“Until Rowena came and offered your family a deal.”
“I did not come to speak of myself, but of how I may repay you.”
“She would draw you from your autistic shell, but at eighteen years of age you were hers. You would come live at the abbey. Your parents leapt at the opportunity. They despaired of ever silencing your weeping.”
Sometimes, even then, Sean had been there. Sometimes in the delirium of my pain he had curled beside me and said, “Girl, why do you cry?” I remember moments of silence then. He would put his chubby arms around me, and for a short time the pain would go away.
“How would they make a grand alliance with larger and nastier criminals if their only marriageable daughter was defective?” I say dryly.
He laughs. “There you are, behind that eternal serenity. The woman that feels. Funny thing is, I, too, thought I was in this room alone. Until you said that. The dearth of emotion here is not mine alone.” His smile fades and he looks straight into my eyes with a stare so penetrating, direct, and uncomfortable that I feel I am an insect pinned to a board, prepared for dissection. “You owe me nothing further.”
I blink. “But I haven’t paid you yet.”
“You have.”
“No, I haven’t. I’ve given nothing.”
“The price was not required of you.”
I get a chill and almost can’t get my breath. This man is dangerous. Clever. Terrifying to me. “Of whom was it required? I am the one responsible. I am the one who failed. I am the one who should have led them to safety, therefore it should be me and me alone who pays a price!”
“Funny thing about payment is that it isn’t the buyer of the goods or services that gets to set it. It’s the seller. That’s me.” His face is hard and cold now.
“What price did you set?” I school my breath slow and even, waiting for his reply,
He moves to my side, guides me to the glass and directs my attention below. “I have had difficulty staffing lately. My servers keep dying on me.”
The skin of my spine begins to crawl.
“One club in particular is hard to keep staffed. The Tuxedo Club is constantly requiring replacements.”
It is the subclub where the servers dress in tight black leather pants and bow ties, and serve topless.
“Your Sean was good enough to fill in for a time.”
Bile rises in the back of my throat. “My Sean does not belong here.”
“Perhaps. But even you have to admit he looks good in the uniform.”
I look where he’s pointing. The back I admired on my way up the stairs has known my hands on its shoulder blades as he moved inside me. I have tickled it many nights as he drifted to sleep. I have massaged it when he worked the nets overlong. I have kissed each and every muscle and curve. It is, indeed, a beautiful back.
“How long?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“Don’t do this to me.”
“Why.”
“He is …” I stop and sigh. This man would understand nothing of what I would say.
“Go on.”
“Sean is my soul mate.”
“Soul mate.”
He mocks me. He mocks God. “Such things are sacred.”
“To who? Your god may love soul mates but man does not. Such a couple is vulnerable, particularly if they are fool enough to let the world see how shiny and happy they are. Their risk rises tenfold during times of war. There are two courses a couple in such circumstances can chart: go deep into the country and hide as far from humanity as possible, hoping like hell nobody finds them. Because the world will tear them apart.”
He is wrong. He knows nothing of soul mates. Still I cannot help but ask, “The other?”
“Sink up to their necks in the stench and filth and corruption of their war-torn existence—”
“You mean behave like common criminals. Would you prefer us ruthless animals? Why are you doing this?”
“I mean look at it, Katarina. See things for what they are. Drop your blinders and raise the sewer to eye level; admit you’re swimming in shit. If you don’t acknowledge the turd hurtling down the drain toward you, you can’t dodge it. You have to face every challenge together. Because the world will tear you apart.”
“You are manipulative, cynical, and base.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“Life is not as you see it. You don’t know anything about love.”
“I am intimately acquainted with the vagaries of fate in times of war. They’ve been my worst and best centuries.”