Reviving Izabel

by J. A. Redmerski

  We are one in the same.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Izabel

  One year later…

  Victor comes into the bathroom of our New York house to find me relaxing in a bubble bath. I look up at him casually as he pulls his gun from the back of his pants and sets it on the counter. My hair is pinned to the top of my head in a sloppy bun. I lay against the tub with my arms laid out along the sides, one knee drawn up from the water, partially covered by bubbles. It’s been a long day. I killed John Lansen, the CEO of Balfour Enterprises and rapist extraordinaire, and still have his blood under my fingernails.

  I close my eyes and relax.

  “Where have you been?” I ask Victor without raising the back of my neck from the tub.

  “Cleaning up your mess,” he answers calmly.

  Compelled to look at him after his accusation, I open my eyes again to see him looming tall over me.

  “What do you mean?” I ask. “It was a clean kill.”

  He cocks a brow and looks down at my hands.

  “Is that so?” he says incriminatingly. “Clean means no blood at all. No fingerprints. Nothing left behind, not even your scent.”

  I sigh and close my eyes. “Victor,” I say, waving my fingers above the side of the tub dramatically. “I didn’t leave anything behind. I cleaned up after myself. Spotless. Ask Fredrik. He was there. He double-checked everything.”

  I feel Victor’s body hovering closer as he sits down on the side of the tub.

  “But what order did I give you, Izabel?” he asks, as calmly as before. “Before you set out on that mission with Fredrik, what did I ask of you?”

  “No blood,” I answer, still with my eyes closed. “Poison the man so that it looks like a heart attack.”

  I open my eyes again and look up into his dominant gaze, the green of his eyes darker than usual.

  “Poison is Fredrik’s thing, not mine.”

  “You defied my orders,” he says, “and it will be the last time.”

  I smile at him and drop both of my hands underneath the water just to feel the bubbles on my skin. I know Victor isn’t truly upset with me. This has become a game we play with each other: sometimes I do the opposite of what he says and he punishes me for it. It’s the kind of game we both win. I would never have defied his orders on a mission of importance. John Lansen was just a loose end and another one of my training missions.

  “What are you going to do to me, Victor?” I ask with a seductive gleam in my eyes. I bring my left leg out of the water and prop it on the side of the tub, just behind where he sits. “Are you going to punish me?”

  With his sleeve already pushed up past his elbow, his right hand moves across the length of my leg slowly and then falls beneath the water. I gasp when his fingers find me.

  “I’m taking you out of the field until you learn to control yourself,” he says, two of his fingers slipping between my nether lips.

  The back of my neck presses harder against the tub and my legs fall farther apart.

  “And what if I can never control myself?” I ask breathily, barely able to concentrate on him talking while his fingers continue to move between my legs like that.

  He’s such a bastard. And I fucking love him for it.

  Two fingers slip inside of me and my legs begin to tighten and tingle when the pad of his thumb moves in a hard, circular motion against my clit.

  “Open your eyes,” he says softly, but demandingly.

  I do, just barely, as it’s becoming increasingly difficult to control my lids. I whimper and moan and bite down so hard on my bottom lip that it hurts.

  “If you can’t control yourself, then I’ll have no choice.”

  “…No choice…than to what?” My bare chest heaves. I reach beneath the water in search of his hand, coiling my fingers halfway around his strong wrist and then trailing them down toward his own fingers as they continue to move in a circular pattern.

  Then he stops.

  He pulls his hand from the water, stands up and dries his arm off with my towel hanging over the shower door.

  I stare up at him blankly.

  He walks out of the bathroom and leaves me sitting here, alone, unsatisfied and sexually frustrated.

  “Hey!” I shout out to him. “Where the hell are you going?!”

  No answer.

  “Victor!”

  Nothing.

  I growl under my breath, shoot up from the water and step over the side of the tub. I grab Victor’s gun into my wet, soapy hand as I storm out of the bathroom and into our bedroom. He’s standing with his back to me next to our king-sized bed, taking off his dress shirt with a casual, uninterested grace, which only frustrates me further.

  I step up behind him, soaking wet, water and bubbles dripping onto the floor, and I go to shove his gun into his back. But he’s too fast and he whirls around at me, taking the gun from my hand and shoving it under my chin, all in two swift seconds that pass me by in a blur.

  The barrel is cold against my flesh. The intensity in his eyes sends a shot of heat through my body and between my thighs. My breasts are shoved against the hardness and warmth of his chest, his free hand positioned in the center of my back, his long fingers splayed.

  “No discipline, Izabel.” He studies my face with a hungry and calculated sweep of his eyes. He licks the side of my mouth and shoves the gun deeper into my throat. “You will never learn.”

  I try to kiss him, searching for his mouth with my own, but he refuses me, teasing me with the distance of his lips barely an inch away.

  He licks me again. And then he shoves me down on the bed and crawls between my naked legs, still dressed from the waist down in his black slacks. I shudder when I feel his hardness pressing against me through his pants. My body breaks out in shivers as he drags the tip of his tongue upward between my breasts.

  He kisses one side of my jaw, and then the other.

  “Maybe you should get rid of me,” I whisper onto his lips.

  “Never,” he says, kissing me once softly. “You’re mine for as long as you breathe.” His mouth covers mine ravenously.

  ~~~

  That was how I became what I am, a sex slave turned killer. And that was the beginning of not only a love affair between Victor and me, but of a new underground assassination ring that is so secret it has no name.

  Four became five six weeks ago, when we welcomed the blond-haired, hazel-eyed devil, Dorian Flynn, into our group. And while although there are many who work for us, spread out over several countries, the five of us are central to the entire operation, with none other than Victor Faust at the head of it all.

  Niklas is still an intolerable bastard who loves money and women and pissing me off. Indirectly, of course, but he knows what he’s doing. Even after a year, he and I still pretty much despise each other. Maybe I despise him a little more than he does me, but we manage for Victor’s sake. For the most part we stay out of each other’s way. I still have yet to make things even with Niklas by shooting him. But I’ll get around it. Eventually.

  As for Fredrik, the women still love him, but I grew bored with trying to figure him out a long time ago. Why women practically drop their panties when they see him. I figured the only way to know that is to sleep with him, and since that will never happen, I decided to leave it a mystery. But Fredrik is like a brother to me, and, like Victor, I can’t imagine not having him in my life. Without realizing it, he does try to run after me with those damn Band-Aids every now and then, whether it’s after a brutal training session with Victor, or the night I was stabbed in the shoulder while on a mission. I have to remind Fredrik, in my most unforgiving Izabel Seyfried voice, not to treat me like a frail little girl. But deep down, I like that he’s so protective of me. I’ll just never tell him that.

  Dina, the mother that I should’ve been born to twenty-four years ago, now lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana. We set her up in a safe-house as small and humble as her house back in Lake Havasu City had been. Victor t
ried to get her into something large and immaculate because he wanted her to have the best, but she refused. “I like things simple,” she said that day.

  Dina still doesn’t know everything about what we do, but it’s safer that way and she accepts that. And as far as her safe-house, it’s open only to Victor and me. I visit her once a month. But her health is failing. I worry more about her than I do about myself or Victor. But she’s a tough old woman and I think she still has many years left in her.

  And as far as Amelia McKinney, Fredrik didn’t kill her. Killing innocent women isn’t his style. He set her up in another safe-house on the other side of the country, somewhere in Delaware. New identity. New everything. But he never visits her. The last thing he wants is for some woman to think he’s interested in something other than sex.

  That’s the story of Fredrik’s life.

  As promised, after we were done with Hamburg and Stephens, we started devising a strategy to kill Javier Ruiz’s brothers and to free the girls imprisoned in the Mexican compound. I went through six months of grueling training, real training, not being dropped off somewhere to let strangers teach me, before we set out on the mission. Unfortunately, most of the girls at the compound who I had known had already been sold off, or were dead by the time we got there. I killed Luis and Diego Ruiz, slit their throats just like I did Hamburg, after Victor, Niklas and Dorian took out the guards around and inside the compound with a barrage of bullets. I’m not as good with firearms and still have a lot of training ahead of me. Years of it. But I get the job done with my ever-growing collection of blades. And I’m learning more every day.

  When the mission in Mexico was over and we saved who we could—a total of six girls who were so broken that although they are free, I don’t expect them to make much of their lives—we went on to the men who did the buying. And still today, just as it will be tomorrow and next year, we seek them out and we eliminate them. It will be a long road, tracking them all down and giving them what they deserve, but I’ll never stop until it’s done.

  But more important than anything, to me especially, is taking out the Order. It’ll be a long time before I can truly sleep soundly at night, knowing that there are men looking for Victor every hour of every day. It’s a much more dangerous and complex feat than probably any mission we’ll ever take on.

  The Order is massive, with thousands of members and it is one of the oldest assassin organizations in existence. It will take some time. But it will be done if it’s the last thing I ever take part in.

  Victor is my life and I will die helping to protect him.

  Though that mission will continue to be a difficult undertaking now that Fredrik had to leave because of suspicion, and we no longer have dependable eyes and ears on the inside. We have new moles placed within the Order, but they have yet to prove they’re trustworthy like we know Fredrik had been.

  And Victor…Victor is still all business. All cold-blooded killer-for-hire with little to no conscience when it comes to fulfilling a job. He is still seemingly emotionless, ruthless and deadly by all accounts. But behind closed doors, when it’s just me and him alone, he is a different man. He loves me without having to say it. He cherishes me without having to prove it. When he touches me I know what he’s thinking, how he truly feels beneath that mask he wears in the face of others. I’m the only soul he’s ever let into his life completely. And the only one he’ll never let go.

  He became my ‘hero’, after all. The other half of my soul who could never let anything bad ever happen to me. I trust him with my life, no matter how often he tells me to always trust my instincts first. The truth is that everything we do is risky. Taking a step out a door. Making a phone call. Eating a bagel in a café. Everyone we come across is a threat until proven otherwise. Either one of us could die at any moment. But at least I know that Victor will always put me first and do everything in his power to keep me safe, just as I will always do for him.

  Staying one step ahead of death, it is our way of life. It is my way of life, and I believe it was always meant to be this way. But as strange as it may seem, I feel perfectly safe in the company of killers.

  Check out a sneak peek of J.A. Redmerski’s upcoming New Adult novel, SONG OF THE FIREFLIES.

  ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

  SONG OF THE FIREFLIES

  Coming February 4, 2014

  Elias

  Anthony leaned forward between my and Bray’s seats. He reached out and touched the bracelets on Bray’s left wrist. I didn’t like that much.

  “Did you make those?” he asked. He peered in closer and tried to finger the bracelets individually, but she snapped her hand away.

  “Ummm, no I bought them,” she answered.

  I could sense the nervousness in her voice. He had made her uncomfortable. Not. Fucking. Cool.

  With my hands still on the wheel, I turned my head slightly to look over at him. I thought I was going to have to tell him to back off, but he saw the look in my eyes and fell back against the seat before I could say anything.

  “Hey, sorry,” he said, smiling. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  Whatever. By now, I wasn’t feelin’ it anymore, hanging out at his place. It wasn’t just that he touched her bracelets, it was something else, a vibe, the way Anthony seemed to go from helpful, smiling party guy to creepy backseat hitchhiker in such a short time.

  “How much farther is it?” I asked, glancing at him in the rearview mirror.

  “Just a few more minutes,” he said.

  A few minutes came and went. I thought we would probably be getting off at the next exit, but when he didn’t say anything about it ahead of time, I flipped on my blinker anyway and planned to take it, if not for any reason other than to drop them off at the nearest convenience store.

  “Where are you going?” Anthony asked. “We don’t get off here.”

  “Well we’re getting off here anyway,” I said and proceeded to veer onto the exit ramp.

  The sound of a gun cocking at the back of Bray’s head and the shiny black glint of the barrel in the corner of my eye caused my heart to jump into my throat.

  “Don’t take that fucking exit,” Anthony demanded with a threatening edge in his voice. “Stay on the freeway.”

  At the last second, I remained in the same lane and watched helplessly as the exit ramp flew past my car.

  “Elias?” Bray said from the passenger’s seat, her voice filled with fear.

  “Elias, huh?” Anthony probed. I saw him push the gun against her head harder. She closed her eyes momentarily. I was white-knuckling the steering wheel. “Thought your name was John.”

  “What does it matter?” I asked. “What the hell is this?”

  “What the fuck do you think it is?” Anthony said, laughing.

  Cristina was still passed out against her door.

  “Look, man, I know how this goes,” I said, but I could hardly look at him. I was far too preoccupied with the gun against Bray’s head. “I’ve got cash on me. Whatever you want. Just please don’t hurt her.”

  Bray’s lips were trembling, the only part of her stiff body that was moving. I wanted to pummel this motherfucker to death.

  “Pull over up there,” Anthony demanded with the nod of his head, indicating the side of the road.

  “All right. All right.” I tried to keep calm. It took everything in me, but I had to keep my head clear. Hopefully he planned to rob us and run off into the woods. But if I even for a moment got the feeling that he was going to shoot us down, I would make a last, desperate attempt. I wasn’t about to let this fucking lowlife shoot Bray without at least trying stop him.

  The car came to a stop and I put it into Park. And I waited.

  I was hopeful when I saw headlights blazing toward us from behind, but the lone semi drove right past us, pushing wind against the car.

  “Empty your pockets. Wallet. Anything you have on you. Put it on the dashboard.”

  “I take it you don’t have a beach house?” I s
aid sarcastically as I did what he told me to do.

  “Fuck no,” he said and laughed. “And that car in the parking lot wasn’t mine, either.” He barely looked away from me long enough to say to Bray, “You too. Whatever you have put it on the dashboard.”

  I thought about using that split second he looked away from me to grab for the gun, but I couldn’t risk it. It likely would’ve gone off and killed her right there next to me.

  There was no saliva left in my mouth. My whole body was stiff and sweating. Aside from getting that gun away from Bray’s head, all I could think about was beating the fuck out of this guy. All I could see was red. I wanted so badly for him to slip up and give me the opportunity to take him down and cave his face in with my fists.

  “Now get out,” he demanded, looking right at me.

  My heart dropped into my feet then. Was he going to take off in the car with her in it?

  “Take the fucking car,” I said, raising my hands up in front of me. “Just let her out.”

  “Get. The. Fuck. Out.” He moved the gun to the back of my head now.

  I only felt slightly better about that. At least it wasn’t on Bray anymore.

  I placed my hand on the door handle carefully, popped it open and stepped out, keeping my hands raised up, my fingers level with the top of my head.

  From my peripheral vision, I noticed another set of bright headlights coming toward us off in the distance. My eyes darted to and from it, then to Bray, still sitting in the front seat. Cars sped by on the other side of the freeway, but it was too dark for anyone in them to see what was going on.

  “Let her out,” I said as I stepped around to the grass on the side of the road. “Please just fucking let her out.”