Behind The Hands That Kill

TWO

Ice. Victor said he was going to get some ice. And he did come back with a bucket of ice from the vending area. The issue I have with it was that it took him fifteen minutes—the machine is at the end of the hall—and when he came back into our hotel room and set the bucket on the table, he left again. Said he had to run to the store. Bullshit.

Victor is a good liar—he kinda has to be doing what he does. But when it comes to me I’ve noticed over the time we’ve been together, the man can’t lie for shit anymore. And it’s hilarious.

The only question now is: Where the hell did he really go, and what exactly is it that he’s doing? We’re supposed to be on vacation. We’re supposed to be enjoying ourselves, setting aside the whole killing thing for one week. I should’ve known it was too good to be true, that a real vacation like normal everyday people have, wasn’t at all realistic. He’s probably in the hotel somewhere—probably has a whole setup in another room on another floor—checking his emails, phone messages, things like that in which have absolutely no place on a vacation. Maybe I’ll follow him next time he leaves the room. I’d love to catch him in the act. The I’m-sorry-sex would be awesome.

The door to our room opens and in walks the love of my life, tall and groomed with severe features that make him look both sexy and dangerous, kindhearted and merciless. He’s wearing a pair of loose-fitting khaki pants and a black Polo shirt. And flip-flops. Flip-flops! I never thought I’d see something like that—better chance seeing a nun in a bikini.

“Where have you been?” I step away from the wide open sliding glass door that leads onto the balcony, and I go back into the room.

“I had to take care of something,” he says, walking toward me with some kind of purpose. He grabs me by the arms and pulls me toward him, presses his lips against mine—oh, that kind of purpose. His kiss is long and rough; I can feel his big hands tightening around my arms, his fingertips pressing into my skin. Then he lifts me into his arms, my bare legs wrapped around his waist, my butt in his hands, and he carries me over to the bed, throws me down against it.

“What’s gotten into you?” I ask, coiling my fingers around fistfuls of his shirt as he crawls on top of me.

Victor dips his head, kisses me harder, pulls my bottom lip with his teeth. Damn…

“Nothing,” he says, and a second before he kisses me again, he pauses and looks down into my eyes with curiosity. “Do you want me to stop?”

Hell no…

With his shirt still clenched in my hands, I pull him down on top of me, covering his mouth with mine; I wrap my legs around his sculpted waist. Feverishly he kisses me, the way he knows I like it: aggressive and dominant. His hands explore my body, searching the barrier of my bikini bottoms, and while I’m getting lost in Victor, wanting him in every way imaginable, something occurs to me and I stop, my hands wound within his short hair, I grip tight enough to get his attention, and pull his head away.

He looks down at me with confusion.

I look up at him with accusation.

“What is wrong?” he asks.

Inhaling deeply, I take his scent in one more time, just to be sure.

“Izabel, what is it?”

Pressing the palms of my hands against his chest, I start to push him away, needing to get out from underneath him, but he won’t let me.

“I smell it on you,” I say, and sigh with disappointment.

With his hands pressed into the mattress on both sides of me, holding up his weight, Victor glances at his shirt, sniffs lightly, then looks back at me, still with a look of question. “You smell what on me?”

“You know exactly what I smell.” I manage to worm my way out from underneath him.

He sits upright on the edge of the bed; I can feel his eyes on me from behind as I step into my skirt.

“Izabel,” he says, “I’m sorry, but I do not know what you are talking about.”

I turn around to face him. “Oh come on, Victor,” I say, “don’t make it worse by lying to me—that’ll piss me off more than what you did.”

“What did I do?” He seems genuinely confused. But I know better. “Tell me—”

“You killed someone,” I say, slipping my arms into my shirt. “I can smell the gun smoke, or nitroglycerin, or whatever it’s called on your clothes.”

His shoulders rise and fall along with his act.

Shaking my head, I say, “That’s why we came here, isn’t it?” He doesn’t respond—and he doesn’t have to—so I go on. “I wondered why you picked Venezuela, of all places, to take our vacation. Nothing against Venezuela, but I can think of a few places I’d rather go—that’s why you shot down The Bahamas.” Stepping into my flip-flops, I turn to him and ask, “So who was it? How much was this job worth?”

“Fifty-five thousand,” he answers.

My eyebrows crumple under wrinkles of confusion. Fifty-five thousand? That can’t be right; Victor never takes a job under one hundred thousand anymore.

“So then you admit,” I say, ignoring the meager payday for the moment, “that this whole vacation idea really had nothing to do with you and me, alone time, away from all the chaos—it was just an excuse.”

Victor shakes his head. “No, Izabel,” he counters, “it wasn’t an excuse, and yes, I brought you here to be alone with you.”

“But you wouldn’t have chosen this place,” I say, not with anger, but with disappointment, “if your target wasn’t here. We could be soaking up the sun and breathing in the clean air of The Bahamas right now, but your hit was more important.”

“That is not fair, Izabel, and you know it.”

He’s right, I’m not being fair. I know more than anyone that our lifestyle is far from ordinary, normal. I knew getting into this—the relationship with Victor, the profession—that ‘normal’ would always be an illusion. So yes, he’s right, I’m not being fair. But he didn’t have to lie to me about it, either.

Victor sighs heavily and looks off toward the wall.

“I just wanted to make it seem as real as it could,” he says. “I could have told you the truth, I know, but I did not want to ruin it for you.”

“I know,” I tell him, forgiving him.

I go back over and sit sideways on his lap; he hooks his hands around my waist.

“So tell me about the job,” I say. “And why only fifty-five thousand?”

He kisses the side of my neck.

“It came at the perfect time,” he begins. “We needed to get away from Boston—I could kill two birds with one stone, so I took the job.”

“So then I’m a bird that needs to be killed?”

Victor frowns.

I smile.

“I’m just messing with you,” I tell him, and kiss his lips.

Victor smiles lightly, and then helps me off his lap.

“I apologize,” he says. “I know I could have—should have—just set everything else aside and taken you where you wanted to go; made the vacation about you. About us.”

“It’s OK,” I say. “This is who we are, Victor. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Besides, you’re the Great Victor Faust, and you have a reputation to maintain. Bein’ all God-like and stuff.” I scrunch my nose up at him, and smile. I’m just trying to lighten the mood again.

“Izabel,” he says, walking away, mood not lightened, “you give me far more credit than I deserve.” He pulls his gun from the back of his pants and sets it on the table beside the ice bucket. And then he strips off his shirt. “You’ve only ever seen two sides of me. I’m not perfect. I’m skilled, yes. But immortal? No.”

I want to laugh—how could he assume I believe something so ridiculous? But I don’t laugh. I don’t because I realize that all this time I’ve never really believed that anything could ever happen to Victor; I can’t think of a single instant when I was truly afraid for him—he’s right: without realizing it, all this time I’ve considered him immortal. And maybe even perfect, too.

I walk over to him, touch his bare arm lightly, brush my fingertips over the curvature of his bicep muscle. “Well, maybe you’re right”—I press my lips to his shoulder; his skin is warm against my mouth—“maybe when I look at you I see something more…complex, more advanced.” Walking around him slowly, my lips leave a trail of kisses across his back, his sides, and then his chest when I make a full circle.

I stop and look at him gazing down into my eyes. What is that in his gaze? Lust? Indecision? Struggle? For the first time in a long time I can’t tell the difference.

“There’s something I need to tell you, Izabel.”

The words, although vague, are cryptic enough to stop my heart. No one ever starts a sentence like that unless the rest of it is going to suck.

I take a step back and away from him immediately.

“What is it, Victor?” I’m afraid of the answer.

He sighs and his gaze drops to the floor; a hand comes up and his fingers cut a nervous path through his short hair.

He looks right at me.

My heart stops again.

“There was more to the mission in Italy than what you were lead to believe.”

I blink twice, and then just stare at him for a drawn-out moment.

“OK,” I finally say. “Then what? Tell me.”

Victor pulls out a chair from underneath the table and he takes a seat. I remain standing. I feel like I should probably sit down for this too. But screw that.

“I want you to sit down,” he says kindly.

“No, I’m fine right here,” I respond with a little less kindness—I cross my arms.

He sighs, and then slouches in the chair somewhat, letting his long legs fall apart before him; his left arm rests on the tabletop.

There’s a long pause, and although only a few seconds, I feel like I’m going to die with impatience.

“Victor—”

“There are things about me,” he begins, “that you will never understand, or be able to accept, things that I cannot change.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Both.”

That stings. But I say nothing.

And where the hell is this stuff coming from? I’m getting whiplash trying to figure out how we went from almost-sex to you’re-gonna-need-to-sit-down-for-this.

“When I met you,” he goes on, not looking at me, “or I should say after I fell in love with you, I thought maybe I could change.” Now he looks right at me, hooking my gaze and holding it. “That part of me that loves you wanted to…adjust”—he motions a hand casually—“certain things about my personality, to better suit you as your…lover.”

“My lover? You’re not a robot, Victor,” I snap, “so please speak normal, everyday English.”

“I love you,” he says, “but I can never change who I am for you.” (That didn’t sting—it gutted me.) “And I was a fool to ever consider it. Changing is impossible. I knew that all along. I tried to find ways around it, but in doing so I got myself in tight situations.”

My mouth pinches bitterly on one side; my arms stay crossed. I want to argue, but he doesn’t give me a chance.

“If I was myself, Kessler never would have made it out of that auditorium alive the night we apprehended her. But because of my feelings for you, I played her game to save the life of your mother. I changed who I am, how I work—for you. And as long as you’re alive, as long as I’m in love with you—as long as you are mine—I’ll struggle with who I’ve become, and who I am. And the consequences will be that I get myself, and you, and everyone else, into tight situations. Because I am not used to caring for someone, Izabel. I am not used to…caring at all.”

“So what are you saying?” I ask, bitterly. “Is this your way of leaving me? Is that why you brought me here: show me a good time, give me the last part of who you tried to be, and then send me on my way?”

Wait. Or could it be…? No…that can’t be what’s happening—did he bring me here to kill me?

I take two more steps backward, my legs becoming unsteady underneath my trembling weight.

Victor stands, and my eyes dart to see his gun still laying on the table beside him. In his reach. My heart is pounding against my ribcage. I’m losing my breath.

“No,” he says calmly, regretfully, and walks away from the gun, moving toward me. “I brought you here to tell you the truth. About Italy. About Nora. About everything.”

About Nora? Why does it feel like my stomach is in my throat all of a sudden? What the hell does Nora have to do with this?

“Then tell me, Victor. Tell me and get it over with.”

He stops abruptly, just feet from me, and cocks his head curiously to one side. He looks stunned, maybe even a little wounded, and I can’t quite place why. I think he’s going to say something—maybe he’s hurt by how afraid I am of him suddenly. No, it’s something else…something entirely—

“Victor?”

His eyes appear heavier, unfocused; his legs seem to struggle holding up his weight; he’s like a tree moved by a steady wind.

“Victor, you’re scaring me.” I move toward him. “Victor?” He collapses, and instinctively my arms shoot out to catch him, but the heavy weight of his body falls against mine; we crash onto the carpeted floor together.

“Victor! Victor wake up!” I crawl from underneath his hip and sit on my knees beside his seemingly lifeless body. “Victor!” I shriek. My hands probe his face; his eyes are wide open, but empty—thank God I feel breath emitting from his mouth and nostrils.

What the hell is going on? What just happened?

My fingers graze something foreign when I grab him by the neck. I turn his head to one side to see a tiny golden piece of metal jutting from his skin. Yanking it out quickly, a trickle of blood follows, trailing down his throat. I drop the strange-looking dart on the floor.

The balcony. Victor’s back was facing the open balcony doors. Panicked, I struggle to get to my feet, intent on making it first to Victor’s gun on the table and then to the balcony doors to close them. But I don’t even make it to the gun when I feel a sudden hot prickle in the side of my neck. And just like Victor, I stop, stunned, instantly feeling the drug moving through my bloodstream, and into my brain. The room begins to spin; my legs feel boneless; I can’t feel my hands or my chest or my face.

Two dark figures, blurry and colorless, appear at the balcony doors. All I can make out is the movement, and their feet. Am I on the floor again? How did I get here?

“She’ll fit in the suitcase,” I hear a man’s voice say.

Suitcase? What the fuck do you mean suitcase? I feel like I’m screaming at these people, but for some reason I don’t think they hear me. I could swear that I’m thrashing, trying to fight them off, but I don’t think they notice.

Moments later I feel my body being lifted into the air. No, I don’t feel it, I see it—I don’t feel anything—and although everything is out of focus, I can still vaguely make out the furniture in the room. I can see one body standing over Victor. I can see things moving as I’m carried away. Then I hear, muffled in my ears, the ominous sound of a zipper.

No! Don’t put me in there! Please! NO!

I realize now that I can’t move and I can’t speak. But my eyes are open and I can see. And I can hear. And I can smell. Perfume. Peppermint. Dial soap. Nail polish. Leather. My sense of smell is intensified, but my sight and hearing have diminished severely.

The zipper sounds in my ears again.

“Hurry,” a woman’s voice urges. “They’re coming.”

What little light I could see, and everything within it, goes black as the zipper closes around me, sealing me inside a leather tomb.