The Swan & the Jackal (In the Company of Killers 3)

But I don’t like it.

Fredrik

With my coat already on and my keys in my hand, I head to the front door but stop at the kitchen entrance.

“Greta, you need to understand something.”

She sets the dish towel on the counter and walks around it toward me, her eyes never leaving mine as she senses the importance of what I’m about to say.

“Cassia is dangerous”—Greta’s eyebrows harden instantly—“and you need to be careful around her.”

“Forgive me, Mr. Gustavsson,” she says stepping right up to me, “but I thought you were past this. You told me the first week I began caring for her to be careful around her. You said it was because she couldn’t be trusted, but you—”

“I know what I said,” I cut her off. “I know I eventually told you that it was OK, but the truth is I never should’ve allowed you to let your guard down around her. That was a mistake on my part.”

“Cassia is harmless,” she says, crossing her arms covered by a knit blue sweater. “How can you say she’s dangerous after all this time? After what…,” she narrows her eyes, “…after what you’ve been through with her?” She’s referring somewhat to what she saw when she walked through the door tonight.

“Listen to me,” I say with authority. “I’ll tell you more when I find out tonight in my meeting with Izabel. Hopefully I’ll have a better understanding. But until then, I want you to be on your guard around Cassia at all times.”

“I will,” Greta says, dropping her hands to her sides and walking back around the counter. “But let me just say for the record—and you can kill me for saying it if you want—I trust her more than I trust you. Sir.” Her words were bitter, but heartfelt. She resents me for keeping Cassia a prisoner, for treating her like an animal—in her eyes—for even entertaining the thought that someone as sweet and caring as Cassia is, could be dangerous.

“Your opinion is noted,” I say and open the front door. “I’ll be watching the cameras, so don’t do anything stupid.”

“I won’t, sir.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Fredrik

I pull into the parking lot of the coffee shop and find that Izabel is already here waiting for me fifteen minutes early. She’s not smiling when I approach her table in the far corner of the store. The only smile on her face is the lamentable kind when you’re about to give someone you love some devastating news.

I want to turn on my heels and walk right back out the door. Maybe if I don’t listen to what she has to say none of it will be true.

I sit down on the empty chair across from Izabel.

I say nothing.

Izabel takes a thick white envelope from her purse on the table and sets it in front of her covering it with her manicured fingers.

I despise that envelope. It’s about to ruin my life and I want to set it on fire.

Tearing my eyes away from it, I look only at Izabel.

“How has she been?” she asks.

“Actually, Cassia has been perfect,” I answer, as if that fact is going to negate everything she’s going to tell me. “No signs of her remembering that she’s Seraphina. I even let her out of the basement for the first time in a year. Took her out to eat and to the movies, you can believe that—Me. At the movies.” I didn’t realize how big my smile had gotten over the short time, but I couldn’t help myself as I recalled the past few days alone with Cassia.

Izabel looks sympathetic and the smile dissolves from my face.

“Fredrik, can I ask you a personal question?”

“Sure.”

I lean back against my chair and interlock my fingers across my stomach.

Izabel keeps her hands on top of the envelope and I get the feeling she doesn’t want me to see what’s inside as much as I don’t.

“Was your childhood anything like mine?”

That takes me by surprise.

I’ve never told Izabel about my past. The only two people—that I know of—other than Seraphina who know anything about it at all are Victor Faust and our ex-employer, Vonnegut. They knew because it was their business to know before I was recruited by The Order. But even still they don’t know everything.

No one knew everything but Seraphina.

“Somewhat like yours, yes.” I look at the wall behind her head.

“Victor won’t tell me much about you,” she says gently, “because it isn’t my business unless you tell me yourself. I know this and I accept it. But I wanted to ask in case you felt close enough to me to tell me.”

“What does my past have to do with what’s in that envelope, Izabel?” I still won’t look at the envelope. I see it in my peripheral vision, but I can’t force myself to look at it directly.

“It’s just a question, Fredrik.”

“No, it’s more than that,” I say and then lower my voice so the barista behind the counter won’t hear. “But yes, I was a sex slave, just like you were. Only I was one for a much longer time. And I wasn’t anyone’s favorite.”

I didn’t mean for that last part to sound resentful or harsh, but by the offended look in Izabel’s eyes, I’m assuming it came out that way.

Sighing with regret, I shut my eyes briefly and place my folded hands on the table. “I didn’t mean that how it sounded.”

Izabel softens her expression and nods gently. “I know.”

“But I don’t know why any of this matters,” I cut in. “What does my past have to do with Seraphina?”

“It has nothing to do with Seraphina,” she says. “I just want you to know that I’m here for you no matter what. You and me, we’re alike in many ways and I know that I was alone for a very long time because of the life I was forced to live. I had no one. Except for the girls who lived in the compound with me, but my relationships with them were always short-lived. They were either sold, committed suicide, or were murdered. I had no one, Fredrik. And I know how it feels to be alone and in a horrific life not of my choosing.”

She leans forward, sliding the envelope to the center of the small table, but not yet ready to give it to me. Her eyes are sad and filled with understanding.

“Not just recently,” she goes on, “but since the night I met you in Los Angeles, I saw in you the same loneliness and torment that was in me before I found Victor. People like you and me, we think we’re hiding our pain and darkness from the rest of the world, but we forget that we can see it plainly in each other.”