“Although your mission went smoothly,” Victor says, “it wasn’t without error.”
“OK,” I say, both as a statement and a question. I place both hands on the table and take my seat again; I feel Nora’s eyes on me from the side, but I focus only on Victor. “As smoothly as it went, I can’t imagine you’d have much negative to say about my performance.”
“The mission was smoothly orchestrated,” Victor says, “but your performance left little to be commended”—I swallow hard—“Gustavsson, you and Woodard may leave; take Flynn with you.”
James Woodard lifts his large weight from the chair and gathers his briefcase and cup of coffee from the table. “I’m not feeling well anyway,” he says, looking a little pale and sweaty now that I think about it. That’s probably why he’s been so quiet all this time.
“Report back to me this evening,” Victor says to Fredrik as the three of them make their way to the tall double doors. “I’ll let you know then more about when we’ll be leaving.”
“Wait,” I call out and get up from my chair.
I dig in my pocket for the key to Dorian’s safety deposit box—he gave it to me during his interrogation with Fredrik because he thought he was going to die.
Stepping up to him, I place it into his hand.
“This belongs to you.” I smile warmly. “Looks like you’ll get to live long enough to give it to Tessa yourself.”
“Thanks,” he says.
We share a smile and Dorian follows Fredrik out the door.
Once the doors close, Victor stands and looks right at me; he folds his hands together down in front of him.
He begins to pace.
Izabel
A little bitter about his choice of words before, I finally ask, “So, what exactly did I do, Victor, that left ‘little to be commended’?”
He stops and says without looking at me, “Nora, why don’t you begin?”
“All right.” Nora gets up from the chair in her tall black heels. Her slender, hourglass frame is hugged by a skin-tight black dress that extends to her knees. In typical Nora style, it has a plunging neckline made of crimson fabric dropping between her uplifted breasts in a ruffled, wave-like pattern. Her long blond hair cascades down the center of her back, kept away from her face made up by her trademark dark red lipstick, darkly-painted eyes and creamy porcelain skin.
I remain seated, instantly feeling intimidated by both of them—I feel like I’m about to be scolded for getting an F on my report card.
I turn to see Nora on the other side of me.
She stops, her fingers clasped on her backside, missing pinky finger on one hand obvious as always. “Pinceri could’ve easily killed you,” she says. “I was watching him just in case—and he knew I was; he saw me—but it took you too damn long to notice.”
Confused, it takes me a moment, thinking back on the details of the mission, before I realize.
“But I did notice,” I say. “Within seconds of him putting his hands underneath the table, I stopped him before he could go for the hidden gun.”
“But it took you too long,” Victor reiterates, underlining the point.
My gaze moves to his at the head of the table. He’s standing beside his chair, looking at me with quiet, disappointed eyes.
I sigh.
“He never should have gotten his hands underneath the table to begin with,” he adds. “If Nora had not been there, watching, you would not be sitting here right now.”
Anger growing inside of me, I take a deep breath to keep it at bay. Because I know they’re right, and as embarrassed as I feel right now, I’m angrier with myself than with them.
Reluctantly I nod, accepting what I did wrong.
“But that’s not all,” Nora says as she begins to walk down the length of the table again; my eyes follow her all the way around. “You’re too emotional,” she goes on. “You can’t let your target know your weaknesses.”
“Too emotional?” I echo with disbelief, my gaze moving between the two of them. “How the hell did you come to that conclusion?” Truly, I’m baffled.
Deciding I don’t want to hear Nora’s opinions anymore, I turn to Victor instead and wait for him to answer.
“You wanted to throttle Pinceri for choosing money over his wife,” Victor says. “And Pinceri knew that he hit a nerve. Nora is right: you should never let your target know your weaknesses, because the smart ones will know how to use them against you.”
“What could he have possibly done to use that against me, Victor?” Surely he must detect the offense and sarcasm in my voice because I’m not trying to hide it.