“Now.”
Finally his eyes meet mine from across the long table, and in them is something I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. A chill slithers up the back of my neck. No more words are needed; Nora and I turn on our heels and leave immediately.
Niklas
Victor’s hands slide away from the table as he straightens his back and stands upright. For a long time he doesn’t say anything; and for a long time neither do I. Oh, I have plenty to say to my brother—I want to punch him in the face—but he’s going to be the one to start, the one who sets the tone. Because I know if left up to me, only one of us will walk out of this room alive. And since I love my brother too much to ever kill him, it’ll probably be Victor.
He sits back down at the head of the table.
I sit on the table and light up a cigarette. He hates it when I smoke inside. Do I give a fuck?
“I suspected when you agreed to go on this mission,” he begins, “that you had every intention in wrecking it; it is the only reason you went.”
I smirk. Take a drag. Nod. Listen. Let him get it all out. Smirk some more.
“But I wanted to give you a chance,” he says. “I had hoped you would come to your senses. Instead, you managed to not only kill the target and cost us three million dollars, but you used the client’s money on a girl who was not even his daughter, and since there clearly is no Olivia Bram to show for it, that money has to be replaced by me.” He rests his back against the seat and sighs lightly. “I have to say, Brother, I expected more from you, and all I got was a tantrum.”
Smirk. Take a drag. Nod. Listen.
“Is that the way things are going to be between us?” he asks.
“Things changed between us….Brother, when I found out that you’re not who I thought you were.”
“Believe what you want about what happened that night,” he says. “But I did not know you were in love with Claire—”
“Don’t you say her name!” I roar, pointing two fingers at him, the cigarette wedged between them. I come off the table and move forward. “Don’t you ever say her name to me again.”
“Sit down, Niklas.” His voice is calm.
Mine is anything but. “You killed her; you killed her and you knew I loved her”—I motion my hands—“I don’t care what your excuse is, Victor; I don’t care what you want me to believe, or want Izabel to believe, but you should know me better; you insult my intelligence by expecting me to believe you didn’t know—you’re trained to know!”
“I said sit down.”
I throw my cigarette on the floor and crush it underneath my boot. But I don’t relent; I don’t sit down. I can’t. I won’t.
“But you’re good at that,” I say, icily. “You’re real good at making people believe you’re someone you’re not—Izabel will be the next one to die because of you—”
Black spots spring before my eyes, accompanied by a white-hot flash and the brutal sting of Victor’s knuckles underneath my eye. I feel my body falling backward; the back of my legs hitting the chair as I start to go down. But I snap back quickly and grab the chair instead, keeping on my feet, and I whirl around at him, catching him under the jaw with my fist. We fight hard, exchanging blow after blow, taking out our buried rages on one another. He buries his fist in my gut, knocking the wind out of me; I kick him in the chest, sending him across the table; he clocks me in the face with his elbow; I grab him from behind, locking his throat beneath my arm; he manages somehow to toss my body over his head and slam my back against the table; I manage somehow to get out from underneath him after two blows to the face and hit him so hard he stumbles back against the wall. One minute. Two. It feels like forever the fight goes on. And then he has me in a chokehold, more secured than the one I had him in moments ago. “Go ahead! Fucking kill me!” I say, choking; his arm tight across my windpipe. “I’m not gonna…live in your shadow…anymore, Brother”—he puts more pressure on my throat—“I’m not gonna…be what you expect me to be…I know who I am now…and…as long as I live, I’ll be that person. So kill me now because…that person is not, never has been, and never fucking will be…Victor Faust!”
He releases me violently and air rushes into my lungs; I stumble backward, stopped by the table; gasping, holding my throat. Pulling back my fist faster than he can react, I send it soaring against the side of his face, knocking his head back on his neck. When it comes back down, blood is dripping from one corner of his mouth; he wipes it away with his hand.
But he doesn’t retaliate. He just looks at me—we look at each other, both of us knowing that this fight is over, that neither of us have won, but the battle between us will rage on.
“Aside from Claire,” I speak up, calmly, “do you want to know what hurts me the most?”