Victor sighs and looks down at his hands as he uneasily brushes the fingers of his right hand over the knuckles of the left.
“I’m sorry for that,” he says regretfully and then slowly raises his eyes. “Yes, it was possible that Stephens could’ve killed you, I won’t deny it, but I knew Niklas would do everything to make sure that didn’t happen.”
I laugh with contemptuous disbelief. “Niklas?” I say incredulously. “The same man who shot me? You’re telling me that you put your faith in someone who has wanted me dead from pretty much the moment he set eyes on me?” My voice is beginning to rise and Victor is beginning to show signs of discomfort.
“I may never be able to make you understand,” he says, still composed, “but I know that Niklas will never hurt you. He and I have been through a lot since I left the Order. We have come to an understanding. He accepts you—”
“I don’t need to be accepted by him!” I shoot upright from the bed and stare down into his face, my hands clenched into fists at my sides. “Niklas is the last person on this Earth who I need any kind of approval from! He tried to kill me!”
Fraught with resentment, my body stiffens as I bring my fisted hands up in front of me and hold my breath, gritting my teeth.
Victor stands up, placing his hands on my shoulders. Hesitantly, I let the breath out and calm myself, but I can’t look him in the eyes. Just like before, when I wanted to feel betrayed because it’s the normal thing to do, right now I want to hate him because of the same reason. But I don’t. I may not understand why he trusted Niklas, of all people, with my life, but I think the only reason I don’t understand is because I don’t want to. I want to be angry. I want to be unforgiving. Because it’s easier than accepting the unthinkable truth, that Niklas deserves a chance. Because if I were him, and I were trying to protect my brother from the Order, I probably would’ve shot me, too.
Victor brushes my hair away from my face, tucking it behind my ears. He looks at me for a moment as if he’s recalling a memory that I’m sure includes me in some way. How could it not? That thoughtful, admiring look in his green-blue eyes, the way he made sure to brush along the sides of my face with his fingertips when he moved my hair behind my ears. I want to scream at the top of my lungs at him, but all I can do is stand here and watch his darkly beautiful gaze sweep over me.
His hands fall away and he stares out into the room.
“The night I found you in my car,” he says, not looking at me, “I instantly saw you as a threat. I wanted to get rid of you. Quickly. To take you back to the compound, or drop you off on the road somewhere. I very much wanted to kill you.”
Already knowing all of this, it doesn’t come as a surprise, but I’m curious about why he’s bringing it up now, just the same. I remain quiet, folding my arms over my breasts, grimacing a little as the skin is stretched on my back.
“I could’ve, and often thought that I should’ve killed you many times over,” he goes on. “I had every opportunity. But I couldn’t do it.”
“You needed me,” I remind him. “As leverage. Maybe if I hadn’t given you the idea, warned you about how Javier did business, you might very well have killed me.”
“No,” he says quietly, shaking his head subtly. Then I feel his eyes on me and I look over. “I didn’t need to use you as leverage, Sarai. I knew when I left that meeting with Javier Ruiz that after I reported the payoff Ruiz offered for me to kill Guzmán, that in the end I’d only be commissioned to kill Ruiz. Because Guzmán’s offer was higher than his. Whether or not I ever received the other half of the money from Ruiz was irrelevant. I didn’t need to use you as leverage at all.”
“I don’t understand what you’re getting at,” I say, and it’s the truth.
Victor inhales a breath and looks away from me again.
“That morning when Izel was on her way to pick you up from that motel, before you woke up, I had every intention in handing you over to her. I had even gone as far as telling them where we were. But when you woke up…,” he stops mid-sentence and raises his eyes to the ceiling momentarily, letting out another concentrated breath. His chin comes back down and he looks right at me. “If you hadn’t woken up, you’d still be with Javier Ruiz right now.”
With my arms crossed, I take a few steps toward him, tilting my head to one side thoughtfully.
“What are you saying?” I ask. “I’m here with you now because I woke up before Izel got there? I don’t understand.”
“I couldn’t do it,” he says. “Like shooting an innocent person, anyone with a conscience can’t do it if they’re looking at them. When you woke up, I couldn’t hand you over.”
Still not exactly sure what Victor is trying to say, all I do know is that it wasn’t because of something as ridiculous as love at first sight. But as I study the unsettled look in his eyes, I slowly begin to understand that he is learning something extraordinary about himself. I let him speak, as it seems that he needs to get it out, to let it go so that maybe he understands it fully himself.
“I fought with myself,” he says, “every step of the way while you were with me, I told myself I needed to get rid of you. You were a threat to me, to my job, to my life, and later you threatened the relationship between me and my brother. I knew it the moment I saw you through the rearview mirror when you had that gun at the back of my head, that desperate, scared look on your face. You threatened everything. But for the first time in my life, I went against everything that I was: a trained killer with a repressed conscience….” His eyes harden and he steps up to me. “…I could’ve let you go a long time ago, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to let you go then and I don’t want to let you go now.”
A shiver moves along both of my arms as he rubs the palms of his hands against them, up and down.
“I am sorry for what you went through,” he says softly. “I want you to stay, more than anything, but if you want nothing more to do with me, I’ll understand.” He presses his lips against the top of my hair and walks toward the door, taking up the black folder from the chest of drawers.
“Victor?” I call out softly before he reaches for the door knob.
He looks back.
I start to say, “I’m glad you didn’t let me go,” but I stop myself and swallow the words. As much as I want to tell him that his words touched me, to let him know that I can never imagine a life without him, I’m still angry about what he did to me and I can’t excuse it. Not yet. Not that easily.
“Was that it?” I ask instead. “The test I went through? Was that the last of it? The only time I’ll have to go through something like that? Because I have to be honest, I don’t want to wake up every morning thinking I’m going to be abducted, or beaten, or drowned. I don’t want to not trust you…”
He places his hand on the knob and turns it. The door cracks open.
Looking back at me he says, “No, there’s just one more thing.”
My heart hardens like a hot stone in my chest. I didn’t expect that.
“The bigger trial is whether or not you can work alongside my brother,” he says. “But you can trust me. And you can trust Niklas. And you’ll never be put through anything like that again.”
He pauses and says, “I hope you’ll stay,” and then leaves the room, closing the door behind him.