Seeds of Iniquity (In the Company of Killers, #4)(65)
“I will,” I tell him.
I leave Dorian and walk toward Victor and Fredrik as they make their way down the center of the hall.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” I ask Fredrik, stepping right up in front of him.
I’m sick of him avoiding me, and if I don’t try to force him to talk, I know he never will and he may slip out of this building right after interrogating Dorian, and I’ll not see him again for another month.
Fredrik starts to walk around and right past me, but I cut him off, stopping him in his tracks.
“Izabel,” Victor says, “we have important matters to tend to.”
“I know, but this’ll just take a couple of minutes.” I look at Victor through pleading eyes.
He doesn’t want to give me my way, but he does, walking away in the direction of Dorian’s cell and leaving me alone with Fredrik. I hear the key jangling in the cell door and then the sound of the door booming closed as Victor goes inside.
“I don’t have time for this,” Fredrik says.
“Make time. Give me two minutes. It’s all I ask. Please.”
He looks right at me now, his dark blue eyes framed by dark hair, piercing me with irritation.
“I can’t spare two minutes.”
“Yes you can,” I say intently.
He starts to walk past me again, but I grab his arm, the material of his jacket caught between my fingers. His head turns sideways to look at me and his expression grows darker. His teeth are gritting behind an unshaven jawline.
Finally, I let the other side of me take over, the side that is sick of his shit, and instead of having a heart-to-heart talk with the man who was once my brother, I can’t stop myself from telling him off instead.
“You’re an *,” I lash out, pushing the words through my teeth. “Look, I understand, I really do, and if I were you I know I’d probably feel the same way. But I wouldn’t shut out the people who care about me.” He pushes past me, intent on ignoring me, but I move around in front of him and shove both hands against his chest, pushing his tall, solid stature, but he barely moves. He just looks lividly down into my angry face.
But he stops—not that he wants to hear it, but that he wants me to get it over with so he can be free of me.
“Do what you want,” I say with acid in my voice, “I don’t care anymore. If you want to shut me out, fine, but I’m going to say what I have to say before you go in there and…do your thing.” A snarl manipulates my mouth.
Fredrik just stands there looking at me with his briefcase clutched down at his side.
“Nora Kessler told Niklas something when he was in that room with her, something that stuck with me long after he’d left. And as much as I despise her, I can’t deny that she was right.”
I point my finger sternly at his chest.
“You need love to survive, Fredrik,” I say with harsh conviction. “You’re this dark, frightening man who is so cold on the outside that Hell would freeze over if you were ever sent there…but on the inside, you’re a broken man who needs love more than anyone because of the life you were forced to live, because of the horrific things you were forced to endure.” I shake my head with sadness in my heart. “You need love more than anything because it’s the one thing you’ve been deprived. You shove me away because I meant something to you, because out of all of us here, you thought of me as family. You shut me out because of how many times love destroyed you.”
I step up closer and my eyes never leave his, the anger in them never wanes. His cold, but emotionless face hasn’t shifted.
“We all need something to survive, Fredrik—Victor needs to be in control; James needs acceptance; Niklas needs something to call his own; Dorian needs to make peace with himself…and me…I need a lot of things, but I haven’t figured out which one of them I need most. But you…you need love, and you can’t push it away forever. It’s not in your nature.”
I step back and away from him and just look at him for a second, studying his unyielding face, his deep blue eyes, searching for something, anything, but he gives me nothing. I’m so angry! I want him to say something. Argue with me, tell me how wrong I am. Tell me I’m stupid and young and I can’t possibly know how he’s feeling or what he’s going through.
Absolutely nothing.
Shaking my head with a sour look on my face and surrender in my heart, I gesture a hand toward Dorian’s cell.
“I guess I’ll see you around,” I say, turn on my heels and leave.
I don’t look back as I walk the length of the long hallway, but I can sense that Fredrik stands there in the same spot at least until I round the corner at the end.
What is happening to us? To all of us.
Niklas is nowhere to be found. I’ve tried calling him and I left the building and went driving around Boston, checking out the bars he likes, but it’s an hour before dawn and I’ve still found nothing. Niklas doesn’t want to be found and I can’t help but wonder and worry for how long. What if he really never comes back? What if he can’t ‘understand’ why Victor did what he did, and they become enemies? Things can’t be left this way, they just can’t…
Dorian may be dead, or on his way there. Fredrik is a lost cause who will eventually self-destruct. Niklas has disappeared. Can our organization—our family—recover from what Nora Kessler did, or what she played a very large hand in doing?