“That will not happen,” I tell her, kiss her on the edge of her mouth and leave.
I never would have gone in first. Or second. Or third. And up until this point I intended to go last. When given the opportunity, I learn everything I can about my enemy before I approach them. Or take them out. Woodard was an easy target for someone like Nora. Izabel is too blinded by anger and vengeance to have the kind of patience that I have. Dorian and my brother are both quicker to act than I feel is appropriate—it is in their nature. And Gustavsson—if Nora Kessler can stay alive to meet him face to face—will tell her nothing. It will be the other way around.
Izabel may have to face the death of the woman she loves like a mother.
After punching the code on the door panel, I lock myself inside with a rarity. People like Kessler are not necessarily rare in numbers, only in exposure. To have one like her bound inside a locked room is extraordinary enough, but to have one indirectly admitting who and what she is, is unheard of. If what she told Izabel is true, I believe she will willingly tell me even more. The real question is why.
“Ah, finally the boss-man himself,” Kessler says with a smile that might otherwise be intimidating if I could be intimidated by her. “I wondered if you’d come at all.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Placing a hand on the back of the empty chair, I pull it from the table and have a seat, propping my right foot on my left knee. I tug casually on the cuffs of my dress shirt with my fingers, and then place my hands within my lap.
She shrugs. “Oh, I don’t know,” she says, letting her eyes drift upward in a bored fashion, “because you’re more intelligent than the rest of them, I suppose.”
“Just more thorough,” I say.
She smiles, though it shows more in her eyes than on her lips. “No, I’m pretty sure I’m right. Because, you see, you’re not that much different from me, Faust. You did exactly what I would’ve done—scoped the building out before barging inside blindly.”
I say nothing.
“So, you’ve come to confess,” she says. She stretches and curls her fingers against the arms of the chair to relieve some of her discomfort.
“Eventually,” I say. “But first we’re going to talk about you.”
“Oh, we are, are we?” She grins; the light from the ceiling reflecting in the brown of her eyes. “Maybe you forget that this is my game, not yours. You play by my rules.”
“I will play within the boundaries of your rules,” I say, “until those boundaries become a problem, and then I will cross them.” I drop my foot on the floor and lean forward, interlocking my fingers with my hands draped between my knees. “Perhaps you forget that you are the one in the chair.”
“I’ve already told you,” she says, losing confidence and replacing it with frustration, “I’m not afraid to die.”
I lean back again and cross one leg over the other, smoothing out invisible wrinkles in the leg of my black pants, taking my time.
“Why don’t you tell me, Nora Kessler, why someone from the Shadow Sect would be here in my organization, playing games based on a personal vendetta.” I look away from my pants and up at her. “SC-4 operatives have no personal vendettas because they have no personal lives or possessions or burdens…unless of course one was…compromised.” I glance briefly at her marred pinky finger. “Tell me—what other parts of your body did your father, Solis, mutilate when he found out that you had been compromised?”
A flash of anger crosses her eyes, but she does well to contain it before it does further damage to her self-control. She smiles instead and then glances at her finger momentarily as if it’s an insignificant thing.
“I’d be happy to show you,” she says sultrily, “if you’d like to see the rest of my body.”
A faint smile appears on one side of my face.
“I bet you would,” I say.
I can only imagine what Izabel is thinking right now. This is yet another issue where Izabel will have to learn self-control, but I have little confidence in that ever happening; she is a jealous woman by nature—an incapacitating kink in the armor in this business.
“So then you know where I came from,” she says, giving up the playful, seductive act. “I knew you’d have that much figured out at least before you took your turn. Yes, Solis is my”—she looks up in thought, pursing her lips contemplatively—“well, I wouldn’t go as far as calling him anyone’s father; a more appropriate term would be sperm donor.”
“How were you compromised?”
“That isn’t something you’ll get out of me, Faust. It’s inconsequential.”