The door shuts and locks automatically and Niklas and I stand face to face, each with a gun pointed at the other.

“Ah, there you are,” he says with that glaring look in his eyes that shows just how much he hates me.

I keep my finger pressed against the trigger and although I’m shaking, I manage to hold the gun steady and pointed right at his head.

“I will kill you,” I warn.

“Yes, I know,” he says, exuding more confidence than me by far. “You were the one who shot Javier Ruiz, after all.” He sighs dramatically and shakes his head. “Sarai, I want you to know that I don’t get off on this, on killing innocent women. I never wanted to kill you or hurt you for that matter, but what you’ve done to my brother…well, I can’t have that.”

Keeping the gun trained on him and my finger firmly on the trigger, I start to back away from the door. He moves with my movements.

“Why do you care what Victor does with his personal life?”

He cocks his head to one side. “Victor doesn’t have a personal life. None of us can have that. It’s like oil and water. Surely you know that by now.”

“He’s taking me somewhere today,” I say quickly, losing any confidence I had, which wasn’t much to begin with. “He’s getting rid of me. He already told me that I can’t stay with him. Why can’t you just leave it at that? He’s doing what you want.”

“It’s not what I want, Sarai.” We’ve managed to steer far away from the door and are in the center of the room now. “I’m only trying to protect him. He’s my fucking brother!” His sudden anger makes me tremble. I notice his trigger finger twitch.

“Niklas, please just let me go. You’re right and I know it. I’ve known it for a while, that I’m only making things harder for Victor.”

“You’re going to get him killed!” he cries out, pushing the words through his teeth and the barrel of his gun toward me. “Even if he leaves you alone today, even if he never sees you again—fuck, even if he kills you—what has already happened is enough for the Order to kill him! Don’t you see?” His face is red hot with anger, his expression distorted by pain. “They will kill him! If he goes to Germany he’s dead, Sarai. Did he tell you that? I bet he didn’t tell you that.”

I don’t want to believe it. I shake my head and almost lose focus, gripping my gun tighter.

“You don’t know that,” I say, but deep down I believe him. “If that’s true then why would he even go?”

A sneer crinkles the edge of Niklas’ mouth. His teeth grind together behind his closed lips.

“Because Victor is stubborn,” he says. “And a little too trusting when it comes to Vonnegut. Victor has always been his Number One, he’s always been the best. He’s better at what he does than all of the ones under Vonnegut who came before him and he’s still the best. But being the best doesn’t make him immune to the Code. He has fucked up far too much since he’s been involved with you that there will be no exoneration.”

“Then let me talk to him—”

“You’ve done enough!” he roars.

CHAPTER FORTY

Victor

The client is late. Five minutes late, but even one minute by someone who Niklas described as ‘meticulous’ doesn’t sit well with me. Two more minutes and I’m leaving.

I watch people walk by on the street and I study them from the clothes they wear to the way they hold their heads when they talk to those walking alongside them. Are they really just tourists and residents? Or, are they decoys? Spies? I can never be too careful. This could be a setup, like any mission, but ones like this that put a knot of uncertainty in the pit of my stomach—

Wait…

I recall my phone conversation with Niklas earlier:

“Meet with her outside at 639 South Spring Street. She will be wearing a white blouse with a silver butterfly broach on the left breast. She’ll be there at one-thirty.”

“That’s in less than an hour,” I say .

“You have plenty of time to get there from the hotel.”

I had plenty of time to get here from the hotel…

I grip the steering wheel with both hands, my mind running a hundred miles per second. How would Niklas have known that? He had no idea where in Los Angeles Sarai and I were staying. He couldn’t have known that I could make it to that address from where I was in that amount of time.

Unless he knew exactly where we were all along.

Sarai

“Niklas…if you kill me, you’ll make an enemy of your brother.” My throat is dry like sandpaper, my lungs heavy. “If everything you’re saying is true, if Victor’s fate is already sealed then what would killing me accomplish?” I raise my voice out of desperation and fear. “It won’t solve anything!”

He doesn’t want to kill me. I don’t know whether it’s because of what I said, about making Victor his enemy, or if he’s just conflicted, but whatever it is it’s the only thing keeping me alive right now.

“Look what you’ve done!” He shoves the gun in the air toward me, his hand gripping the handle so tight his knuckles are white.

He moves forward. I move backward.

“Niklas…please,” I beg him. I don’t want to shoot him. I know he’s more likely to kill me, but I don’t want to shoot him.

Anger flickers through his eyes in an instant and he rounds his chin defiantly, his jaw clenching, his eyes narrow and his nostrils flaring.

Yes, he does want to kill me after all.

The door swings open and I hear a shot just as Niklas turns his head to see Victor storming through the room. And then another suppressed shot zips through the room, but Niklas, already running toward Victor too, manages to keep from getting hit and I hear the bullet move through the air just feet from me and embed inside the wall.

My gun falls from my hand and I fall to my knees. It takes a few seconds for me to realize that I’ve been hit, and once I do, I feel the burning hot pain in my stomach. Warm blood soaks the fabric of my dress. I lay on my side, both hands pressed firmly over the wound.

The table out ahead of me wobbles on its wooden base as Victor and Niklas crash against it. My little jewelry box falls from it and hits the floor, breaking apart the latch and scattering the jewelry about. Victor, on top of Niklas, rains his fists down on him, blow after blow until the table can no longer hold their weight and tumbles over onto its side, sending them both crashing onto the floor with it. The tall lamp that stood over the back of the chair hits the table, the cord ripped from the wall and the light bulb shattering into pieces.

Niklas is on top of Victor now, hitting him repeatedly in the face, but Victor reaches up and grabs Niklas’ throat and lifts him off of him, slamming his back hard against the floor. Victor stands up and kicks Niklas in the face before forcing his way through the room to get his gun.

In seconds, he’s standing over his brother’s surrendering body with the barrel pointed at his face.

“Victor, don’t kill him!” I manage to shout through the pain.

He blinks back into focus having been momentarily lost in a blind rage, and he glances at me.

“Please, don’t kill him,” I repeat in a soft, desperate voice.

“He tried to kill you,” he says, looking at me with a confused expression as though he can’t believe what I’m saying. “He shot you.”

I press my right hand harder over the wound, blood moves in-between all of my fingers. I’m starting to feel faint.

“Victor, he’s your brother. He’s only here because he was trying to protect you.”

He looks back and forth between me and Niklas, both of us lying bloody and helpless on the floor on opposite sides of the room. His face is consumed by conflict and pain and things that I can’t possibly understand because I’ve never had a brother or sister, I don’t know what it feels like to be loved in that way. Maybe Victor never knew either, until now.