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

I sigh and lower my head, trying to hold back the tears.

“I know,” I say softly and with insurmountable regret. I feel his hands collapse atop mine on the table, but I don’t look up.

“We’ll do everything we can to keep her safe,” he says, “but if it comes down to Mrs. Gregory and Dorian’s ex-wife and whoever else they might’ve taken, and the secrecy of our organization and its members, then we have to let them go. Are you prepared for this, Izabel?”

I raise my head and meet his eyes; a tear tumbles down my cheek. I nod reluctantly and swallow hard, but I can’t find it in me to give him more of an answer than that.

This may be my biggest test of loyalty and worth yet—I just wish that, like in the past, this test was also orchestrated by Victor because then I’d know Dina was going to be OK. But it’s not. I know in my heart it’s not. Victor has no control over it this time; there’s no one on the inside like Niklas was when we took down Willem Stephens in Albuquerque last year. Dina could die. And I may not be able to stop it.

I won’t let her die…





2


Izabel





With my gun on my hip and Pearl sheathed in my leather boot, I follow behind Victor as we stealthily make our way around the back of the red brick building. The area, two blocks of mostly abandoned buildings, is half shrouded in darkness. Many of the street lights that once lit up the place have long since burned out. One flickers in the distance near a ghostly intersection. A large fenced-in lot of old rusted cars is on the other side of the street, directly across from this building at 66th and Town. Many of the windows in the buildings along the street have been busted out—this whole place is a shithole, vacant and dark, the perfect breeding ground for crime and crack-heads and kidnappings. Only, there doesn’t seem to be any actual people. Not a sound. Not a shadow. Not a mysterious out-of-place vehicle parked on a corner. Not even a stray animal in search of scraps. Nothing.

We duck low underneath the few windows when moving along the red bricks. Niklas is behind Victor and in front of me. Dorian is right behind me.

Victor stops with his back hunched over and he motions to Dorian and Niklas, telling them with only the gesture of his finger for each of them to go around the building in opposite directions. Niklas nods and heads around the back. Dorian nods and heads around the front.

Victor and I stay parked next to a side door set in the wall with three concrete steps leading down into it.

“You’re going to wait here,” Victor says quietly as he checks his gun.

Already I’m shaking my head in protest.

“This could be an ambush,” he whispers, “and you’re still far from ready.”

“I can handle myself,” I whisper back angrily, pulling my own gun from the holster at my hip. “You can’t keep me in the damn playpen all the time, Victor.”

He grabs my elbow and yanks me closer to him. I can feel the warmth of his breath on my cheek.

“You will wait here,” he repeats in a low, firm voice, “do you understand?” His strong fingers tighten around my elbow when I don’t answer. “Izabel?” he rips my name out.

“No!” I shoot back quietly. “I’m not going to stay here!”

Silence passes between us.

I lower my eyes, not in shame, but in disappointment and anger.

After a moment, Victor raises my head with his fingers fitted underneath my chin. He looks into my eyes, not as Victor, my boss, but Victor, the love of my life.

“I’ll probably always be this way with you,” he says. “If something were to ever happen to you…I don’t want to end up like Fredrik.” He pauses, looking briefly at the brick wall and then he sighs. “I’ll go in ahead of you,” he says.

I nod slowly and he kisses my lips and leaves me standing here, the wooden door set in the wall at the end of the concrete steps closing behind him as he disappears inside the building.

This is why I hate working with Victor, and why I prefer working with Niklas, regardless of how much I hate Niklas. Victor is hard on me in every aspect of this profession; he’s put me through some horrific things just to prove I’m trustworthy, but when it comes to being in the field, he often treats me like a child. Not all the time, but in times like these when he gets one of his gut feelings. Quietly I question his true reason for being here. Because I know that his love for me, however deep it runs, isn’t enough to put any of us at risk to save a ‘little old lady’. He has gone out of his way to keep Dina safe and comfortable in various safe-houses across the country, all because she means so much to me, but risking all of us like this just to save her from her kidnapper is out of character for him. Which is why I know he’s not doing it just to save her. That gut feeling of his is telling him that other things may be at stake, that there’s far more to this than what it might seem. And it cannot be ignored.

I go down the steps and let the darkness of the basement floor swallow me up inside of it, too.

Victor is nowhere to be seen when my eyes finally begin to adjust to the dark. Some faint light bathes the area in spots, pooling near the few small, horizontal windows set in the brick, covered by years of dust and thick with cobwebs. On the other side of the vast, mostly empty space, past a pile of debris and a stack of old bicycles, there’s a tall rock staircase. Another smaller door leads somewhere to my right. And to my left is more debris—piles of broken rock and tattered insulation and strips of wood that had been pulled from the low ceiling.