The Swan and the Jackal (15 page)

“She’s in on it,” I say and silence ensues for an intense moment.

I go on as they’re all looking at me, waiting for answers.

“There was something off about her the moment we tied her to the chair. She’s not afraid of us.”

“She does seem a bit defiant,” Izabel adds.

“She didn’t put much effort into worrying about the boyfriend when I asked for his location, either. Because it was an act.”

“And she gave him up too easily,” Izabel says.

I nod.

“He stuck a goddamn knife in her hand,” Niklas argues. “I’d say that’s an easy way to make someone talk.”

“I got her to talk, didn’t I?” I point out.

Niklas thinks on that a moment and shrugs his shoulders underneath his black leather jacket. “Yeah, I guess I can’t argue with that. But damn, Izabel’s right; you’re not yourself tonight.”

That’s an understatement. This is the first time that I’ve
ever
in my thirty-five years of life been too preoccupied by other things to be able to carry out an interrogation, and I’ve no desire to even begin the torture. That is
very
unlike me.

“OK,” Niklas speaks up, “what are you thinking? We need to do something other than stand out here and try to figure out life’s mysteries. Let’s go back in there and find out where this friend of Paul Fortright lives so we can find him before the other organization does, and
finish
this mission.”

“Did you hear what I said?” I gesture my hands in front of me. “She’s
in
on it. She kept saying
‘This wasn’t supposed to happen’
, because she was in on setting up the hit on the boyfriend.”

“Shit, he’s right,” Izabel says with widening eyes and parting lips. She turns to Niklas. “The client is the father of the girl Paul Fortright supposedly molested. I saw the file. He’s a single father. His wife died last year in a car accident.”

“So what,” Niklas says, growing more impatient. “None of this matters.”

“It matters if Paul Fortright is an innocent man and Kelly Bennings and this client are somehow working together to off Fortright. Think about it. Fortright was never convicted of molestation. Now there’s a hit placed on him. Any other time I’d find that normal. Kill the guilty guy who got off on a clerical error. But there’s more to this than that and I
know
it.”

“He’s right,” Izabel says, looking to Niklas for agreement because he outranks all of us. “That woman’s shit stinks worse than any of ours.”

Niklas shakes his head and sighs with aggravation.

“We came here to do a job,” he says. “Not play detective and superhero games.”

He pushes his way past us, clearing a path between Izabel and me, heading back toward the door.

“We’re not a black market order, Niklas,” I call out to him. “If we kill Paul Fortright and he’s just an innocent man who the guilty want to kill just to get him out of their way, it’ll
make
us one.”

“He’s right, Niklas,” Izabel says softly from behind, “and I don’t want that on my conscience.”

Niklas stops in front of the tall silver door before opening it. His shoulders rise and fall and cold breath streams from his mouth as he turns around.

He reaches inside his jacket pocket and retrieves his cell phone.

“Dorian,” Niklas says, “head inside and stay with Bennings for now. Make sure the skanky bitch doesn’t find a way out of that chair. And don’t let her onto what we discussed.”

“Sounds good to me.” Dorian, likely just wanting to get out of the cold, goes back inside the building without question.

Niklas talks to Victor for several minutes, explaining to him everything that’s happened. And by the time he gets off the phone, it’s apparent just by listening to Niklas speaking to Victor that our mission has changed drastically. It was never about the money to begin with. The payday this job offered was a drop in the bucket compared to what Victor normally accepts.

Niklas puts his phone away in his pocket.

“We’ll use Paul Fortright to lure the other organization,” he begins, “and then we’ll take them out.”

“What about Fortright?” Izabel asks. “Not to mention that crazy bitch in there, and their daughter?”

“For now we continue to play the game,” Niklas says, lighting up another cigarette. “We’ll get the location of the house and let her believe we’re going to kill him and bring their daughter to her.”

He stops and looks at both of us with intent. “But we’re not to interfere in their drama bullshit. Victor wants us to take out the other operatives, leave Fortright alive for now and that’s it. Hell, we’re not even sure if this is even legit. You both could be delusional.”

“I resent that,” Izabel snaps.

“Of course you do, Izzy.” He smirks and takes a long pull from his cigarette, the hot ember glowing orange around his face. “But I don’t give a fuck.”

Izabel’s jaw clenches and if looks could kill Niklas would be a bloody pulp by now.

Suddenly, my phone buzzes against my leg and my heart winds up dead center in my throat. My first thought was that it’s Greta calling me about Cassia, but when I look down at the screen I’m surprised to see that it’s not.

“It’s Victor,” I say out loud, though more to myself.

I answer quickly as Niklas and Izabel listen in, as curious as I am.

“I want you to sit the rest of this mission out,” Victor says into the phone. “Go back to Baltimore and we’ll touch base in about a week.”

Confused and slightly concerned about his reasons, it takes me a moment to put my words together.

“I’m capable of finishing this,” I say. “Yes, I was quick to stab Bennings, but it got the result I wanted.”

“That’s what concerns me,” Victor says. “You’re not yourself. You weren’t yourself at the meeting yesterday, and we can’t afford mistakes. Take the time off and clear your head. It’s not an option.”

I sigh deeply and give in. As much as I do want to stay here and finish what I started, I want even more to go back to Cassia and find out what she’s remembered.

“OK,” I say into the phone, “I’ll head back now.”

Two and half hours later and my flight is finally ready to depart Seattle.

I sit on the plane the entire time, playing the video of Cassia singing in the basement, over and over again, with my ear buds pressed into my ears so as not to disturb the people sitting around me.

Cassia knows something. She
remembers
. She
has
to remember. I can taste Seraphina in my mouth she’s so close. Finally, after six years of relentless searching I’ll be with her again.

Chapter Thirteen

Fredrik

I haven’t slept in almost twenty-four hours, but I’m wide awake when I arrive back at my house in Baltimore just after 10:00 a.m. the following day. Greta’s old beige Honda Civic is parked in the driveway. I pull in beside her and kill the engine.

I’m incredibly nervous, a feeling so foreign to me that at first I don’t know what to do with it.

Carrying my black leather travel bag in one hand, I head up the red brick driveway and feel like I can’t get to the front door fast enough. The door is locked and while I’m scrambling to get the right key, I’m expecting Greta to open the door as she normally does when she knows I’m on my way back. But this time, I realize, she isn’t aware of my early return.

Finally, I get the door open and head inside quietly.

The house smells of eggs and biscuits and sausage. It’s spotless as usual, not a speck of dust left on anything or even evidence of the breakfast she cooked other than the aroma lingering in the air. I set my bag carefully on the floor in the living room wanting to avoid letting them onto my presence. I move into the kitchen, stepping around the spot in the floor that always creaks when walking over it and head for the bar. My iPad is right where I left it before I went to Seattle, and in the same horizontal position as though Greta made sure to place it exactly as it was and hoped I wouldn’t notice. I unlock the screen and move my finger over the app, opening the live feed from the basement.

They’re sitting on Cassia’s bed talking. Seemingly harmless. Turning the volume up just slightly, I listen in on their conversation for several minutes. Nothing of significance. Greta is telling Cassia about her daughter and their trip to Monte Carlo last year. Cassia smiles so beautifully, so innocently, and it affects me in the worst of ways. I push down the pain and guilt that I feel for keeping her imprisoned for so long, keeping her from living life and seeing the world like I know she must dream about seeing it. That brightness in her brown eyes is unmistakable as she listens to Greta talk about Monte Carlo. She’s envisioning herself there. And rather than dwelling on the truth of her predicament, she just smiles and accepts it, instead.

I’m a fucking bastard.

With my palms pressed against the countertop, I drop my head slightly between my rigid shoulders and let out a long and miserable breath, shutting my eyes softly.

But when I open them again, I notice something that shocks me back into an upright position. My eyes grow wide with panic. Once I manage to shake off the paralyzing numbness my body has fallen victim to, I dash down the hallway toward the basement door, flinging it open and then taking the concrete steps two at a time until I make it to the bottom.

Greta and Cassia both jump at the sight of me, Cassia flinging herself against the wall on the other side of the bed.

I march over and snatch Cassia up into my arms.

“Why did you take it off?!” I shout at Greta, my voice and my face filled with reprimand.

Greta shoots to her feet while Cassia presses her head harshly against my chest. I hold her with one arm around the back of her waist and the other underneath the bends of her legs.

I glance briefly at Cassia’s ankle where her shackle is supposed to be, and then back at Greta who’s about five seconds away from meeting her maker.

“Please Fredrik,” Cassia cries into my chest, “don’t blame Greta. I begged her to remove it. It was hurting.” She fits her small hand around the side of my neck to hold on to me. I nearly wilt by her touch.

I shake it off fast and set Cassia back down on the bed.

“Bring it to me,” I demand Greta.

Greta, afraid to speak, scurries over and takes the chain into her hand. Crouching down on the floor in front of Cassia, I slide her thin yellow gown up her soft legs, grazing her skin with my fingertips and it reacts to my touch as tiny goose bumps appear.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Gustavsson.” Greta holds the shackle out to me. “I wouldn’t have let her escape. But I was concerned about her ankle. I cleaned it like you always asked me to.”

“I’ve told you never to remove it.
Never
.” With my hands on Cassia’s warm thighs, I turn my head slowly, indignantly, and look up at Greta standing over me to my right. “If she didn’t like you so much…” I grind my jaw and look away.

Calming myself, I give Cassia all of my attention again, sliding her leg in my free hand downward until I make it to her ankle. And then I stop and drop the shackle on the floor instead of putting it back on. Letting out a heavy sigh, I drop my gaze to my shoes, feeling even guiltier than I felt when I had been upstairs watching her from the live feed. I look back down at Cassia’s injured ankle. Blood has been drawn where the metal scraped against the back of her foot, just above her heel. And there are little blisters in a horizontal pattern on the inside of her ankle, just below the ankle bone. Her skin is yellowed by bruising, and red and inflamed around the cuts and blisters. Something clear glistens all over her skin, probably antibiotic ointment that Greta put on after cleaning it.

“Shit,” I say under my breath.

I rise into a stand and pick Cassia up from the bed, wrapping my arms around her small form. She latches her legs around my waist and her arms around my neck. Her body trembles against mine, though I know she’s only scared for Greta and not for herself.

“We’ll discuss this in the morning,” I say, turning to Greta who’s looking back at me with fear at rest in her features. “Be here at your usual time.”

“Yes, sir.” She bows her head and moves quickly toward the staircase.

The moment I hear the basement door close, I tighten my arms around Cassia’s body and shut my eyes to savor the moment.

“Please don’t hurt Greta,” she whispers in a teary voice into the side of my neck.

I swallow hard.

“I’m not going to hurt her,” I whisper back, and cup the back of her soft blonde head within the palm of my free hand.

The feeling of her bare thighs tightening around my waist makes me hard. The warmth between her legs on my stomach. I try to ignore it, pushing my need to be with her far into the back of my mind. But it’s so difficult. Painful and torturous.

Cassia is my punishment. I know she is. For all of the horrific things I’ve done to people in all these years, I’ve known for the past year that she must’ve been sent as my punishment. And my undoing. I’d much rather be strapped to my own chair and my teeth be pulled out of my head, or needles be shoved underneath my fingernails or my skin be peeled from my muscles, than to suffer
this
kind of torture. I would rather die. Just kill me and get it over with. The pain of being near her and knowing that I can’t give in to my feelings for her, is the worst kind of pain I’ve ever felt.

And the only other thing I want more in this world than to find Seraphina, is for this pain to go away.

“I should be here more,” I say softly into her hair. “My job has been more demanding than usual. I never meant to neglect you.”

Cassia raises her head from my shoulder and peers deeply into my eyes as I hold her propped around my waist with her bottom in my hands.

This isn’t right.

I should stand her up.

I ignore my inner voice and stare back into her eyes, fighting eternally with my conscience.

The softness of Cassia’s fingertips trails down the sides of my face and then her lips fall on the corners of my mouth. One and then the other.