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 touches my wrist upon the table.
“Very well,” he says and then looks to Fredrik. “Meet us at my hotel in two hours. Alone.”
Aria goes to stand up and she angrily gestures for Fredrik to move out of her way so she can remove herself from the booth. He stands and steps over to the side, but when he reaches out to help her she pushes his hand away and snaps at him, “Get the fuck away from me,” and she trots off on her six-inch heels away from the table.
It’s odd how I actually feel bad about ‘hurting her feelings’ regardless of the nature of the situation.
Fredrik sits back down and the mood at the table changes as he and Victor start talking about this company expansion to Sweden that I have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. What confuses me even more is how fluent the fictional conversation about such a fictional thing goes on between them. It seems as if they discussed this entire scenario at length and even had time to rehearse before we all came here. But I’ve been with Victor the entire time and he hasn’t had an opportunity to go over something like this at length with anyone other than me. Fredrik seems to know more about what’s going on than I do.
And quite frankly, that ticks me off a little.
“I’m ready to go,” I say icily both as Izabel and Sarai.
“We’ll leave when I’m ready,” Victor says.
“But I want to go now,” I snap. “I don’t like this restaurant. It’s too fucking dark. I feel like I’m in a dungeon.” I take my purse from the table and go to stand up.
Victor grabs my arm and pushes me back into the seat.
“I said we’ll leave when I’m ready. And stop talking or you can sit on your knees underneath the table between mine.”
I swallow hard, a look of shock consuming my features. Seeing Fredrik in my peripheral vision, I gather my composure quickly.
I set my purse back on the table and relent to Victor fully.
And once again, I’m trying to swim my way out of my dirty thoughts.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
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 dumb
er 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 your conversation with Fredrik,” I say and his name on my tongue as Sarai opens up an entirely different topic. “If that’s even his real name.” I pause and say with warming cheeks, “He’s not really going to be at our hotel is he?”
Victor’s slow glance is laced with amusement.
“No, Sarai, he’s not going to be at the hotel waiting for us.”
Well, that’s a relief. Yet the thought of Victor….
“So who was he then? Obviously he knew more about what was going on than I did.”
We turn onto another brightly-lit street and pass through a yellow light just before it turns red.
“Yes, his name is Fredrik and yes, he’s really Swedish. He works for my Order, though not doing what I do. He simply aids us in times like these.”
“And the woman, Aria?”
“I’m sure she was just some random woman Fredrik picked up somewhere.” He flashes me a grin. “He’s good at that sort of thing.”
I blush and look away.
“Are you disappointed?” Victor asks.
I look back at him, flustered by his question. And that faint grin is still buried behind his eyes.
“Umm, no,” I say. “Why would you ask that?”
Victor looks back out at the road.
“What, you don’t find Fredrik attractive?”
I think he’s toying with me.
“Well, yeah, I’d be lying to you if I said he wasn’t attractive, but I’m not attracted to him if that’s what you’re thinking.”
I’m attracted to you, Victor, only you….
He smiles and doesn’t say anything more about it.
My face just gets hotter and hotter, and every time I see him smile or grin, because I’m completely not used to seeing that, it just makes me blush more and it feels like a hundred drunk butterflies are having an orgy in my stomach.
“So what’s our next move?” I ask.
“We enjoy the downtime until tomorrow night,” he says.
And that’s exactly what we do.
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 cocktail 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 m
ore 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.”
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