Killing Sarai (22 page)

He encloses his fingers around my hands more firmly and I begin to gaze beyond him, thinking about what he said, about his reasons for doing this. Momentarily, I wonder which one of us he’s trying to convince.

“Sarai, listen to me carefully,” he says. “If you choose to go with me you need to know that you could be killed. I will do everything in my power to keep you safe, but it’s not a guarantee because no matter how much you trust me, you should never, under any circumstances trust anyone fully. In the end, you can only trust yourself. I am not your hero. I am not the other half of your soul who could never let anything bad ever happen to you. Trust your instincts first always, and
me, if you choose, last.”

I nod apprehensively.

“So what will it be?” he asks. “France or Los Angeles?”

I don’t really have to think about it because I know what I want, but I pretend to think about it to make me appear less irrational.

“Los Angeles,” I say letting out a breath.

Victor gazes into my eyes for a moment, a look of contemplation and even a bit of
wavering settles on his expression.

He stands up and straightens his suit.

“Then pack your things,” he says as he walks away. “We leave in ten minutes.”

Victor

I had hoped she would choose France, but I knew she would choose to go with me. I could still very well take her to France and set her up with everything she needs and my conscience would be clear. But I bypassed the meaning of rational where Sarai is concerned a long time ago. She may very well die in Los Angeles, but I gave her a choice. I all but spelled out the potential consequences of her decision. I didn’t exactly tell her everything, but there is a method to my madness. I can’t allow her time to contemplate what she might do because in this business sometimes a life or death decision comes when you least expect it. And that is the kind of scenario she needs to experience.

Perhaps a part of me hopes she doesn’t make it through the mission because then I will be free of my…shortcomings when it comes to her. But the other part of me, the part that I’m still struggling with that brought her with me as far as I have…

That’s an entirely different issue.

If she lives then I’ll find it necessary to confront it.

If she dies…If she dies then I will go back to my normal life and never find myself in a situation like this again.

“His name is Arthur Hamburg,” I say, laying a manila envelope on Sarai’s lap next to me on the private jet. “He owns Hamburg &
Sthilz, the most successful real estate agency on the west coast. But his most lucrative business is more underground.”

Attracted by my silence, she looks up from the photo she removed from the envelope.

“What is his other business?” she asks, as I knew she would.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “The information that I choose to give you is all that you need.”

She cocks her head to one side. “But
you
know more,” she accuses.

“Yes, I do,” I admit. “But as your employer, you never ask questions about the personal nature of any mark unless you’re unclear as to how you’re going to eliminate him. What he does for a living, who his wife is, his children, if he has any, his crimes, if he has any of those, they don’t matter. The less you know about his personal life, the less of a risk there is for you to become emotionally involved. I give you a photo, tell you his frequent whereabouts and habits, designate a manner in which I prefer the hit to be carried out: messy and in public to send a message, or discreet and accidental to avoid an investigation, and then you take care of the rest.”

She thinks about it a moment, the photo of Arthur Hamburg clutched in her fingertips.

“Wait,” she says, “so you’re saying that you don’t only kill bad people. You also kill innocent people?”

A small smile, I admit unbecoming of me, lifts the edges of my mouth. “No one is innocent, Sarai,” I repeat something she said to me once. “Children, yes, but everyone else, they are as innocent as you or I. Think of it this way if it makes you feel any better: to have a hit placed on you, you must’ve done something or be involved in something illegal or ‘bad’ as you call it.”

“I thought you said that
I
was innocent,” she reminds me. “And that’s why you didn’t kill me.”

“You were,” I say. “And I wasn’t ordered to kill you by my employer. Javier’s offer was considered a private hit, it didn’t go through my employer first. Private hits are the ones that get innocent people killed. Wives wanting their husbands deaths to look accidental so they can collect their inheritance. Scorned lovers pay private parties to kill their girlfriends out of jealousy and vengeance. I don’t take jobs like those and my employer has never given me one. My Order deals only in crime, government corruption and a host of other things that make bad people bad. And sometimes we eliminate people who might be considered innocent, but who are a threat to a large number of innocent people, or an idea.”

Her eyebrows crease gently as she looks to me to elaborate further.

“Would you have killed Robert Oppenheimer if you knew he was going to head the invention of the Atomic Bomb? Or, eliminate a scientist before she completes her lifelong quest to create a deadly virus in her lab that is intended only to be used against an enemy country in a time of war?”

“Yes, I guess I would,” she says. “Though something like that is sort of like playing God with people’s lives. You’re convicting someone of a crime before it happens.”

I don’t respond to that because that’s exactly what it is.

“Then if they all deserve to die,” she goes on, “what does it matter what I know about their personal lives? What does it matter what I know about this Arthur Hamburg?” She glances at the photo.

“Because for some, the means do not justify the end.”

“You mean that I might feel bad for someone because their crimes don’t constitute a death sentence?”

“Exactly,” I say. “And it’s not for you to make that call.”

“And what makes you think I’d be that soft?” she asks, her eyes full of intent and curiosity.

“I don’t,” I say. “Not for sure. But for someone who wasn’t raised like this, who hasn’t been killing people since she was thirteen-years-old, it would be a very difficult thing to get used to.”

Sarai looks down at the photo one more time and then back up at me. “You’ve been doing it that long?” she asks sympathetically. “I can’t imagine….”

“I endured several years of training as a boy before I was sent on a mission with my mentor. At that age, it’s easy to be molded into whatever they want. My first kill was clean. And I slept soundly that night.”

She looks away, staring off at nothing, lost in thought.

Just when I think she might start second-guessing this whole mission, she surprises me.

“OK, so what am
I
supposed to do?”

I take the photo from her hands.

“This hit was designated clean,” I begin. “But Arthur Hamburg is rarely alone on his estate. He throws elaborate parties three to four nights a week, only for the wealthiest of people and always by invitation only. The security at his estate is top notch. Hamburg hand-picked every one of them. They are not unskilled security guards hired off the cuff. It won’t be like it is in the movies where I get onto the property unseen and take out all of his men before they get a shot off. It doesn’t work that way in this case.”

Her face has grown weary and anxious over the course of the last few seconds.

“Then how do you get in?”

“We get in by invitation,” I say. “Hamburg has a weakness, like all men, and you and I are going to use it to our advantage.”

Now she looks a little nervous.

“What’s his weakness?”

“Sex, of course,” I say as if she should already know the answer. And I know she did.

She flinches a little underneath that soft skin.

“Is this going where I think it is?”

“Probably not,” I say, “but it will still be unpleasant.”

Sarai

My stomach ties up in a knot. Victor puts the photo of the old man away inside the envelope. And I can’t seem to get these disgusting images out of my head of him lying naked on top of me, the creases and folds of his obvious weight problem smothering me like way too much jelly on a PB&J. I shudder. Surely Victor wouldn’t expect me to sleep with this man even for the sake of a mission. I’m not a hooker in any form and I’ll be damned if I become one. Not even for this. I may have slept with Javier every night for years even though I didn’t want to, but that was different. That was my way of surviving. And Javier, dare I say it, was attractive despite his unforgivable faults.

That was
definitely
different…

I can’t look at Victor right now, not because I’m mad at him for this even though I feel like I should be, but because…goddamn, I’m still contemplating it. There has to be something more to it, something that separates what whores do from what he expects me to do.

He won’t let it go that far, I resolve to believe. Yes, that’s it. It has to be.

A bit of turbulence shakes the plane and pulls me out of my thoughts. I’m gripping the armrests when I turn to see Victor again.

“So then what’s the plan? It’s obvious you brought me along because being the girl I fit perfectly into it.”

He nods. “Yes, being a woman has its advantages in cases like these. Just remember the things I told you before: you’re submissive to me but sometimes your tongue gets you into trouble. You’re a wealthy, stuck up little bitch and more than anything, you fear nothing.”

I laugh derisively. “Well, according to you, I’ve got that fear thing down pat already.”

“Yes,” he says retaining his serious expression, “but you might feel differently once you’re there and the threat is all around you. You need to make certain that nothing will break you of the control you have over your fear. Hamburg will be turned off by you the moment
he senses it. Fear to him is weakness and he likes strong, reckless young women. And even stronger men.”

I feel my face distort with disgust and mild shock, but I don’t ask about the obvious. I just try to let it all sink in, what exactly we’re going to do and how we’re going to do it. Because everything I theorized before has just been tossed out the window.

Victor did say that what I assumed would happen probably wasn’t right, but I’m only slightly relieved by the truth in that. And ‘slightly’ will continue to be the measure because he also said it would still be unpleasant.

We arrive in Los Angeles just after six in the evening. We check into the most extravagant hotel the city has to offer and Victor is in character before we even make it up to our room on the top floor overlooking the cityscape. He demands, with his chin held high and his dominant demeanor that we get the best suite and will accept nothing less. And the front desk clerk, bewitched by his dark, flickering eyes, erases a reservation a guest had booked for tonight and gives Victor the keys to the suite. He is so good at pretending to be someone else that he almost tricks me into believing he’s a rich bastard who cares nothing for the people beneath him, who just so happens to be everyone. But he does it with so much grace and
composure that his rich arrogant attitude doesn’t induce dislike for him, but instantly demands respect.

I’m seriously beginning to doubt my ability to act compared to his. I did it for nine years with Javier. My whole life was an act and I like to think I have enough experience, but Victor intimidates me.

I straighten my back and walk alongside him in my Valentino dress and flat sandals with my head held high. I am strong, powerful, rich, and I can’t be touched.

At least that’s what I
hope
I’m pulling off.

“It begins tonight,” Victor says setting his bags on the end of the bed and then he hangs a tall black garment bag with a zipper down the front on a hook on the wall. “If all goes as planned, it’ll end tomorrow night. You’ll need to wear make-up and pull up your hair. You have to look the part as well as play it. Oh, and put on the heels.” Flipping the latches on his gun case he retrieves one of his handguns and starts to attach a suppressor on the end of the barrel.

“What is the plan then?” I ask, ignoring my need to complain about the shoes he wants me to wear that I hope I can even walk in.

“Tonight we go to his restaurant,” he begins, still inspecting the gun. “Before we can get into the mansion, we’ll need an invitation and the restaurant is where we’ll get it. I’ll play my part and you play along as Izabel, not as Sarai. Remember that always when in public even when you think no one is watching.” He glances at me and goes back to inspecting the gun. “Hamburg is at this restaurant every Friday night like clockwork. But we’ll never see him. He hides out in a private room with two other men: his assistant and his restaurant manager. But Hamburg is always observant to what goes on in the restaurant. And he’s always
assessing the guests. We may not see him, but it’s a certainty that he will see us.”

“Assessing them?”

Victor sets the gun on the bed and closes the case.

“Yes,” he says. “He’ll be looking for a couple. We need to make an impression.”

This is worrying me more by the second.

“Well, I’m sure there will be plenty of couples in a restaurant in L.A.” I meant for it to sound sarcastic, but he’s not fazed by it.

“Of course there will be,” he says. “But unlike everyone else in the restaurant, I know exactly what he’s looking for.”

He points to my bag. “Now get ready. We leave in half an hour.”

I pull out the make-up kit Ophelia included with all the clothing she gave me and take it into the bathroom. I’m kind of excited to wear it. I didn’t have such a luxury while with Javier except when he’d take me with him to the parties and such. And I always took my time putting it on because I wanted it to be perfect. I wanted to savor my only moment alone where I felt like an average teenage girl, standing in front of the mirror dolling myself up before another day at school. I always pretended that’s what I was getting ready for and I mastered making myself believe it. That was until Izel burst into the room uninvited and dragged me out by the arm because I was taking too long.

But this time, I don’t pretend I’m somewhere I’d rather be. I’m focused and determined and naturally nervous. I apply my makeup in record time and brush out my hair until it’s like cool, soft silk lying against my back and then spend more time than I want trying to pull it up. After struggling for fifteen minutes, I finally manage to make it
look ‘rich bitch’ nice, pinned to the back of my head with pretty silver hair clamps.

Victor is dressed in his usual when I emerge from the bathroom, but somehow he manages to be even sexier. I quietly gape when I see him standing there in his Armani suit, polished black shoes and tall height. I glance down at my dress and even though it had to cost a few thousand dollars, I feel like I don’t compare standing next to him.

Maybe it’s the sandals, maybe once I put on the heels they’ll make me feel more like his equal.

“No confidence,” he says and I look up. “You reek of it right now. You need to reverse that before we step out of this room.” He walks up to me. He smells faintly of cologne and I inhale deeply of his scent. “You
know
you’re the most beautiful and most important girl in the room,” he says and for a moment I get lost in those words, not wanting to accept them as merely instruction. “You’re always in competition with other women, proving to everyone around you that you can never be matched and if one ever tries, you’ll snuff her out of the picture with the flick of your wrist. You don’t smile, you grin or smirk. You don’t say thank you, you assume you are being thanked for the opportunity to serve you. And you never raise your voice because you don’t have to in order to make your point. And remember that you
always
relent to me. No matter what.”

I stare blankly at him. “I’m a real piece of work,” I say. “I almost feel like punching myself.”

Victor grins and it sends a shiver up my back.

He holds up a finger. “One more thing,” he says and reaches into his duffle bag. He pulls out a tiny ivory jewelry box and hands it to me. I open the latch and look inside. There are several stunning rings fitted in between the velvet folds on one side, two necklaces, one gold,
one silver, with jeweled pendants and matching bracelets and earrings.

“Where’d you get all this?”

He hides his gun away inside his shirt, breaking apart the first three buttons to reveal a black strap down one side of his chest that I can only assume is attached to a gun holster of sorts.

“
You don’t want to know.”

I leave it at that and slip on four rings, two on each hand, and then a matching bracelet, necklace and earring set. Then I grab my
little white hand purse and Victor hooks my arm within his just before we walk out the door.

L.A. is just like it is in the movies: a vast infrastructure booming with lights and tall buildings and expensive cars and white roads lined with palm trees and multi-million dollar houses. We ride in a black convertible Mercedes-Benz Roadster, though with the top in-tact, through the sprawling city. It was parked at the front of the hotel waiting for us when we came outside. I guess doing what he does has its perks. It’s not all about killing people for money, but having whatever he needs at his disposal that will ensure he can carry out every job he’s given.

We arrive at the restaurant in the wealthiest part of town, no doubt, well after dark. A valet opens my door for me. I start to smile and tell him thank you once I get out, but I catch myself quickly and swallow my error before anyone notices. Instead, I raise my chin and don’t even offer the guy a look in the eyes, much less a smile or a thank you.

Victor comes around to my side of the car and I loop my arm through his again as he walks me inside.

The restaurant is two stories with a balcony upstairs overlooking the bottom floor. The conversation all around me sounds like a constant humming, but it’s not so packed that every table is full. Other than the voices, it’s quiet in here with low lighting and semi-dark walls to create a tranquil atmosphere. Victor pulls me alongside him gently as we follow the waiter to a circular-shaped booth with shiny black leather seats near the back. I sit down first and then Victor slides in next to me.

The waiter presents us with two leather-bound menus, but before he can place mine fully on the table in front of me, I sweep my hand toward it, waving it away with a look of boredom. “I won’t be eating,” I say as if food might somehow ruin my path to enlightenment. “But I will be having wine.”

The waiter looks at the menu in his hand and then back at me briefly, appearing confused.

Victor gives me a look which I can’t quite place, but I know it’s not a good one. He opens his menu and after studying it for a moment, hands it back to the waiter and says, “La Serena
Brunello di Montalcino.” The waiter nods, takes the menu, which is apparently the
wine menu
and I’m about to die from embarrassment, and he walks away.

“Sorry,” I whisper.

Victor’s eyes lock on me warningly. It takes me a second, but I understand what I’m doing wrong and wipe that embarrassed look off my face fast, straightening my back against the seat and crossing my legs beneath the table. I set my purse on the table at my right.

This staying in character is stuff harder than I thought, but now that I’ve already screwed up twice within minutes, I’m more determined than ever to get it right.

In seconds, I fully become Izabel Seyfried.

I reach into my purse and pull out a compact mirror and a tube of rose-colored lipstick and begin applying it at the table. I make sure to stare at myself a lot, turning my head subtly at different angles and gently pursing my lips.

“Put the lipstick away,” Victor says as the rich asshole and not the man I know.

I glare softly at him and do as he says, but take my time about it.

The waiter comes back to our booth with a bottle of wine and with both hands puts it into Victor’s view. Victor visually inspects it and then nods to the waiter, who then pulls the cork and places it on the table in front of Victor. He inspects that, too, and while I’m quietly wondering why so much effort is being put into this on both of their parts, I say nothing and pretend not to care. The waiter pours a small amount into Victor’s glass first and then takes a step back. Victor swirls the wine around in the glass for a moment and then brings it to his nose and sniffs it before taking a sip. After Victor approves, the waiter fills my glass first and then Victor’s.

I don’t look the waiter in the eyes because like the valet, he’s not worthy of my precious attention.

Victor declines food for the both of us and the waiter leaves our table.

“I never enjoy this city when I come here,” he says, taking a sip of his wine.

I fit my fingers delicately around the swell of my glass and do the same, afterwards placing it carefully back on the table.

“Well, I personally would prefer New York, or France,” I say, having no idea where I’m going with this.

“I didn’t ask you what you’d prefer.” He doesn’t look at me.

He sets his glass down.

“Why bring me out with you then?” I ask, cocking my head. “I was only trying to engage you in conversation.” I look away, crossing my arms over my chest.

Victor looks right at me. “Izabel, don’t sit with your arms crossed like that. It makes you look like a stubborn child.”

Slowly, my arms fall away and I fold my hands together within my lap, straightening my back.

“Come here,” he says in a gentler tone.

I slide over the few inches separating us and sit right next to him.

His fingers dance along the back of my neck as he pulls my head toward him. My heart pounds erratically when he brushes his lips against the side of my face. Suddenly, I feel his other hand slip in-between my thighs and up my dress. My breath hitches. Do I part them? Do I freeze up and lock them in place? I know what I
want
to do, but I don’t know what I
should
do and my mind is about to run away with me.

“I have a surprise for you tonight,” he whispers onto my ear.

His hand moves closer to the warmth between my legs.

I gasp quietly, trying not to let him know, though I’m positive he definitely knows.

“What kind of surprise?” I ask, my head tilted back, resting in his hand.

Just then another couple walks up to the table, a tall blonde-haired woman with mile-long naked legs and an even taller man with his hand around the back of her waist.

Victor stands up to greet them. I stay right where I’m at, staying in character, yet at the same time not really having to pretend to be disappointed by their presence because I was enjoying the moment with Victor before we were interrupted; for a few minutes I had forgotten why we were even here.

“Aria,” the woman introduces herself.

“A pleasure,” I say with obvious distaste.

She sits down on the other side of the rounded booth. The man takes the outside seat after her, just as Victor sits.

“It has been a while, Victor,” the man says with an accent that I can’t place.

How do they know each other?

“Yes, it has, my friend,” Victor says as he gestures for the waiter.

The waiter comes right over and takes the man’s wine order.

“Izabel,” Victor says, “this is my old friend Fredrik from Sweden. He’ll be running my offices in Stockholm when the expansion goes into effect next month.”