Niklas swipes the screen a few times before putting the tablet down on the seat next to him. Then he drops his foot back on the floor, leans forward and props his elbows on the tops of his legs.
“Look at me, Izabel,” he says, and I do, immediately attentive to his coming words, and that serious look on his stubbly, hardened face. “I don’t take these missions lightly,” he begins. “I may joke around and lose my shit sometimes when we’re on some kill-and-be-done-with-it job, but this”—he points absently at the floor; his eyes grow fiercer—“this is my area of expertise, and you’ll see a side of me you’ve never seen before. I just hope you’re capable of playing your role without fucking it up, because I won’t break character. You need to remember that. I never break character.” His piercing eyes never leave mine until many long seconds later when he feels like he’s gotten his point across. He presses his back against the seat again.
A nervous knot sits deep in the pit of my stomach; another one stays lodged in my throat.
“Well, I for one,” Nora finally speaks up, “am glad to hear that.” She walks over to us and sits in the seat directly behind me.
Niklas finally looks at her for longer than a few seconds; aversion seethes beneath the surface of his otherwise uninterested expression.
“Personally I prefer the role to be as real as it can be,” she adds. “And I never break character, either.”
A smirk, almost too faint to be seen, tugs one corner of Niklas’s mouth.
He smiles and says coldly, “How did you get in, anyway? I’m sure your * isn’t made of gold, so how’d you convince my brother to let you in?”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I snap. I’m not even sure what my question really is, I just know I didn’t like Niklas insinuating that Victor would ever consider letting Nora in because she fucked him.
“I’m the reason Nora got in,” I cut in coldly before Nora has a chance to answer. “If you want to know the truth—Victor let her in because it’s what I wanted.”
Niklas smiles—why is he smiling?—and then manipulates the inside of his mouth with his teeth. I wait, suffocated by the tense silence, for him to make some sarcastic comment about what I told him, to be the mouthy asshole that only Niklas can be. But instead, he just shakes his head with some kind of knowing expression that leaves me perplexed. And uncomfortable. And I don’t even know why. Oh right—because Niklas’s real expertise is knowing how to get under my skin with very little effort. This is going to be a mission to remember. Or rather, one I’m pretty sure I’ll want more than anything to forget.
Nora and I spend the next twenty minutes telling Niklas everything that happened after he left our Boston headquarters that night. From how I recruited Nora, to Victor’s acceptance of my decision, to Fredrik’s torture of Dorian, and to Victor’s decision to meet with Dorian’s employers and see what they have to offer. We fill him in on every detail, small and large, but I refrain from telling him anything about the conversation Victor and I had about why he killed Claire. Not only does Niklas make it clear beforehand that he doesn’t want to talk about it, but I know it’s not my place to, either. I know I have to let Victor and Niklas work this thing out between them. And I know that we don’t have the time to spare discussing it, or arguing about it. It is a waste of time at this point; focus only on the mission. Victor was right. And even Niklas feels this mission is too important, too dangerous, to waste time arguing about Nora’s recruitment, or expressing too extensively his dislike for her.
For the time being, he’s tolerating her. After this mission is over, granted we’re all still alive then, I can only wonder what kind of retribution he might serve.
“Nora,” Niklas says, “what experience do you have with the slave trade?”
The plane hits a bit of turbulence, but settles quickly.
Nora, sitting next to Niklas now in his roomy section of the plane, crosses her long legs and makes herself more comfortable. Without looking at him she answers resolutely, free of smiles or seduction, “Not much. When I was nineteen, I was sent on a mission to Dubai where I was sold as a sex slave to a wealthy sheik. My job was to kill his son. Needless to say, that’s exactly what I did.” She brings up an arm and rests it across the back of the seat, propping the side of her face on her fingertips. “It was my only mission of that nature,” she goes on, “and my owners were also undercover and I endured little abuse by the sheik before I got the job done, but I can assure you that I can pull this off, play whatever role I need to play. I learn fast.”
Niklas smiles, thinking to himself it seems.
“But how far will you go?” he asks, the question laced with challenge.