Seeds of Iniquity (In the Company of Killers, #4)(32)

“Look at what I do,” Dorian says exasperated, pressing his back against the chair. “I’m not supposed to be easy to find or to figure out. If I were, I wouldn’t be any good and I’d probably already be dead by now.”

“This is true,” she says with a nod, “you are good. You’re good because I couldn’t find anything. I was getting worried you wouldn’t get to play the game with everybody else because I had nothing on you, nothing to force you to confess”—she smiles wickedly—“but then something extraordinary happened, something I never expected. When Tessa first saw me she said something that really got my attention before she was chained to the furnace. Do you want to know what she said?”

Dorian looks nervous.

Nora looks increasingly sly.

Niklas’ eyes actually meet mine for a brief moment of question, but fall away just as quickly.

Victor stands stock-still, looking into that screen as if what he’s about to hear is the most important thing he’s going to hear all day.

“What did she say?” Dorian asks reluctantly, turning his blond head slightly at an angle and narrowing his eyes on Nora.

Nora smiles sweetly.

“She said, ‘I won’t tell you anything’, before she was even asked any questions.” Nora pauses, cocking her head to one side. “Now that’s not something an innocent person, uninvolved, would usually say in a time like that, is it?”

Dorian’s fist slams against the table, knocking the apple onto its side. It rolls awkwardly a little ways before stopping near the edge.

“Tessa is innocent,” he rips the words out angrily, “and if you hurt her—”

“Oh, I’ve already hurt her,” Nora cuts him off snidely. “I hurt her enough to get what I wanted out of her, but what happens to her later will depend on what happens in this room today, as you’re already aware.”

“She has nothing to do with anything,” Dorian growls, growing more incensed, trying so hard to keep his murderous rage contained.

“Anything, meaning what exactly?”

Dorian hesitates, seeming in search of words—words of truth, or maybe words that just sound like truth.

“Look—Tessa knows what I do, all right,” he says, appearing to give in a little. “She’s smart; she knew I was leading a double life. She found my guns. She started following me, thinking I was into some drug shit. I was afraid she was going to get hurt, so I told her the truth.”

“And what is the truth?”

Dorian raises both arms out at his sides, opening his hands palms-up. “That I’m part of an underground organization.”

“What kind of underground organization?”

His eyes harden and he shakes his head in perplexity.

“This kind,” he says, pointing downward.

Puzzled, I look to Victor. “So, that’s his secret, that he told his ex-wife about us?” While that’s a bad thing and Victor won’t like it, I still feel about as confused as Dorian looks.

“No, there’s something more to this,” Victor says cryptically, staring at the screen.

Nora shakes her head and sighs.

“So you’re sticking with that story then?” she asks.

Dorian blinks confusedly.

“Yeah. I am. I don’t know what else to f*cking tell you.”

“How about the truth?” Nora suggests.

“That is the truth.”

Nora very casually reaches out and takes the apple into her hand. She squeezes her index finger and thumb around the base of the stem and twists it until it pops off. Then she rubs the bottom of her black silk blouse around the red skin, giving it a nice shine before bringing it to her lips. Dorian watches her with a cold, calculating intensity as her perfect white teeth sink into the peel with a long and slow cruuunch. She takes her time chewing slowly. She swallows and takes another bite, taking her time with that one as well. It’s as if she’s waiting for something, giving Dorian a little more time to change his story.

I’m nervous as hell; that gut feeling of mine doing a number on my stomach.

Victor hasn’t flinched, and neither has Niklas since the brief second we made eye contact—he looks just like his brother in this moment, and it’s a bit intimidating.

Nora stands up.

Dorian follows suit, keeping his eyes trained on her every move as she walks around the table. She moves toward him, and Dorian wastes no time reaching behind him and pulling his gun from the back of his pants.

He points it at her face and my heart pounds in my chest.

But Nora doesn’t appear concerned.

“I wouldn’t have taken her,” Nora says about Tessa, “if I wasn’t one hundred percent sure you’d do whatever it takes to save her life. Could I have been wrong?” She stands just two feet in front of him with her slender arms covered by wrinkled see-through silk down at her sides.

“I’ve told you what I told Tessa—if there’s something else you’re getting at you’re going to have to be a little more obvious.” Dorian’s anger is rising, but then so is the tension in his shoulders and on his face.

In a flash, the apple hits the floor and Dorian’s gun appears in Nora’s hand, trained on his face.

My hand flies up to cover my mouth, an astonished breath sucked swiftly into my lungs.