’d do anything to give them back their lives.

The three of us sit down at Fredrik’s glass-top kitchen table and eat. And I find it almost funny how Fredrik makes Marta taste the food before serving it to us as if he had taken the paranoid technique right out of the Victor Faust Handbook.

During breakfast, which we all take in very slowly due to conversation, Fredrik eventually relieves Marta of duty for the day. It was just after he and Victor began speaking to one another in Swedish. I hate that I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but it become clear to me that it had to do with Marta and not me.

Marta grabs her purse and tells us all goodbye, thanking Fredrik for paying her for a full day even though she didn’t work it.

“What was that all about?” I ask just after she closes the front door behind her.

I set my fork down on my plate, finished with my breakfast.

“There’s a lot to talk about,” Fredrik says and takes a drink of orange juice. “And she shouldn’t be in earshot of the conversation.” He points at me and smiles. “And Marta, though it might not seem like it, listens to everything that goes on around here.”

“Then why didn’t you just continue in Swedish?” I ask.

“Do you speak Swedish?” Victor asks me casually.

“No.”

“Well, you’re a part of this,” he says, setting his glass of water on the table.

I smile. It’s in this moment that I feel like a part of them for the very first time. Both of them. The three of us sitting around the table, minutes later cleared of plates and glasses, replaced by files and photographs of contract hits. In a sense it’s surreal to me, discussing the details of interrogation and murder as casually as if we were discussing the day’s weather. But also for the first time in my life, I feel that I belong somewhere. I’m not pushing my way through a dark tunnel with my hands out in front of me searching for the door anymore. The door is right there in plain view and I’ve already walked through it. I’m finally where I belong in my life. And I’m with Victor, which means more to me than anything.

I’m finally with Victor.

* * *

Victor and I leave Fredrik’s house in the hills of Los Angeles late afternoon and drive eleven hours to Albuquerque, New Mexico. On the way, I have him stop at a mall where I pretty much spend a couple thousand dollars on new clothes, shoes, accessories and makeup for myself, seeing as how everything I owned is in Arizona or was left in the Los Angeles hotel. I stuffed the backseat with shopping bags and shoe boxes, but by the ninth hour on the road I wished I had bought less. All I wanted to do was crawl into the backseat and sleep, but I got stuck with being cramped in the front, curled up awkwardly on the bucket seat of his black Cadillac CTS with my head pressed against the window. Since Victor left the Order he no longer has the convenience of flying on private jets to get around. He can still certainly afford them if he wanted to spend his own money, but being a man who the Order wants dead, means staying under the radar and giving up some luxuries that might lead Niklas right to him.

Apparently, giving up such luxuries also includes the extravagant multi-million dollar homes he has always chosen to live in. His house in Albuquerque is far from matching the one he lived in on the East Coast that overlooked the ocean. As we come up the dirt driveway, I see a house of moderate size made of straight, high tan stucco walls with a boxy shape that reminds me of the houses I used to build with Legos when I was a kid. But judging by the elaborate landscape that hugs the smooth white sidewalk leading up to the door and surrounds the east side of the house, it’s obvious that Victor hasn’t completely given up all luxuries. Even more obvious when we step inside as the interior is as beautiful as Fredrik’s house had been, though with more of a southwestern style than a modern luxury bachelor pad. Rust reds and browns and yellows are dominant throughout the space, with tall ceilings held up by dark wooden beams and rafters which make the house appear much larger on the inside than it appears on the outside. A cozy stone fireplace is set in the wall in the spacious living room with two metal ornate mirrors mounted above it. The walls are painted yellow, which complement the terra cotta tile flooring that appears to spread throughout the whole house.

“You always manage to get the best housekeepers, that’s for sure,” I say, setting several of my bags down on the floor in the living room.

“Not this time,” he says behind me. He sets the other bags from the car down next to the tawny-brown leather couch. “It’s just me.”

“Really? But it’s so clean in here. I guess you haven’t been here long then?”

“About four months.” He looks over at me. “Do you like it? I hope so since it is your new home.”

A smile breaks in my face.

He breaks apart the buttons of his dress shirt and takes it off, laying it over the back of a brown leather chair. Secretly, I take note of his physique as he walks toward a long, brightly-lit hallway with an arched entrance.

I follow him.

“Of course you know we won’t be here forever.” We enter a large bedroom. “But it’s home for now, at least.”

He steps out of his pants and I’m trying really hard not to watch him too intensely, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult.

“Come here,” he says, standing before me in nothing but his tight black boxer briefs which are doing very little to hide the hard bulge growing behind the fabric.

I swallow nervously, though why I’m nervous all of a sudden, I have no idea, and I walk toward him. A twinge spasms between my legs, and I’m not sure why of that, either. It’s as if my subconscious mind is more aware of what’s about to happen than my conscious one. Either that, or my mind is just running away from me with thoughts of what I only wish would happen.

I look at him curiously, tilting my head gently to one side.

“I’m not sure what this is between us,” he says carefully, “but I am sure that I don’t want it to stop. Whatever it is.”

“I feel the same way.”

A little confused about where this is heading, I tilt my head to the other side and ask, “Is something wrong?”

He shakes his head subtly. “No, nothing’s wrong.”

“Well…if you’re worried I’m going to fall in love with you and cling on to your every move, you don’t have to worry.”

“You’re not in love with me?” he asks and it seems like nothing more than a simple inquiry.

“No, I don’t love you, Victor.”

He nods, completely accepting it. “Good. Because I’m not in love with you, either.”

I don’t think either of us truly knows what the word means in this kind of situation. We both display the same accepting, yet somehow confused expressions.

“But…I uh…,” I clasp my fingers together behind my back and look down at the tile floor, moving my foot about as if I were shuffling my toes nervously in sand. I stop and look him in the eyes. “But I uh would maybe…appreciate it if you didn’t sleep with anyone else. I…well, I don’t think I’d like that much.”

“I agree,” he says with another solid nod. “I think if I caught you with another man, I would have to kill him.”

I nod a few times, as casually as he had.

“Definitely,” I say in return. “The same goes for you.”

“Agreed.”

There’s an awkward bout of silence between us and I glance over at the king-sized bed with tall cherry wood posts at all four corners, just feet away.

I look back at Victor as he approaches me. I lift my arms above me when his fingers slide behind the ends of my shirt and he pulls it off.

“I would also like to say that I don’t mind if you cling to my every move.” He fits his fingers behind the elastic of my panties. “For the record.”

“Really?”

He crouches down before me as he slides my panties over my hips and down my legs. He stays there, looking up at me, his head level with my bellybutton.

“Yes,” he answers. “Of course, you can’t be getting in my way when I’m trying to do a job.”

“Yes, of course,” I say and my skin reacts to his lips kissing the area just above my pelvic bone. “I-I would never get in the way of your job,” the words shudder from my lips. My hands begin to shake when he lowers himself between my legs, spreading my lips below with the pads of his thumbs.

I move my legs apart just a little, enough to give him access.

“But no leaving me in someplace far away while you travel everywhere to fulfill contracts,” I say, my fingers curling within the top of his hair, my breathing uneven and rapid. “I don’t want to be a stay-at-home wife, y’know what I mean?”

A sharp gasp pierces the air around my mouth when the tip of his tongue flicks across my clit. I nearly wilt right here and now, the muscles in my thighs deteriorating with every passing second.

“Yes, I am quite aware of the concept,” he says and then licks me again, dragging his tongue between my wet petals. I throw my head back and grasp his hair tighter, winding it within my fingers. “You’ll go wherever I go. So I can keep an eye on you.”

“An eye on me. Of course.” It was a poor attempt at a response. All I can think about is his head between my legs and that hot, prickling sensation turning my insides into mush.

Victor hoists me up with my ass planted firmly within both of his hands, my thighs wrapped around his head from the front and he licks me furiously for a moment before tossing me onto the bed on my back.

With my thighs pushed toward me, his mouth falls between my legs and my eyes roll into the back of my head as he sends me into oblivion.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Sarai

Training begins two days later, but it doesn’t start off the way I expected it to. I don’t know what I expected really, but it certainly wasn’t this.

“What are we doing here?” I ask as we pull into the parking lot of a physical fitness and martial arts studio an hour away in Santa Fe.

“Krav Maga,” he says and I just look at him as though he were speaking to me in another language. He shuts the car door and we walk toward the front of the building. “I won’t be able to devote one hundred percent of my time teaching you. So, three days a week I’m going to bring you here for some training. You can learn a lot in Krav Maga in a short time. And it focuses on self-defense—”

“What?” I stop on the sidewalk just before we get to the front door. “I’m not a damsel in distress who just got robbed in a dark parking garage, Victor. I don’t need self-defense classes. I need to learn how to kill.”

“Killing is the easy part,” he says matter-of-factly. He opens the glass door, gesturing me inside ahead of him. “Getting to that point without getting yourself killed in the process is the hard part.”

I scoff. “So, you want me to learn how to kick a guy in the nuts? Trust me, I’m already perfectly capable of doing that.”

A faint grin appears at the corners of his delicious lips.

Just then, a tall dark-haired man with rolling muscles walks toward us through the vast room. Tall windows are set along the top of the wall, letting in the sunlight. Two separate groups of people are training in a turn-by-turn sequence, standing around in a half-circle atop an enormous black mat spread across a large section of the floor.

The man with bulging arms underneath a black t-shirt offers his hand to Victor. “How long has it been? Three? Four years?”

Victor shakes his hand firmly.

“About four, I believe.”

The man looks at me momentarily and then Victor introduces us.

“Spencer, this is Izabel. Izabel, Spencer.”

“A pleasure,” Spencer says, holding out his hand.

Reluctantly, I shake it. They know each other? I’m not sure I like that or not. I suddenly feel like I’m being set up. I smile squeamishly up at the tall, good-natured brute.

Victor turns to me and says, “There’s no one better to train you in self-defense than Spencer. You’re in good hands.”

Spencer smiles so big I feel like if it were any bigger he might bite my head clean off my neck. He stands with his heavily-muscled arms down in front of him, his hands folded. The thick, ropy veins running along his hands and up his darkly-tanned arms reminds me of a body builder, but he’s not quite as big as one. He’s just bigger than me, making him more intimidating.

I put up a finger at Spencer. “Will you excuse us for a minute?”

“Of course,” he says.

I catch the quick grin he gives Victor.

I grab Victor by the hand and pull him off to the side. In the background I hear the constant sound of bodies being thrown down on top of that black mat and the voice of an instructor harping repetitive commands and making the students ‘do it again’.

“Victor, I think this is a waste of time. I don’t understand why you brought me here.” I cross my arms. “I want you to teach me these things, not some random guy the shape of a bus.” I look over my shoulder, hoping Spencer didn’t hear that, even though I made sure to keep it at a whisper.

“I have to meet with Fredrik in an hour,” Victor says.

“Oh, so you’re dropping me off with a babysitter?” Lines deepen around my eyes. I shake my head at him in total disbelief, not to mention, offense.

“No, that’s not what this is about.”

“But I want you to teach me,” I repeat, pushing the words harshly through my teeth.

Victor sighs and shakes his head, appearing annoyed and frustrated with me.

“You have no discipline,” he says. “None whatsoever. Just like my brother was.” That stings my pride. “How am I ever going to teach you anything when you can’t even do the simplest things that I ask of you?”

Instantly, I regret acting like such a child.

I let out a surrendering breath. “I’m sorry,” I say softly. “I guess I just imagined training with you.”

“You will,” he ensures me, placing his hands on my shoulders, “but for now, you need to learn the basics. And this is the best way to do it.”

“But why can’t you teach me the basics?” I ask with the same amount of surrender as before. “Why does it have to be him?”

Victor leans in and presses his lips softly against the corner of my mouth. “Because Spencer isn’t afraid to hurt you,” he says and it surprises me somewhat. “And I don’t want to hurt you if I can help it. The only way you’re going to learn is if it’s real.”

My eyes widen. “Wait…so you’re saying this tank,” I point over my shoulder with my thumb, “is going to hit me for real?”

“Yes. It’s what I’m paying him for.”

I think my mouth just fell on the floor. The air in the room suddenly hits the backs of my eyes.

“You don’t have to do this, Sarai, but if you’re going to, I want you to go all in. Don’t half-ass it. In real life someone attacking you isn’t going to go easy on you,” he goes on, gazing thoughtfully into my eyes, wanting desperately for me to understand and to trust him. “I’ll train with you when the time is right. But when I do it, it will be brutal, Sarai. I will come at you with the same force a real attacker would. You learn the basics first, obtain some skills that you can fight me with and then I’ll feel better about training you myself. Do you understand?”

I nod. “Yeah, I guess I do.” And I’m being honest with him. I totally understand now. And I can’t remember the last time I was this nervous to go through with something. But Spencer, the tank, doesn’t really scare me that much because I know deep down that even though Victor is paying him to not go easy on me, he still won’t hit me with everything he’s got. If he did, he’d kill me.

“Do you want to stay?” Victor asks.

“Yes. I do.”

“Good.”

He leans in to my lips again and kisses me deeply, stealing my breath away. Shocked by his unnatural display of public affection, I find myself unable to speak when he pulls his lips away from mine.

“I’ll be back here to pick you up in a few hours.”

“OK.”

We walk back to stand with Spencer who looks somewhat excited to start training with me, as if I were a shiny new toy that he can’t wait to play with.

“Are you ready to start learning Krav Maga?” Spencer asks.

“Yes,” I answer and my eyes drift toward the people fighting on the black mat behind him.

“Are you sure you can handle it?”

I want to say yes with confidence, because after all, I always imagined that self-defense classes consisted of nothing more than simple blocking and hitting and screaming to let others know of my whereabouts. I always pictured average women who’ve never fought in their lives all standing around waiting for their turn to take the instructor down with a few ‘helpful’ moves. But as I watch the group training behind Spencer, the aggressive intensity and violence in some of their moves, I’m beginning to think this kind of self-defense is very different.

“Should be simple enough,” I say without the confidence that I wanted.

“If you say so,” Spencer chimes in with a knowing grin that frays my nerves further.

But I’m not afraid. Nervous, yes, but not afraid. I’m ready to do this. I’m starting to look forward to it. I want to prove to Victor that I have what it takes.

And I want to prove to him that I’m nothing like his brother.

Victor leaves me and before the first hour is over I’m exhausted and so sore that I can hardly walk a straight line without stumbling.

* * *

“Always defend and attack at the same time,” Spencer says, standing over me lying beneath him on the mat, wanting to curl into the fetal position. “And never go down. This isn’t wrestling, Izabel. If you go down, you’re dead.”

Out of breath and trying to hold back the intense pain searing through the back of my calf muscle, I bring myself to my feet.

“Come at me,” he demands, his voice rising over the shouts of the few students still watching after the second hour. “If you don’t come at me, I’m coming after you!”

I’m too exhausted.

“I can’t!” I give up and fall against the mat on my butt. “This is too much. It’s my first day and I feel like it’s my first real fight. What happened to showing me what to do, teaching me how to hit?”

“Going light on you, that’s what you really mean, isn’t it?”

“Yes! Where are the instructions? The rules?”

My back is killing me. I lay against the mat, spreading my arms against it above my head, and stare up at the brightly-lit ceiling. I don’t care anymore about Spencer and his dive-in-head-first training. I just want to rest.

The fluorescent lights running along the ceiling move by fast as I’m suddenly being dragged across the mat by my ankle.

“There are no rules in Krav Maga,” I hear Spencer say, but I realize a half a second later that it’s not Spencer dragging me.

It’s a woman, with light brown hair pulled into a ponytail at the back of her head. Confused by the turn of events, I’m too distracted to notice her foot coming down on my stomach. I yell out in pain, doubling forward as my legs and back come off the mat at the same time, my arms crossed over my abdomen. The breath is knocked right out of my lungs.

“STOP!” Spencer says from somewhere behind me.

I feel like I’m going to puke.

The woman stops instantly and takes a few steps back.

“Get up,” Spencer says and I decipher through the pain devouring my midsection that his voice is much closer than before.

I look up to see him crouched behind me.

“I’ll let you catch your breath,” he says gently and offers his hand. “This is Jacquelyn. My wife.”

I grab onto his forearm and he grabs mine likewise and lifts me to my feet.

“Nice to meet you,” I say to her with a God-awful grimace. “Or at least your foot.”

She smirks.

“Your man paid me to pretty much beat the shit out of you,” Spencer says. “But since I’m not in the habit of beating on women, I figure I should let my wife do the honors so that I can still get paid.”

“It’s the best way to learn,” Jacquelyn speaks up. “That man of yours knows what he’s doing. Brutal? Sure. Necessary to one’s survival in close combat situations? Absolutely. For frail little bitches who do the dance of terror when they see a spider? Absolutely fucking not.”

“Well, I’m not one of those,” I say icily. “That I can fucking assure you.”

“Then prove it,” she taunts, bending over forward with her hands opened halfway out at her sides. “Remember there are no rules in Krav Maga. Always defend and attack at the same time. Always fight with aggression. And never go down.”

“Yeah, I got that much. If I go down I’m dead.”

Jacquelyn pretty much beats the hell out of me for the rest of the session. And when Victor finally arrives to pick me up, my nose and lip are bleeding, my right eye is bruised and throbbing, and I think I chipped a tooth.

This goes on every other day for the next two weeks.

And it didn’t take long for me to become good at it. Spencer says I’m a natural and that I must’ve ‘skipped the Barbie dolls and dress-up when I was growing up’.

He really has no idea…

I’m getting so much stronger, so much better at my technique. At one point I even managed to hurt Jacquelyn, buried my elbow in her ribs. I think I cracked them, but she won’t say so. Not because of her pride, but because she doesn’t believe in whining or letting something as petty as a cracked rib stop her from fighting.

It didn’t take long for her to grow on me, either. When she’s not beating me to a pulp, I actually enjoy her company.

Only two weeks have passed and I’ve done nothing but train with Jacquelyn and have even started training with Victor in the use of guns. But regardless of enjoying the training and looking forward to it every day, I’m frustrated that’s it’s taking so long. I expected Hamburg and Stephens to be long dead by now.

And I’m getting impatient.

“Victor, I don’t plan to fight Hamburg and Stephens. I just want to kill them. That’s it. I don’t get why you’re making me go through all this.”

Victor moves the sheet from his body and climbs out of the bed, walking naked across the room.

I quietly admire the view.

“There’s more to it than you know,” he says as he disappears inside the bathroom just steps away.

That certainly gets my attention.

I raise up from the bed and call out, “Is that right?” I toss the sheet off and follow briskly behind him, stopping in the doorway of the bathroom and leaning against the frame. He’s turning on the shower water.

He closes the glass shower door, letting the water run for a moment and then he turns back to me.

“You’re not exactly going through the training just to kill Hamburg and Stephens. If you’re going stay with me, regardless of what you’re doing with your time, you need to learn how to fight. You need to know how to identify, differentiate, load and fire just about every weapon. There is a lot that you need to know and not enough time to learn even half of it.” He opens the shower door and reaches inside, letting the water stream into his hand, testing the temperature.

He adds, “This training has little to do with Hamburg and Stephens. I want you to be safe always, so it’s vital that you start learning these things now.”

I smile faintly, savoring the moment. When we first met, I couldn’t imagine Victor having much of a caring or emotional bone in his body. But every day I witness him opening up more to me. And I see that it is becoming easier for him.

I go back to the matter at hand though what I really want to do is kiss him right about now.

“But why is it taking so long? I just want to do this and be done with it.”

I come the rest of the way inside the bathroom and hop onto the counter, sitting in nothing but my panties.

“Because while I’m working on a plan to get you close enough to kill them, you need to be training, doing as much with your time as possible.” He steps over to me and cups my face in the palms of his hands. “Just being in the same room with me—just knowing me, Sarai, is a death sentence every day. Every time you walk out that door you risk being shot. The only reason the Order hasn’t found me yet is because Niklas is the only one in the Order looking for me. For now, anyway. He doesn’t want anyone else to find me. He wants the credit. The recognition. Especially since he was the one contracted to take me out.” He presses his lips against my forehead. I shut my eyes softly and reach up with both hands and hold onto his wrists. “But one day, likely very soon, I’ll have to face my brother because the Order won’t give him forever to pull it off. Either he’ll find me, or I’ll find him. And one of us will die.”

With my fingers still hooked halfway around his wrists, I carefully pull his hands from my face. I look perplexedly into his gorgeous green-blue eyes, tilting my head to one side.

“Why not just leave it alone?” I ask. “Victor, I can understand that you’d want to kill him before he kills you, but why risk getting killed by going and looking for a fight?”

Steam begins to fill the room, fogging the large mirror mounted over the counter behind me.

“Because if Niklas doesn’t find me, if he can’t pull off his first official contract since being promoted an operative under Vonnegut, they’ll kill him.” He props the palms of his hands on the countertop on either side of me. “No one’s going to kill my brother but me. I don’t care what he’s done, or about our differences, he’s still my brother.”

I nod, understanding. “OK, so then when is all of this going to happen? This…showdown with Niklas. Me getting to kill Hamburg and Stephens?”

Victor smiles slimly and I reach up and brush my fingertips across his lips. He takes my hand into his and kisses my fingers. “We’re going to have to work on this problem of yours, Sarai. You being so impatient, and of course as I said before, undisciplined. We start on that next.”

“I can’t help it that I’m impatient. Those two evil bastards are out there living the high-life every day, doing God knows what to no telling how many women. Not to mention, they’re looking for me. They killed my friends because of me. Dina is still hiding out in some place that isn’t her home and she’s scared. Her life has been turned upside-down because of them. Because of me. I want them dead so at least Dina can go on with her life.”

“What are you going to tell her?” he asks. “When you see her today, what are you going to say?”

I glance away from him and watch the steam coat the tall glass shower walls and billow lightly over the top of the shower in soft puffs. My skin is beginning to sweat lightly, beading off my face, neck and collarbone.

“I’m going to tell her the truth,” I say.

“Do you think that’s wise?”

I look right at him. “I think it’s only fair. She’s practically my mother. She’s done so much for me. I owe her the truth.” I smile and add, “And besides, if you didn’t agree with my decision to tell her the truth, you’d have already made that perfectly clear to me by now.”

Victor smiles back at me and fits his hands on my waist, helping me off the counter.

“I guess we better get ready then if we’re going to get there on time,” he says and walks me to the shower. I step out of my panties before stepping inside the shower with him.

Victor had told Dina, and me, that he would take me to see her a few days after Fredrik’s contact took her away from Lake Havasu City. But things didn’t quite turn out how we planned. Victor and Fredrik both agreed that it was too risky and too soon. I overheard them talking one night about Dina and about how she might have had surveillance on her before Fredrik’s contact arrived that night. Victor wanted to be certain that wasn’t the case and that if any of us happened to show up where Dina was being hidden, we wouldn’t fall right into the trap. But as the days passed and Fredrik continued to monitor the house where Dina has been kept, he and Victor agreed that it is, in fact, safe.