Voices and panting.
It all felt dreamlike.
Her head was spinning.
Alice’s mouth around her nipples. Alice’s fingers stroking her as David thrust into her so that delicious pain spread throughout her body to every nerve ending.
She said things she had never before said, thought thoughts she had never before thought.
Afterward, all three of them flopped across the sofa. They laughed, breathing heavily. Tender, sweaty, sticky, excitement still lingering in their bodies, ready for more.
Some moments in life, you forget you’re a person, and that in itself is the very essence of humanity, Faye thought to herself as she closed her eyes. Then she felt Alice’s lips moving down her body. She loved Alice. She loved David.
FJÄLLBACKA—THEN
Tomas’s and Roger’s bodies had been swallowed by the foamy surface of the sea. One moment they had existed, now they were just memories. Fish food. The currents around here were countless and wild—I hoped their bodies would never be found.
I grabbed hold of the wheel and maintained the same course that Roger had set.
Sebastian came out of the cabin, where he had been sleeping off his bender. He looked around groggily.
“Where are Roger and Tomas?” he asked, looking surprised.
He came closer and peered at me.
“What’s happened?” he said. “You’ve got blood all around your mouth.”
I had deliberately not bothered to wash it off. I would need to scare Sebastian into silence.
He called out for Tomas and Roger. I watched him without expression.
“They fell into the water,” I said quietly.
“What did you say?”
I fixed my eyes on him and he must have seen something new, something frightening in them. He reeled backward.
“I hit them with an oar and made them fall overboard,” I said, nodding to the oar that was still lying in the very spot where I’d attacked them. “Roger went in straightaway. Tomas clung on, so I bit his hand until he let go. That’s why there’s blood around my mouth.”
Sebastian’s eyes opened wide and he took a step toward me.
“We both know that you won’t dare do anything when you’re on your own,” I said calmly. “Those days are over.”
He stopped a couple of feet away from me. I licked my lips, feeling the metallic taste of Tomas’s blood.
“If you ever touch me again, I’ll kill you, Sebastian. Do you understand? I’m no longer yours to do what you want with. And if you ever tell anyone what happened here, I’ll say it was you who pushed them overboard and tell them everything that happened. I’ve got proof of your rapes.”
The last bit was a lie.
Sebastian muttered something, but I ignored him.
“The only reason you’re alive is that Mom loves you.”
I tried to figure out whether I could feel anything in relation to what I had done. I had killed two people. But I realized with satisfaction that I had simply done what I had to do. To survive. Perhaps it was at that moment that I became an adult.
Sebastian stared at me. But the anger that had been there so clearly was gone. He seemed resigned. Defeated.
“Now I’m going to tell you what to say when we arrive,” I said. “You’re going to tell the police they fell into the water. That we turned back to search for them but that the seas were too heavy. Do you understand? You will then repeat this story every single time anybody asks. For the rest of your life.”
“Are you okay, sweetheart? No regrets about yesterday?”
David looked at her searchingly, stroking her hand with his fingers. Faye appreciated his concern. It would have been strange if it hadn’t been there. But she was able to answer truthfully when she said: “No regrets. We’re three adults with our own free will, and I love you and Alice. Well, in slightly different ways…” She laughed. “But still. It was great. It was love. It was respect.”
“You’re amazing,” David said, and she could see in his eyes that he meant it.
“Oh, you’re just saying that,” she said. Transparent fishing.
“You do know that I think you’re the most beautiful woman on earth, right? Or do I need to be even clearer about that?”
“I think you need to be even clearer,” she said, bending forward to kiss him.
There was something about David that made her thirst for his compliments. It was exquisite when he showered her with terms of endearment. And kisses. She had no doubts after the night before. David had made love to both of them, but throughout he had been clear that he loved her.
“By the way…” He sounded hesitant. “We were talking about meeting for lunch, but I have to go away today. To Frankfurt. Boring business stuff to attend to. I’d rather see you, but…work calls.”
“Of course,” Faye said, caressing his hand. “I of all people understand. I’ll be away a fair bit too, and it would be really weird if I didn’t get it when you had to go away.”
“Sure?”
He looked at her from under his mop of hair, and she loved him for his consideration. In her youthful naïveté, she had thought Jack was her dream man. But David was something else. Above all, he wasn’t Jack.
David raised her hand to his mouth and kissed it.
“There’s no one like you, you know that? When I get home tonight, I want to take you out for dinner. Frantzén. Okay?”
Faye nodded and David kissed her in a way that took her breath away. Dear God, she loved this man.
* * *
—
Faye toweled her hair a little more when she reached the bedroom. She tied the sash on her dressing gown. If she wasn’t going to get a cozy lunch with David today, then she wanted a little extra luxury this morning.
At that moment, her mobile lit up on the bed. A text from Ylva. Faye clicked on the message.
Come to the office. Henrik is here. He’s been holding back more acquisitions that he’s only just reported. He’s got a majority.
Faye reeled. She almost dropped her mobile. It couldn’t be true. How the hell had this happened?
She dressed quickly, did her makeup even more quickly, and leaped into a taxi. When she arrived at the office, no one would look her in the eye. Alice met her in reception and they exchanged brief smiles before the gravity of the situation descended on them.
“He’s in your office,” said Alice. “I’m not coming in there with you. For obvious reasons. But Ylva is up there, outside. She’s waiting for you.”
Faye nodded, firmly gripped her Chanel bag, and took a deep breath before taking the elevator to the top floor. Ylva met her as the elevator doors opened.
“Having the nerve to come here so soon after securing a majority,” Faye said. “It’s insane.”
“Don’t let him see how you’re actually feeling,” Ylva said. “I’m going to try and save what can be saved. And remember: there’s always plan B.”
“Okay,” Faye said grimly, patting her on the shoulder.
Ylva nodded encouragingly and hurried into her office. From the corner of her eye, Faye saw her busy herself with the assortment of papers scattered across her desk.
Slowly, unhurriedly, deliberately under control, Faye sauntered toward her office, which was at the far end of the open-plan area. She could see Henrik through the window and she could see that he had seen her. She held her head high and forced herself to breathe calmly. She couldn’t lose her temper. She couldn’t afford to let emotion get in the way right now, even if part of her wanted nothing more than to go up to him and wipe that conceited smirk off his face with a well-aimed swipe of her heavy Chanel leather Boy bag. It had rivets on the outside.
Instead, she stepped into her airy office with calm and control.
“Hello, Henrik,” she said, nodding to him. “Yo
u already seem to have made yourself at home.”
He didn’t nod back. Instead he grinned.
“The first thing I’m going to do is rip out all this and refurbish the place. Jesus Christ, who was your designer? The ice queen of Narnia? White, white, white. Sterile and cold. Just like you.”
Faye sat down in one of the visitor’s chairs, smoothed out her Dolce & Gabbana silk skirt, and clasped her hands in her lap.
“Yes, I must confess that it doesn’t have the same cozy feeling you prefer. What are you going to go for? Bar in the corner? Football pennants on the walls and a big moose head that you claim is a hunting trophy from one of your trips but that you actually won in an auction at Bukowskis? You know, it might be tricky getting it up, given there’s nothing but glass walls here, but maybe you could stick a giant suction cup on the back of it?”
She smirked and saw that it was driving Henrik mad. In the two years that had elapsed since she had last seen him, his hairline had receded dramatically.
“You know, it’s not especially flattering when the light catches your head at that angle. But I know several people who’ve been very happy with what the Poseidon Clinic has done for them. They shave the hair off, pick a spot on your neck and harvest the follicles, and then implant them where it’s gone thin. Really great results.”
She raised two thumbs and Henrik grasped the edge of the desk. For a moment, he looked like he was going to explode. From her seat, Faye couldn’t see into the open-plan office behind her, but she guessed that every single member of the staff was pretending to work while doing everything they could to see what was going on inside her office. Which would soon be Henrik’s office, she thought to herself, suddenly feeling nauseated.
“I know what you’re trying to do,” Henrik said with a grimace. “You’re trying to drive me up the wall, just like you did with Jack. You ruined his life, Faye. You took everything from him. And, yes, I’ve heard your lies about him and I don’t believe a single word of them. Jack wasn’t like that. Jack was…I know you’re lying.”
He spoke through gritted teeth and Faye swallowed. She controlled the urge to answer cuttingly that he had no way of judging what Jack was and was not capable of. Especially not in relation to his own daughter. But she guessed it was pointless. Henrik wasn’t there to listen.
“You didn’t just take everything from Jack. You took everything from me too.”
“You seem to have managed all right anyway,” Faye said acerbically, looking at his tailored Armani suit and his Patek Philippe Nautilus.
“No thanks to you,” said Henrik.
Faye shrugged.
“You’ve always liked being a victim, Henrik. Even back at college. Everything was always someone else’s fault.”
“Do you think you’re in a position to have this sort of attitude toward me, Faye?”
“Does it matter what sort of attitude I have? Does that change anything?”
Henrik smiled, reclined, and put his feet on the desk. All of a sudden, he looked at her in amusement.
“No. Nothing whatsoever, really. I’m doing what I planned to do. It’s done. I’m the majority shareholder and I’m going to propose a new board of directors as soon as possible. Without you.”
Faye held out her arms.
“Well, congratulations. You’ll soon have Revenge in your hands. Take the office now, it’s yours. But do you have any vision? Do you know anything about how to run a company like this?”
Henrik sat up in his seat.
“Faye, the problem with you is that you’re an empty shell. You’re just an exterior and there’s nothing of any value underneath it. Jack knew that. I know that. Everyone around you notices it as soon as they get to know you. You can trick people for a bit, but sooner or later, they realize who you are. No one can love you, Faye.”
He chuckled. His eyes were bright, and once again in her mind’s eye she saw how the rivets on the bag would rip open his fiery red skin.
Instead, she stood up slowly. She sat down on the edge of the desk. He appeared to find that discomfiting, and shrank back in his desk chair.
“I understand where this need to assert yourself comes from, Henrik. Alice has told me everything. But they can even perform operations for that these days. They can definitely add an inch. Maybe you should consider it. Because you can’t use my company as a penis extender…”
She smiled scornfully at him, stood, picked up her Chanel bag, and swept out of her former office.
Behind her, she heard a crash. Henrik had thrown something right at the glass wall. She smiled: 1–0 to her. She had kept an even temper, he hadn’t. She only hoped it wasn’t a Pyrrhic victory.
The heat didn’t dissipate. Faye left the office on Birger Jarlsgatan and strolled toward Stureplan to eat lunch alone. She needed to gather her thoughts, sort through them, after what had just happened. Revenge had been lost, but she hoped only temporarily. Ylva seemed to be putting all her faith in plan B.
Faye had always struggled to think when sitting still with nothing but empty walls to look at. She needed external stimuli—to see people, to hear them.
The tourist season was in full swing. Clusters of tourists were wandering around the city. She didn’t blame them. Stockholm was beautiful—she loved the place. But she couldn’t enjoy it in the same way she had when she had first arrived from Fjällbacka. Her eyes had grown accustomed and were no longer as keenly alert to its beauty.
Faye reached Stureplan and stood immobile for a while under the big concrete mushroom, wondering where to go.
The outdoor area at Sturehof was full. Granted, she had nothing against being seated indoors, but she would have preferred not to bump into anyone she knew. Not now, when the rumors of her loss of Revenge were probably spreading like wildfire. She walked toward Strandvägen, passing the luxury shops without looking in the windows, feeling how the walk was waking up her brain. The water in Nybroviken glittered in the sun. The quaysides were filled with people. She stopped at the crosswalk and waited for the light to change.
She felt empty. The brief euphoria she had felt in getting Henrik to lose his composure had gone. Instead, she felt nothing. She searched for her rage. The darkness. The turbid water. But all she found was emptiness in those depths. It surprised her. Took her off her guard. She always knew how to deal with rage, but she didn’t know how to deal with nothing.
She was used to fighting. She had been fighting since childhood. She had crossed all the lines drawn by people, the justice system, logic. Laws and morals. She had crossed them all without blinking. But now she was lost. She didn’t feel like herself, and she didn’t know how to deal with a Faye who wasn’t on fire.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. It was probably Ylva calling. But Faye didn’t feel up to it quite yet. Something that Henrik had said in their conversation was gnawing inside her. But she didn’t know exactly what. It was there, just beyond reach in the murky water. Something he had said that she ought to have caught.
The light changed to green. As she crossed the street, she glanced toward one of the waiting cars. A taxi. Through the windshield, behind the driver, she saw two faces she recognized. David and Johanna. Faye averted her gaze and hurried across, reached the pavement on the far side, and came to a stop. The lights changed to green for the traffic and the taxi pulled away. Her heart was pounding in her breast.
Had he seen her?
Before Faye had left the office, she had sent a message to David asking whether he was able to fly home any earlier from his business trip. She wanted to tell him about the takeover, about Henrik, and ask his advice on how to proceed. She wanted to lean against him, bury her face in his shoulder, and hear his calming voice in her ear.
But he had replied that he couldn’t, that he had some things to finish up and that he’d see her when he got home late in the evening. He hadn’t said a word about Johann
a. Had she missed something?
Faye pulled out her phone, her hands trembling, and quickly scrolled through their conversation. No, it said there clear as day that he wasn’t coming back to Stockholm until late tonight. Perhaps it was an emergency? Perhaps one of the kids was seriously ill, or had hurt themselves, and he’d had to return home as a matter of urgency…Was that why he and Johanna were in the same taxi?
Faye saw Ylva’s face appear before her and heard the words again.
How well do you know David?
Fuck Ylva. Fuck David. Fuck Henrik.
She clenched her fist so tightly her nails cut into the palm of her hand.
All sorts of things might have happened. She couldn’t blow up right now—not until she had all the facts. She loved David. Everything was so straightforward with him. They wanted to enjoy life, together. To never hold each other back. Could that have made Faye completely blind? Was she going nuts?
She walked on as if in a trance and found an empty bench in Berzelii Park. She could see happy diners at Berns.
Her mobile phone buzzed. She got it out. She saw David’s name as the sender. What a relief—now everything would be explained. Of course it was an emergency.
But when she opened the message and read it, it was like a knife to her gut.
Missing you and can’t wait for tonight. So crappy having to be far away from you. Miss Stockholm, miss you.
Just like that. The words that she had read so often and always believed.
Around her, she saw people hurrying past, going places, together with others. She suddenly wished she were one of them. She suddenly wished she was not Faye.
With her hands shaking, she went on Instagram, searched for Johanna Schiller’s profile, and looked at her posts. A man settled down next to her, cracked a beer can open, and took a swig.
Silver Tears Page 20
