“We will figure it out,” Victor says. “We have several months to come up with a plan.”
I shake my head, my mouth turning up on one side.
“Victor, I’m not stupid to believe you don’t already know the one sure-fire way to figure out who Vonnegut is.”
He looks at me, waiting.
“Through me,” I go on. “The second Vonnegut sees me, I’ll know it’s him because the realization of who he’s looking at will flash over his eyes in that instant. And I would see it. Vonnegut is well aware of what I look like.”
“Yes,” Victor says, “that is the best way to find out who he is, but we’ll find another way. You’re not going into that compound.”
“It is the only way.”
“Others have seen you,” he reminds me, growing irritated.
“But Javier and Izel are dead. Luis and Diego are dead and they’re the only other brothers of Javier that I’ve seen. Whoever’s running the place now I doubt knows who I am.”
“We can’t take that risk.”
“I agree,” James says. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Victor—”
“Izabel!”—he raises his back from the chair—“I’m not letting you go back in there!”—he takes a deep breath and calms himself—“I’m not risking you in that place—Nora, I’ll risk.” His cruel words don’t faze her one bit; she doesn’t care about such things. “You want to do missions alone and that’s enough of a risk, no matter how good you get, but sending you into a place where people might remember you and who will kill you on the spot the second they realize who you are—it’s not a risk I’m willing to take.”
I glance at the wall, disappointed and angry, but touched by his feelings and I can’t bring myself to just discard them as if they’re nothing.
“I’m sorry,” I say softly and Victor reaches out his hand to me. He never shows affection toward me during meetings, so the gesture takes me aback.
I walk over and take his hand. He pulls me to stand next to him. He kisses the top of my fingers. “We’ll figure out a way,” he says gently, “but Nora will be the one on the inside.”
I nod with reluctance.
How long will you allow yourself to cut corners for me, Victor?
“I’ll teach Nora everything she needs to know,” I say looking back at her.
Then I take my seat again.
“You’re key to making this work,” Victor says.
How long will you take the alternate route just to keep me out of harm’s way?
“I’ll do whatever I have to do to help bring this tyrant down,” I add.
How long…?
And I will do whatever Victor asks of me, but a large part of me wants to be the one on the inside. Not because I feel the need to prove myself. Not because he’s letting Nora go instead of me and I feel any sense of jealousy—this has nothing to do with jealousy, or reckless determination; I want to be the one because I spent nine years of my life in Mexico among these men and I feel that if any mission should be mine, it’s this one.
“In the meantime,” Victor announces, “with Niklas’ absence, and considering the changes made in this Order, Nora will be your new partner.”
I nod with acceptance.
“And I’ll continue to train you while I work with you,” Nora says.
“The two of you will go on several missions together before the mission in Mexico,” Victor says. “You will focus on your current missions for now, but be preparing for Mexico just the same.”
Quiet falls over the room as each of us think about the road ahead.
“And what about Niklas?” I ask, determined not to let him be forgotten. “Are we planning all of these missions without him?”
“For now, yes,” Victor says. “Until things between my brother and me have been resolved, it’s best to assume he won’t be part of any missions.”
I nod in agreement.
The five of us spend the next thirty minutes discussing the details of our future missions, including getting an early start on Mexico. It’s very strange sitting at this table without Dorian and Niklas. And with Nora, instead. I miss Dorian’s sarcasm and ridiculous comments about women that should rub me the wrong way but never do. And I miss my fights with Niklas and his cold stares and the stink of his cigarettes lingering on his jacket.
Finally, when the meeting comes to a close, Fredrik stands from the table.
All of us look at him.
“Unless there’s anything else,” he says, looking only at Victor, “I have somewhere I need to be.”
“And what could you possibly have to do?” Nora asks, her voice laced with taunt, her dark red lips spreading into a grin. “A man as cold as you are can’t possibly have any kind of life outside of this Order.” She smiles sweetly, wickedly.
Fredrik and Nora rarely speak to each other, but every now and then, her taunting personality gets away with her. Yesterday she brought up how he couldn’t break her and how she’s now the second woman to beat him. She’s trying to get a reaction from him—I really have no idea why she’d want one—but Fredrik is, as always, unfazed by her taunts.
So far.
He takes his briefcase from the table.
“Lunch,” he says simply.
Nora’s brown eyes light up with suggestion. “Oh? And will you be dining alone at this lunch, or would you like some company?”
Fredrik walks down the length of the table. He never looks at her, but then he never really looks at any of us.
“I prefer to dine alone,” he says.
Nora just shakes her head, smiling. Nothing ever seems to faze her, and I admire that about her. Quietly, of course; I’d never let her know it.
Fredrik looks back at Victor, waiting.
“I’ll be touch,” Victor tells him. “If things go as planned you’ll be interrogating a man by the end of the week.”
Fredrik nods, places his hand on the door and pushes it open.
“But don’t leave the country,” Victor calls out before Fredrik leaves. “I think it’s safe to say that your alone time is over.”
“Of course,” Fredrik says. “I’ll be waiting for your call.” The door closes lightly behind him as he exits the room.
Victor turns his attention on Nora.
“And what other information do you have for me on the SC-4?” he asks.
Nora brushes her silky blonde hair away from her shoulders and folds her hands together on the table in front of her; her short are nails painted red to match her lipstick. James glances at her briefly, the same way he does every few seconds, but tries not to make it so obvious.
“Also by the end of the week,” she says, “I’ll have everything I know on them at your disposal.”
Victor nods.
Then he says, “You have a long way to go before I even begin to trust you; a difficult road ahead.”
“Yes, I’m well aware,” she says in return. “If you trusted me already, I wouldn’t have the respect for you that I do.”
Nora looks at me.
“But some trust,” she says, indicating the kind I have for her, “is very much appreciated.”
I nod, accepting her thanks.
Victor looks between us, but says nothing more. Nora is my project, my responsibility, my burden to bear. He accepts that and won’t deprive me of her and what I need from her even if he fears she is a mistake, but I know he’ll be watching her every move.
“Well, I for one,” James speaks up, “am glad to have you aboard.” He smiles dopily.
Nora passes him a sultry look, causing his big, round face to turn red.
“Not sure how Niklas will feel about it,” James adds, “or even Dorian—if h-he ever gets out of that cell, of course”—he glances at Victor—“but I suppose time will tell.”
Yes, time tends to hold the answers to everything. And the way things are now, how things have taken such a drastic turn in our Order, I’m both anxious and afraid to see what time reveals. I guess the
only thing I can do is wait. Wait for Niklas to come back and hold my breath as whatever is destined to happen between him and Victor, happens. Wait for the day that Dorian’s fate will finally be decided. Wait for the moment if, or when, Victor finds out about the child I had with Javier, and brace for the consequences of the truth. Wait to see if my judgment is, in fact, off by a mile and Nora ends up making a fool of me, after all.
Waiting. Time is a cruel bitch.
23
Fredrik
About eight years ago…
Seraphina. My angel with black wings. She smiled; a crimson sheen on her lips, framed by hair as black as my soul, her eyes as deep as the bottomless pit that is my heart. She laid near the warm body, her long, white fingers coiled within the girl’s silky blonde hair. Her breasts lavish and full, pressed against the girl’s smaller ones. They were both naked, curled around one another. They were waiting for me.
“It’s very simple,” Seraphina said and she trailed the tip of her tongue across the girl’s neck, looking across the room at me with those dark pools of sin and salvation. “We do everything together, my love”—her tongue traced the girl’s bottom lip and the girl returned the gesture—“my devil, my dark prince.”
I stepped forward, breaking apart the buttons of my dress shirt.
Seraphina went on:
“We seek vengeance together. We fuck and we love and we damn and we destroy together until the day we die together.”
She reached out her dainty, but deadly hand and gestured for me, curling her fingers toward her palm, slowly and suggestively.
“Come here and taste her,” she said and then dropped her hand in-between the girl’s thighs. “You have to taste her.”
The girl moaned with Seraphina’s touch, her blonde head pressing against my wife’s shoulder, her petite and tender breasts pushing into view of the dim light in the small room.
I remained standing at the foot of the bed, watching them, the way Seraphina’s fingers moved with such artistic precision, how the girl’s legs parted for her, exposing her most secret place to me and to the cool night air.
“I told you not to bring them here,” I finally said as I slipped my belt from the loops on my black pants, the sound of leather moving against fabric in a slow and deliberate motion. “Never without my permission. And never here.” I was infuriated, but I kept it inside.
Seraphina’s dark red lips spread into a delightful smile. The girl fondled Seraphina’s breasts, nuzzled her head in the crook of her neck; she tried to touch Seraphina below, but wasn’t allowed, so she pulled her hand away, trailing her fingertips across her stomach.
“Oh, Fredrik,” Seraphina said, raising her back from the bed, “you can’t mean that all of the time. I’m trying to help you. This is just part of the process.”
“But just the same,” I said, “I’ve told you not to bring them into our home.”
Seraphina and I shared a look, her smile darkening with disappointment; my unemotional face had not changed. But my wife was never one to back down so easily. She was never one to do as I said with the snap of two fingers because she was bold and defiant and I loved that about her.
She got up from the bed.
The girl became alert and sat up when she noticed the growing tension in the room.
“I want you to fuck her,” Seraphina said. “I brought her here for you. Look at her”—she waved a hand at the girl, who was quite beautiful with plump lips and big brown eyes and curvy hips—“I thought you’d like her. I like her.”
The girl glanced back and forth between us nervously.
“But this is our home, Seraphina.” I stepped closer to her tall, naked form. “You know I don’t like fucking them here, where we sleep, where I fuck you.”
“I uh…I think I’ll go now,” the girl said, getting up from the bed.
“No!” Seraphina snapped, pointing at her. “Sit the fuck down.” She looked back at me, glaring, gritting her teeth. Her brown eyes brilliantly gleaming in her angry oval face; the black of her short hair glistening against the creamy-white of her cheeks.
The girl was too afraid to move. She remained on the bed, drawing her knees up toward her and covering her breasts with her long hair.
“You can go,” I told the girl, jerking my head backward, indicating the opened door behind me.
“I said she fucking stays, Fredrik!”
Seraphina started to lunge across the bed for the girl, but I grabbed her from behind, gripping her firmly around her waist. The girl jumped up quickly with wide eyes and grabbed her clothes from the floor.
Seraphina fought me every step, every moment, until the girl rushed out and I heard the front door of our small house shut behind her.
“Bastard!”
Wrenching Seraphina’s hands behind her back, I shoved her over forward onto the bed.
“Why do you do this, Seraphina?” I asked her, my voice choked with anger and desperation. She struggled against the bed, but I held her still, stepping between her legs and spreading them apart with my own. “It’s my only rule and you break it. Why?”
“Because it’s a stupid fucking rule!” she shouted, one cheek pressed against the mattress.
Leaning over her body with her wrists still bound behind her in one of my hands, I whispered into her ear, “Is it stupid that I love you, Seraphina?”—my grip tightened around her wrists—“Is it stupid that I never want to share you or myself with someone else in our home?”
“What difference does it make?” she asked in a calmer, but bitter voice. “It doesn’t matter where we do it.”
“It matters to me.” I kissed the side of her mouth.
“Why?”
“Because there must be boundaries,” I said and rose upright again. “We will not fuck or kill or destroy any person in our home. Do you understand?”
She nodded her head still pressed against the mattress.
“Now are you going to be still or am I going to have to tie you up?”
“I’ll be still,” she said.
I released her wrists and she moved her arms out and rested them on the mattress above her head.
“And why will you be still?” I prompted as I got a firm grip on the belt in my hand.
“Because I deserve it,” she said, the same way she had said it the times before that I had to punish her.
I crouched down between her legs and with both of my hands I spread them apart just a bit farther to expose her to me.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do with you,” I said and kissed the warm flesh of her ass.
“You don’t know what you’d do without me,” she said in return.
I kissed the other cheek. “No, I don’t, and I never want to find out.”
She moaned and her body stiffened when my tongue snaked out and licked her clit.
I rose into a stand and stepped from between her legs. She remained still, waiting, knowing, bracing. I watched her for a moment. She pushed up on her toes just a little, enough to brace her legs as she lay flat against the mattress from the waist up. I wanted so badly to put my cock in her, I wanted to squeeze her ass in my hands and fuck her until neither of us could see straight, but she had to be dealt with first. I could never let her have her way when it came to these things or she would become uncontrollable. Seraphina may have been helping me to control my torturous urges, my murderous urges, but I was not the only one of us who needed to be taught and controlled and guided—Seraphina was a dangerous and wicked woman who could lose herself at any moment and could never have too much control.
The sound of leather striking skin ripped through the air and Seraphina cried out. But she did not move. Twice. Four times. Six times. Ten times, the belt struck her flesh, leaving welts across her bottom. Still, she never moved; only her fingers gripped the bed, ripping the sheet from the mattress and crushing it in her hands.
Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen.
I did not relent. I could never let her see weakness in me or I would
lose her. Spanking Seraphina lightly, taking pity on her, would only turn her off. It was a good thing because I would never have taken pity on her. I liked inflicting the pain as much as she liked taking it.
“Fredrik, please!” she begged with a tear-choked voice. “Please stop…”
I slapped the leather down again, and again, and again until I reached twenty. It was always twenty. She knew it would always be twenty lashes no matter how much she begged me to stop.
I set the belt aside on the bed and crouched between her legs once more. Her body trembled underneath my careful hands, resisted for only seconds underneath my warm lips. I kissed every inch of her pain, every welt, every minuscule cut where the skin had broken. And then I gently pulled her lips apart with my fingers and dragged the tip of my warm tongue between them. Slowly. Intently. Seraphina moaned and whimpered and dug her fingers into the mattress.
She no longer felt the pain.
All she knew was the pleasure.
I fucked her hard, the only way either of us ever wanted it—hard and violent. And after I came, I lay across her back, still buried inside of her.
I kissed her back and her spine and her shoulders and her neck. The razorblade beckoned me on the nightstand, but I waited. Just a little longer.
“There is no one else in the world like us, my love,” she said in a soft voice, staring off at nothing with her cheek pressed against the mattress. “I would die without you.”
Absently, I continued to push myself deep inside of her slowly.
“You’ll never be without me,” I said and kissed the back of her neck. “And like you said before, we’ll die together.”
“Do you promise, Fredrik? Will you go down with me if I die before you?”
I kissed the side of her mouth, pressing my hips against her. She gasped.
“When you die, I die too,” I whispered against her ear. “You’re the love of my life. My beautiful swan. And you’ll be my undoing.”
Seeds of Iniquity Page 22
