She stands before us dressed in a calf-length navy skirt and a short-sleeved, button-up pink blouse. Her long, gray hair is fixed into a bun at the back of her head. She is of average height and weight, but her legs truly show her age, with tiny, varicose veins running along her thick calves and ankles.
I look to Victor again, curious myself if he’ll be staying for dinner.
“No, I will be leaving soon,” he says to Greta. “But thank you.”
She nods to both of us and then I dismiss her, but just before she turns and leaves, her eyes catch mine privately, giving me a look of concern I’m all too familiar with.
She leaves the room, knowing she has made her point clear.
Cassia has been asking for me.
I turn to Victor.
“Well, I have to say that you were right,” I speak up. “I didn’t think it would be as easy as it has been to take control of these black market operations.”
Victor takes a sip of his beer and sets the bottle on the table.
I grasp mine firmly in my fingers over the end of the chair arm.
“Easy is too light a word,” Victor says with a small smile. “I believe I used the word do-able.”
I return the smile, because it’s not often I ever see the statue of a man actually smile. For a long time, when I first met him, I never knew he had teeth.
“Alright, yes, easy is putting it lightly,” I agree and take another sip. “But I’d say taking over three operations in under three months is pretty damn good.”
Victor nods.
“It’s been a group effort,” he says, always giving credit where credit is due. “I couldn’t have done it without the four of you.”
Victor is being modest. I know that, yes, he could do it without us. Very easily, in fact. Without myself, or Dorian Flynn, or his brother, Niklas Fleischer, or even that redheaded spitfire of a woman of his, Izabel Seyfried, who I’ve grown rather fond of in the past year. And Victor may treat us all with respect, but I also know that he wouldn’t hesitate to kill any of us if it came down to it. Victor Faust is the epitome of ‘iron fist’. I don’t fear him. I fear no one. But I do respect him and I owe him my life.
However, if he were ever to find out about Cassia, he would likely take back the life he saved by getting to me before Vonnegut did a few months ago. Vonnegut is our former employer, head of The Order, which myself, Victor and Niklas were all a part of before we went rogue.
Now there is a heavy bounty on our heads and we’ve been laying low ever since.
“Where are we at now?” I ask. “What are our numbers?”
“Six black market operations are now under our control. Four in the United States. One in Mexico. And one in Sweden. All totaling one hundred thirty-three active members. Aside from what we had before obtaining them.”
“One hundred thirty-three?” I ask, looking at him inquiringly, cocking my head gently to one side.
“One operative was eliminated by Niklas yesterday. He did not pass the final tests. Spilled all of the false information we gave him to Izabel.”
“Ah, I see,” I say, tilting my head back briefly. “And how is Izabel doing in the field?”
“She’s doing well,” Victor says, but offers me nothing more, which strikes me in a curious way.
“It’s not my place to ask,” I say, “but is there anything to worry about?”
Victor looks over at me. He shakes his head. “Nothing you need to worry about,” he clarifies. “My brother, on the other hand, I wonder every day if I’ll get word that she has finally slit his throat.”
I try to force my smile at bay, but it pushes its way to the surface. I shake my head and bring the bottle to my lips again just to attempt to conceal as much of the smile as I can. “Well, that doesn’t surprise me. Surely, you didn’t think it would.”
Finally, I set the bottle on the table near Victor’s.
“No, I did not,” he says with a faint hint of a smile in his voice. “I doubt they will ever get along. It doesn’t help that Niklas doesn’t know when to shut his mouth. But Izabel…,” he shakes his head with his short brown hair, as if he’s concluding in his mind that there’s no hope in this situation, “…she is just as bad as he is.”
“As long as their…differences, don’t get in the way of our operations,” I say, “then it’s probably best to let them ride it out.” I shrug. “Besides, you know as well as I do that Niklas deserves the shit beat out of him every once in a while. He’s almost…,” I point my index finger up in front of me in emphasis, “…almost as bad a Dorian.”
Victor switches feet, propping his left on his right knee. He drops his arms between the chair arms, leaving his elbows propped on the intricately carved wood, and he interlaces his fingers.
“Speaking of Dorian,” he says, “how did he do in France?”
I sigh, shake my head and glance upward at the ceiling for a moment, expelling a burst of air before dropping my head and looking at him again.
“Like Niklas, Dorian is a train wreck,” I say. “I admit, he gets the job done, and he never makes a mistake, but he shocks even me at times. And, as you know, that’s not an easy thing to do.”
Victor raises an inquisitive brow. “Shocks you?” he says. “Yes, I do find that hard to believe.”
I nod quickly. “Well, yes. He’s trigger-happy.”
“That is his job,” Victor says. “To kill the enemy and anyone who steps in the way.”
“Yes, but,”—I chew on the inside of my mouth in thought—, “he’s quite brutal. Kills without thinking.”
Victor actually laughs, throwing his head back once and laughs. It stuns me for a moment, but I recover quickly.
He picks his beer up from the table and points at me with it in his hand and says before placing his lips on the glass, “You, of all people, accuse Dorian of being brutal because he kills without thinking about it.” His laughter begins to fade but it’s still present in his voice. “Don’t you think that perhaps it shocks you because, unlike you, Dorian doesn’t play with his food before he eats it? He’s your polar opposite. How do you think he felt the first time he witnessed you in the interrogation room?”
He takes one more drink and sets the beer back on the table.
“OK, yes, I do see your point,” I say with a faint smile.
“So, then he’s doing well?” Victor adds, dropping the humor and getting back to business. “I trust that he hasn’t set off any red flags since he became your partner?”
I shake my head. “No, he hasn’t. And so far he has passed all of the tests.” I shake my head again, though this time with a long, deep sigh. “I hate to say it, but I think you were right about him, too.”
I hated to say it because when I first met Dorian Flynn, I wanted to strap him to a chair and pump his veins full of poison. He talked too much. Was cocky, arrogant, and incredibly impetuous. He’s still all of those things. But he is, unfortunately for the sake of my killing him being put on hold probably indefinitely, an excellent operative.
But this poses an important question.
“How long exactly is Dorian expected to be my…partner?” I ask, practically having to scrape that dirty word right off my tongue. “I prefer to work alone. Unless, of course, you’re involved. You I can work with if necessary. Dorian, well, he kind of makes me want to stick the needles into my own veins at times.”
Victor smiles faintly again.
“A few weeks more at the most,” he says. “Just until he helps with the mission in Washington. After that, I’ll put him on his own.”