“Why? He seems to like her. It’s been two weeks and he hasn’t lost her or gotten rid of her yet—I think she’s sweet. He needs someone like her.”
“Oh, Izabel,” Nora says in a pitying manner, “that man cannot be with a sweet, innocent girl like her. Trust me on this: no one can ever replace Seraphina except a woman who is practically her equal—mark my words.”
I don’t want to believe that. I want Fredrik to be happy, and so far Emily, a kindhearted waitress who knows nothing about any of us, seems like she might be someone to give Fredrik that happiness. I choose not to believe Nora. Of course, in the back of my mind, I can’t help but wonder if she’s right. Because she usually is.
“What about you?” she asks.
“What about me?”
“Don’t you think your life would be easier if you didn’t let attachments get in the way?”
I think on it.
“Sometimes,” I answer, looking out the windshield, watching the double yellow lines get swallowed up by the hood of the car, because sometimes Nora tends to drive down the center of the road for some reason. “I know that attachments to people are a hindrance in this line of work, but I also think it’s a disadvantage not to be able to love and feel love.”
“Why?”
I pause, thinking about Victor, about Dina.
“Because I believe love makes a person stronger,” I answer.
I see Nora shake her head from the corner of my eye.
“Stronger?” she says. “No, Izabel, it’s exactly the opposite. To love someone is to take on the responsibility of keeping them safe, of worrying about them. It’s just a burden.”
“Well, I think you’re wrong,” I say. “To love someone means you have something in life to fight for, something to live for—I guess you wouldn’t know, you’ve never felt love, so you can’t possibly understand.”
I decide to leave it alone, concluding that there really is nothing more I can say to someone like Nora because she’s, in a sense, not as human as the rest of us.
But then she says, “I loved my sister,” and I swallow my thoughts.
“In fact,” she goes on, “I loved her for a long time before I knew that I was going to have to kill her because of my feelings for her. Live and learn—I’ll never make that mistake again.”
I smile over at her with a trace of sarcasm.
“You say that, Nora, but one day, you’ll see that I’m right—you mark my words.”
She shrugs and then flips on her blinker.
“So then you don’t regret being in love with Javier?”
That catches me off-guard; it takes me a moment to gather my thoughts. I’ve said on more than one occasion that I’m ashamed to have ever loved a man as cold and brutal as my captor, Javier Ruiz. And I am. The part of me that knows it’s not acceptable in society, is ashamed. But the rest of me is grateful to have loved him.
“No,” I say, “I don’t regret loving Javier. Because that love I felt for him was the only thing that kept me alive the nine years I spent in that compound. It gave me strength—it kept me alive. It wasn’t the same kind of love I feel for Victor, but it was love, nonetheless, and it saved me.”
For the first time ever, since Nora and I met, she seems to have no worthy response.
~~~
Victor is not in the bed when I wake up the next day. He’s always up early, sometimes before dawn. But usually he wakes me with him—says he functions better throughout the day if he can fuck me first thing in the morning. Certainly no arguments here.
I’m disappointed that’s not the case on this day. The only thing left of him is his delicious scent on the pillow next to me, and all over the sheets, and the welcome ache between my legs from the sex we had last night.
I crawl out of bed naked and hop in the shower to get ready for my meeting with everyone eight a.m. sharp about the mission last night. I get dressed in a black pants suit and a pair of black heels. Doing my hair up in a ponytail high at the back of my head, I pull it tight, staring at myself in the mirror for a long, drawn-out moment. I don’t know why I’m so nervous this time; maybe it’s because neither Nora nor Victor would talk about the mission when I was alone with them. Usually they say something, even if only small comments here and there—they’ve never called a meeting to discuss my missions before. Everyone will be there—minus Niklas—even Dorian Flynn; it’ll be his first time joining us at the table again since Victor let him out of the cell, since finding out that Dorian’s loyalties not only lie with Victor Faust, but also with U.S. Intelligence.
Maybe that’s what this is all about, why a meeting has been called: Dorian is being reintroduced into our circle.
Yeah, that’s got to be it, I try to tell myself as I take a deep breath and step away from the mirror. But it doesn’t quell the nervous feeling in my gut.
The large double-doors to the meeting room are closed when I come upon them carrying a bottle of water in one hand and my cell phone in the other.