Reviving Izabel (In the Company of Killers, #2)

by J.A. Redmerski

To this day his name is calming on my tongue. Sometimes while I’m lying awake at night, I whisper his name aloud just to hear it because I need it. I need him. I can’t get him out of my head. I’ve tried. Dammit I have tried. But no matter what I do I still live every day of my life thinking about him. If he’s watching over me. If he thinks about me as much as I think about him. If he’s still alive.

Perfect for me if I had never met Victor Faust. I’m ruined for life.

I know and I’m sorry, but I have to erase Victor’s face from my mind before I can look you in the eyes. I’m a horrible person.

“He’s not going to know you’re even here,” Eric says about ‘Matt’. “And besides, if he did find out, I’d kick his ass if I saw him.”

Eric, I’m mad that I like you.

And either this will be my first night as a killer, or my last night alive.

As I’m taking the bobby pins out of my hair, I notice a condom floating in the toilet. Eric steps into the bathroom behind me. He knows I saw it. “Sarai, I-I…I’m so sorry,” I hear him say.

Never mind. Fuck you eric!!!

I see two men in my room: one I’ve never seen before lying dead on the floor, and Victor Faust standing over his body.

MY MAN!!!

Victor grabs my face in both of his hands and shoves my body against the elevator wall, closing his lips fiercely over mine. His tongue tangles with my own, his mouth stealing my breath in a passionate kiss that is what ultimately makes my knees buckle. All of the strength I had been using to keep my body upright before, vanishes when his lips touch me. He kisses me hungrily, angrily, and I wilt into his arms.

“You’re not my hero, remember?” I remind him. “You’re not the other half of my soul who could never let anything bad ever happen to me. Trust my instincts first always, and you if I choose, last. You said that to me once.”

“You’re different,” I add softly. “That’s your fault,” he says and then his lips devour mine.

I’m biting my lip for two reasons: hoping the news is good news, and sexual frustration.

“Vonnegut knew that I had…developed feelings for you.”

For a long time, I forget that he is an assassin, whose hands have taken many lives without thought or remorse or regret. I forget that I, too, am a killer, whose hands took a life just hours ago. Seems we were made for each other, like two puzzle pieces that at first don’t appear to fit, but eventually fall into place when looked at in the most unlikely of angles.

The largest part of me, the flawed human part, wants her with me and I’ll stop at nothing to make sure that it works.

“I wouldn’t kill just anyone, Victor, only men who deserve it.” Men? This side of Sarai is becoming more intriguing. I wonder if she even realizes what she just said. Men. Not people in general, but men. I pull away from her and rest my back against the chair again, cocking my head to one side thoughtfully. “Go on,” I urge her. She leans back as well, pulling both of her legs up and resting her feet on the seat, letting her knees fall together to one side. “Men like Hamburg. Men like Javier Ruiz and Luis and Diego. Men like that guard I killed last night. Willem Stephens, for the simple fact that he works for Hamburg knowing what Hamburg does. Men like John Lansen and all of the others who I met at those rich parties when I was with Javier.” Her gaze pierces mine harshly. “Men who deserve to have their throats slit.”

“I’m not sure what this is between us,” he says carefully, “but I am sure that I don’t want it to stop. Whatever it is.”

“You are full of questions.” Victor smiles over at me.

just have one more question to add to that list,” I say. “And what might that be?” he asks with a playful edge in his voice. “How long will we be forced to travel like this?” I stretch my legs across the seat and lay down. “I really do miss the private jets. These long car rides are going to be the death of me.” Victor laughs. I find it incredibly sexy. “You’re sleeping with an assassin, running for your life every single day from men who want to kill you and you’re convinced you’re going to die of discomfort.” He laughs again and it makes me smile.

He laughs gently. “Well, I suppose he’s stuck with you forever then.” “Yes, and forever is a very long time.” He pauses and then says, “Well, for the record, something tells me he wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“I hit him because he put his hands on you,” he says.

I cock my head to the side, gazing up into her dark eyes. I’ve never been so absolutely captivated by a woman before. Not ever. Not in any way like this. I’m used to always getting my way, to being the one in charge. I’ve never been able to look a woman in the eye and utterly give in to what she wants from me.

“We can’t live by the what if’s, Victor.”

But Sarai has a mind of her own. And as much as it infuriates me that she doesn’t listen as much as I’d like her to, at the same time it makes me mad for her.

“To the swamps,” Fredrik answers evenly as he begins to scrub the blood from the chair with a white shop rag. And then he glances up at me and adds with that small, devilish grin behind his eyes that I’m so used to seeing, “Alligators love turtles.”

“You can’t learn to swim by reading it in a book,” I tell her on the drive back to Albuquerque. I thought it best we take a car back this time rather than risking the airports again so soon. “It is the best way, Sarai. To learn from your mistakes is to make them. Authentically. No amount of training, no rehearsed scenario is going to teach you better than the real thing.”

“Sarai, you are important to me,” I say desperately through an urgent whisper. “You’re more important to me than anything or anyone. To have you here, with me, isn’t a burden. I want to train you. For as long as it takes. I want to wake up every morning with you next to me. I need you in my life more than I have ever needed or wanted anything.”

Sarai…IT WILL KILL ME! DON’T YOU SEE? YOU’LL KILL ME IF YOU CHOOSE TO LEAVE!”

“Maybe you should get rid of me,” I whisper onto his lips. “Never,” he says, kissing me once softly. “You’re mine for as long as you breathe.” His mouth covers mine ravenously.

Victor is my life, and I will die helping to protect him.

He loves me without having to say it. He cherishes me without having to prove it. When he touches me, I know what he’s thinking, how he truly feels beneath that mask he wears in the face of others. I’m the only soul he’s ever let into his life completely. And the only one he’ll never let go.