I don’t offer my hand to these three men, just my charming, confident conversation that I would never offer a woman. I least expected for this to happen, but it’s in this moment when I take things entirely upon myself that I see not only am I more into this role than I thought I could be, but I’m beginning to give Izabel Seyfried her own traits. Traits that Victor never technically told me to give her. I choose—because it feels right—to make her despise women a little too much and love men a little too intensely.
After all, if I’m going to play the role of someone else I might as well fill in all of the missing pieces of her personality and make her entirely realistic.
During my conversation with these men whose names I’ve already forgotten, Victor joins us. I feel his hand around my upper arm, squeezing it harshly.
“You know I don’t like it when you walk away from me,” he says.
The men say nothing, but listen to us intently as if intrigued by Victor’s display of dominance over me.
I smile slyly. “I know you don’t like it,” I say, “but it was getting…stuffy over there with your great-grandmother.”
Muriel’s eyes lock on mine upon hearing and I smirk at her faintly in return. She and her sidekicks walk in the opposite direction toward another small group of people.
Victor wrenches my arm, causing the champagne in my class to slosh around.
The spiteful smile disappears from my face in an instant.
He leans toward my ear and says in a low voice, “I can’t bear the thought of doing it, Izabel, but if I have to, I will let you go.” His breath dances along the side of my neck, raising chill bumps to the skin.
“I won’t do it again,” I say breathily, turning my neck at an angle so that my mouth reaches his.
I close my eyes to kiss him and feel his lips near mine so close that I can almost taste them, but then he pulls away. The men standing next to us are gawking in their own private way when my eyes open again.
Arthur Hamburg emerges from the fountain room with four men in suits and all attention turns to him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The man looks even older than he does in his photo. And heavier. I estimate he must be in his late sixties, average height but not quite six-feet tall and no less than three hundred pounds, most of it in his stomach and cheeks. As he stands there at the head of the room with his henchmen at his sides, I don’t see a simple overweight man of mature age, I see an evil man who is going to die tonight. It’s all I can think about: he’s going to die. And I’m going to be there to witness it. Suddenly, my insides lock up, my chest constricting, my stomach a hard knot, and I feel like I can’t breathe. I suck in air through my parted lips and let it out very slowly through my nostrils. Calm Sarai. Just remain calm.
I didn’t think it would affect me this way, knowing a man’s fate, practically controlling whether he lives or dies simply by having the knowledge that he doesn’t have. But despite the anxiety I feel as the reality of the situation catches up to me, I don’t regret coming here. I may not know what Arthur Hamburg has done to deserve death, but I trust in Victor’s words and I know that he is far from innocent or we wouldn’t be here.
Arthur Hamburg addresses his guests, thanking us all for coming tonight and he carries on and on about superfluous things to which everyone nods and agrees and smiles and offers their own input. And he makes jokes to which he laughs at before anyone else, but they always laugh too, because it would be rude not to, of course. Even I find myself chuckling lightly at a joke that everyone else seems to find funny and that I really don’t.
Victor moves me around to stand in front of him, pressing the back of my body against the front of his. His mouth explores my bare shoulders, his hands rest on my hips. But the affection is brief, just for show, and his attention is back on Arthur Hamburg, who I notice in that short timeframe singles us out with his gaze fixed on us from across the room. I can see the deliberation in his eyes, the sudden shift in his demeanor. After a few more announcements, he wraps up the small talk and leaves everyone to mingle and enjoy themselves the way they had been doing before he came into the room.
Next thing I know, he’s walking straight towards us.
Victor
Arthur Hamburg shakes my hand as I introduce myself and Izabel.
“My assistant tells me that you encountered a problem in my restaurant last night.”
He knows very well that it was the two of us. He watched us from that private room of his, listened to our interactions at the table through the tiny microphone situated inside the table centerpiece.
“Yes,” I say with a nod. “Forgive me for saying it, but I believe a change in the way your management hires your staff is in order.”
Hamburg smiles to cover up what he’s really doing: studying me and Sarai, getting a feel for us more than he already had at the restaurant, imagining us with him in his room. He could care less about the incident at the restaurant or being sued. That has nothing to do with why he invited us here.
“Are you from L.A.?” he asks.
“No,” I say, pulling Sarai closer to me with one arm around the back of her hip, my hand resting near her pelvic bone. Hamburg’s eyes stray to see it there. “Stockholm.”
He looks intrigued.
“You don’t sound foreign,” he says.
I respond by saying in Swedish, “I am fluent in seven languages.” And then I repeat it in English, so that he understands.
He nods with an impressed smile. Then he looks to Sarai.
“And what about you?”
“She is from New York,” I answer for her.
Sarai keeps quiet this time.
Hamburg turns to me again and asks, “Is she your…,” he searches his mind for the safest way to ask the question.
“My property?” I say for him, letting him know that it’s perfectly acceptable to talk about otherwise taboo things. “Yes, she is. And for the most part, she enjoys it.”
He raises a bushy graying brow. “For the most part?” he asks inquisitively. “What does the rest of her think?”
He glances at Sarai, a faint grin at the edges of his aged lips.
“The rest of me has a mind of my own,” Sarai says as Izabel.
I sigh and shake my head, brushing my fingers along her hipbone. “Yes, that she does, I admit,” I say. “I prefer a woman who puts up a fight.”
“So, you’ve already been down the other road, I take it?” Hamburg asks and I know he’s referring to full submission, owning a woman who will do anything and everything she’s told without cracking the slightest expression of discomfort or refusal.
“Once,” I answer. “I am content with Izabel, regardless of her mouth sometimes.”
Hamburg watches her more closely now, as well as me. He likes both women and men, after all. And he also likes women who put up a fight, like Izabel. The only difference is that the ones he’s enjoyed were forced here against their will.
Suddenly, Hamburg raises his chin proudly and says, “I would very much like to speak to you privately. In my suite. If you’re interested in lucrative offers. You are interested in lucrative offers, aren’t you?” He smiles and wets his lips briefly with his tongue.
I think on it a moment, playing with his head, letting him know just by the look in my eyes that I’m interested but I’m not desperate.
“I am willing to hear the offer, at least,” I say.
His eyes light up. He turns to the man in the suit beside him, whispers something in his ear and turns back to us as the man takes the glass elevator up to the top floor.
“Walk with me,” Hamburg says and the two of us follow him toward the elevator.
Hamburg tells us about the construction of his mansion while we wait for the glass elevator to make its way back down empty. And he rambles on about how much money he has put into it as if to covertly explain to me that he can spare whatever my price. I can sense Sarai getting more nervous as we rise toward the top floor. At one point, she clutches my hand and I glance down to see her delicate fingers tangled in mine. I squeeze her hand gently, letting her know that I’m here and that I’m going to do everything in my power to keep her safe. I glance over to see her eyes and right now all I see is Sarai looking back at me, the brave but anxious and complicated girl that I’ve grown very protective of.
We walk down one massive hallway where out ahead is the entrance to his room, intricate and overdone like the rest of the house. Two men in suits stand guard outside of it. Each of them, like the ones downstairs, carry guns hidden beneath their clothes. But I don’t. Not this time. Because I know Sarai and I will be checked before we’re let inside and to find one on either of us, two wealthy but otherwise simplistic individuals that have no reason to be carrying firearms, would change Hamburg’s initial assumptions about us. He might feel threatened and change his mind about letting us inside.
We stop at the entrance and I raise my arms out at my sides to let one guard pat me down.
Sarai does the same, but isn’t so quiet this time.
“Is this really necessary?” she hisses while the other guard pats her down.
“Sorry, my dear,” Hamburg says as he pushes open his suite doors, “but yes. Can’t be too careful.”
When the guards find nothing, they step aside and just before Hamburg closes the three of us off inside his room he says to the guards, “You may go. I’ll need a bit of privacy for the next hour or so.”
The two guards nod their acknowledgment and leave their post outside his room.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Sarai
The second the large double-doors lock behind us, I feel my heart sink into the pit of my stomach. But I shake it off and do my best to retain my Izabel Seyfried façade.
As I’m letting my gaze sweep the vast room I’m surprised at how fast Arthur Hamburg gets right to the point.
“I will tell you what I’d like and give you the opportunity to name your price.” He gestures for Victor to sit down in the nearby leather chair.
Victor sits and I find myself being left to stand here alone.
The masks have come off now that the two of them are alone together in the privacy of this room. Arthur Hamburg is no longer the disgustingly charming man he pretended to be out there in front of everyone. No, he’s the evil, sick bastard that Victor was sent here to kill. He’s no longer looking upon me as a guest of his mansion who deserves a glass of champagne and respect; I’m merely a pawn in his sexual game who isn’t worthy of his eyes or his conversation anymore. Only Victor is worthy of such luxuries. Victor is the one he wants. I see that now. But there’s so much more to it than I know. And it takes no time at all for the rest of it to unfold.
“What is it that you want?” Victor asks calmly, cunningly.
He rests his back against the chair and props his left ankle on the top of his right knee.
Arthur Hamburg takes the matching chair across from Victor, a devilish smile slides across his harsh features.
“I like to watch,” he says. “But none of that missionary position bullshit.” He pauses and adds, “You f**k the girl, every now and then do what I ask you to do to her and then afterwards, if you’re up to it—and for extra money—I’ll get on my knees in front of you.”