I inhale a deep breath and rest against the seat again. “Well, you tell him there’s no need for an apology. But why didn’t he just tell me who he was? Or take me to you?”

“He had to hold Stephens off to let you get away, and it helps that he’s still on the inside. He doesn’t know what Hamburg and Stephens have planned, or anything about their operations. He’s just a guard, nothing more. But he’s still on the inside and that’s valuable to us.”

I break apart my seatbelt buckle and climb between the front seats, very unladylike I admit, with my butt in the air, and crawl into the back. I catch Victor checking out the view as I squeeze my way past and it makes me blush.

“I just have one more question to add to that list,” I say.

“And what might that be?” he asks with a playful edge in his voice.

“How long will we be forced to travel like this?” I stretch my legs across the seat and lay down. “I really do miss the private jets. These long car rides are going to be the death of me.”

Victor laughs. I find it incredibly sexy.

“You’re sleeping with an assassin, running for your life every single day from men who want to kill you and you’re convinced you’re going to die of discomfort.” He laughs again and it makes me smile.

“Yeah, I guess so,” I say, feeling only a little bit ridiculous. I can’t deny the truth, after all, no matter how nonsensical it may be.

“Not too much longer,” he answers. “We have to lay low until I’m completely free of Vonnegut. He has his hands in many things, and easy, covert, expensive forms of travel are at the top of his list of priorities for obvious reasons. I’d be more off the radar taking an Amtrak than boarding a private jet.”

Satisfied with his answer, I don’t say anything else about it and I stare up at the dark roof of the car.

“For the record,” I change the subject, “I’m not just sleeping with an assassin. I’ve grown very attached to one.”

“Is that so?” he says cleverly and I know that he’s grinning.

“Yes, I’m afraid it’s true,” I jest as if it were an unfortunate thing. “And it’s a very unhealthy attachment.”

“Really? Why do you think that is?”

I sigh dramatically. “Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps because he’ll never be able to get rid of me.”

“Clingy. Like Amelia,” he says, trying to get a rise out of me.

And he gets it. I raise up halfway and gently smack him on the shoulder. He recoils subtly, feigning pain all the while with a grin on his face. “Hardly,” I say and lay back down. “He’s got no chance in hell that I’d do whatever he wanted, like Amelia.”

He laughs gently. “Well, I suppose he’s stuck with you forever then.”

“Yes, and forever is a very long time.”

He pauses and then says, “Well, for the record, something tells me he wouldn’t have it any other way.”

I fall asleep in the backseat a long time later, with a smile on my face that seemed to stick there the rest of the night.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Victor


The streets of New Orleans are packed with people when we arrive the next day. Thousands of participants are dressed in white clothes and donning bright red scarves and bandannas and hats and belts, partaking in the annual San Fermin en Nueva Orleans, otherwise known as the Running of the Bulls. We weave our way through the farther side of town where the streets haven’t been closed to traffic, detouring many of the distinctive balconies festooned with intricate European ironwork and courtyards in search of the warehouse where Fredrik awaits us, far away from the festivities.

Sarai had been asleep for the past three hours, in the front seat this time with her head pressed against the passenger’s side window. She now sits wide awake, taking in her surroundings and massaging the back of her neck with her fingers.

I told her some about why we were heading to New Orleans last night on the drive, but other things I left out as I’m waiting to meet with Fredrik first to see what information he has gathered on our target, Andre Costa, also known as Turtle, a half American, half Brazilian whipping boy to a notorious gang leader out of Venezuela. I’ve been looking for Costa for weeks, mostly in Rio de Janeiro, where he was last spotted. But he moves too fast from place to place, despite his nickname, and for the first time in a long time I’ve had my work cut out for me trying to keep up.

We pull onto the grounds of the abandoned warehouse and slowly around to the side where Fredrik is waiting. When the car comes into view, a tall metal bay door raises and I drive beneath it, parking the car in the semi-darkness of the dusty building. It must have been an old garage of sorts, judging by the inspection pit in the concrete floor and the car lift and other heavy pieces of automobile equipment that had been left behind. One entire wall is stacked to the tall ceiling by shelves where a few old tires sit abandoned. Large windows are set along the top of the wall on the back side of the building, covered by a thick layer of dust, but allowing enough sunlight to spill into the area making it appear overcast.

The car doors echo through the wide, empty space when Sarai and I close them behind us.

“Geez, what’s with the doom and gloom?” Sarai asks, craning her neck, looking up at the ceiling.

“It’s good to see you, too,” Fredrik says stepping up. He’s dressed in his usual Armani suit and shiny black dress shoes, very unfitting of this place.

Sarai smirks and continues to look around, crossing her arms over her stomach and drawing her shoulders up around her neck as if the place is giving her the heebie-jeebies.

Fredrik flips a switch inside a breaker box and surprisingly a very small section of fluorescent lights hum to life near the back wall where it is darkest, I’m sure resuscitated by a generator somewhere. Fredrik has used this warehouse before. Two months ago during another interrogation. And I’m fairly certain he has also taken advantage of it for personal use as well.

“What is this place?” Sarai asks.

The light reveals an old dentist chair situated in the far corner with added touches such as arm and leg restraints, and thick leather straps to hold down a person’s head and torso.

“It’s my interrogation room,” Fredrik says with the slight wave of his hand as if he were showcasing it. “Well, for now it is.”

He bends over behind the dentist chair and retrieves a flat black suitcase, sets it down on the nearby metal table stained with paint and then flips open the silver latches on both ends simultaneously.

“I’m almost afraid to ask what you do during an interrogation,” Sarai says, unfolding her arms and looking around the place until finally her eyes fall back on the suitcase.

Fredrik glances at me. “You sure she can handle this job, Faust?”

“Hey,” Sarai cuts in, “I said almost afraid to ask. I can handle it.” The intensity in her face speaks volumes.

Fredrik smiles and pulls a wheeled stainless steel utility tray over next to the chair and begins unloading various tools into a neat row on top of it. Three different sized knives. A pair of pliers. Syringes filled with drugs. And then he retrieves six small vials of liquid and places them next to the tools.

“She worries me a little,” Fredrik says, glancing at me once.

He goes back to setting up his tools, a smile subtle in his face.

“Not as much as you worry me,” Sarai says in a half-teasing manner. Her eyes sweep the tools. “Sadistic much?”

Fredrik looks at me. “You haven’t told her yet, have you?”

“It is not my place to tell.”

“Tell me what?” She looks back and forth between us.

Fredrik places the last syringe on the table and moves toward her. She stands her ground despite the darkly seductive look in his eyes as he approaches her. It makes me uncomfortable when Fredrik reaches out and slides his index finger through the length of her loose auburn hair.

But this is also a test—to see if she can handle the truth about Fredrik—and I’m confident that she’ll pass.


Sarai


Fredrik’s magnetic blue eyes send a perplexing chill through me. His finger falls away from my hair and he gently cocks his head to one side, his gaze passing over every inch of my face as if he’s contemplating which part he wants to savor first. I swallow hard and take a step back. Not because he frightens me, but because it frightens me that I’m not as afraid of him as my gut tells me I should be.

I glance over at Victor, moving only my eyes. His expression is calm and blank. Surely I have nothing to worry about if Victor doesn’t seem worried. But what if he’s testing me? What if he’s looking for that misplaced trust I’ve always had in Victor, that trust he told me a long time ago not to have because in the end I should only ever trust myself?

No…that’s not it. It’s something else he’s looking for and I can’t quite place it.

I cock my head to one side and chew on the inside of my mouth, narrowing my eyes at Fredrik.

“Why don’t you just tell me and skip the dramatics,” I say to him.

An incredibly sexy grin appears and Fredrik casually steps away from me. The flooding light near the dentist chair casts a strangely fitting aura around his body making him look like a madman in the Devil’s suit, standing against a grisly backdrop.

“We’re all killers here,” Fredrik says casually with that ever-present Swedish accent. He gestures, palm-up toward Victor. “The assassin,” he indicates. “And you, of course. I think you’ve successfully joined the club, though you kill for vengeance, unlike Faust here who kills for money.”