Chapter 9 Emil
EMIL
Iwanted Sadie to talk. That was the point of waiting her out all this time.
After she prompted a conversation with me, trying to paint the picture of good versus bad, where she was on the right side of justice, I had to retreat—again—and decide whether she was trying something with me.
If she thought we could have a kumbaya moment where I’d see the light and regret leading the life I had, she was wrong.
If she thought that pretending to be agreeable so that I’d lower my guard around her and trust her would work, she was wrong again.
Sharing with her was a foreign experience. While I wasn’t letting her have any control over me, it was like something had shifted. Almost like we were coming closer to meeting in the middle. Just talking.
And it left me feeling raw, more vulnerable and exposed than I cared to admit. No one had ever asked me about my feelings. I wasn’t a child, for fuck’s sake. I wasn’t new to this career.
But until she sat with me like that, just the two of us, alone, no pressure to be anywhere else while we were in that bubble of privacy, I never considered that something like regret was building up in me.
No. Fuck this.
I shook my head as I stepped out of the room, needing a breather. I refused to let her get to my head like that. Yet, I had to wonder if she was on to something. Maybe in her attempt to peel my layers back, she revealed something I never wanted to address.
I didn’t regret any of the hits I'd completed. Each kill was a job, and a job well done at that.
However, I never accounted for the growing and accumulating regret that I had to have this job. That this many assholes lived in the world. That in the balance of good versus evil, there would always be another motherfucker who needed to be eliminated.
Another murderer or terrorist, another rapist or trafficker. Another political moron who’d start more wars. The list was never-ending, and until Sadie put me up to figuring out an answer for her question, I hadn’t taken the time to realize that.
And it was exhausting that in killing so many, the work would never be done. Evil would persist. Hits would always come in demand.
That was a sobering—and depressing—concept to shoulder, and it was one I didn’t dwell on.
Until you make me think about it, dammit.
From the high of making her come and wanting her so badly, I was thrust into the low of wondering what the point was to label myself as good or bad.
I didn’t care. But as I thought about her and how strong she was to stand up to me all this time, fighting for what she believed in, I started to care too much what she could think of me.
I didn’t ask her anything when I brought her water and food. Or when I untied her so she could use the bathroom.
Without the air conditioning, she was down to her bra and shorts while I stuck with only my shorts, too. She might have started that little strip as a tease, but it was necessary for both of us to refrain from too much clothing.
I checked the unit, finding the power fried. Fans blew hot, muggy air, but it was the dwindling stock of food that bothered me more. I’d need to get more.
Or you can give this up, let her go, and head home.
I cringed at the idea of releasing her. It was too soon.
Maybe she’d never cave and tell me anything. But I had to try.
“Come on. Hasn’t this gone on long enough?” she asked the next morning. “I’m not going to talk. You’re not going to talk. We can call this a stalemate and go our separate ways.”
I set her breakfast down then sat across from her. “Sure, like you wouldn’t try to have me arrested for kidnapping a federal agent.”
She opened and closed her mouth before reaching for her food, as if she rethought saying anything at all.
“Once more, can’t we move past the basics? You’re not weak to admit we’ve reached a mutual understanding here, all right? You’re an agent and I’m a monster Mafia killer. There. That’s settled.”
She arched one brow as if she thought nothing was settled at all. “Then if the basics are settled, why not let me go?”
“What are you so scared of?” I uncrossed my arms, loving how she couldn’t help but check me out. I’d never put another shirt on again if it meant she’d stare at me with barely masked longing like that.
“Scared?” She smiled, a sassy, stubborn mockery. “Of you?”
“You do know I could’ve killed you any time I wanted to, correct?”
“And you do know that I realized that the instant you grabbed me, correct?” She sipped water, taunting me to watch her lips around the opening of the bottle. “If you haven’t killed me yet, there’s a low chance of it happening at all.”
“Don’t be too sure of that, little agent.”
“With how fucking hot it is in here, I’m not sure of anything. I’m going insane, Emil. Aren’t you miserable, too?”
“Want me to take off the rest of my clothes?” I offered.
She dropped her head back and groaned, then sat back up. “I just fail to see what you’re accomplishing here.”
“I’m waiting for you to tell me why you were after me in the first place.”
She furrowed her brow. “That’s insulting.”
“What is?”
“That you think I would be so stupid as to give you potentially confidential and threatening intel when I’m unarmed, in a remote location, with no protection or backup.”
I smiled slightly. “I don’t think you’re stupid.”
She smirked.
“Just stubborn.”
“Thanks. I’ll take that as an accomplishment. Now, can you let me go?”
“Who do you work for?” I had no interest in letting her go. But maybe she’d talk now.
She shook her head.
“Why are you scared to tell me?”
“For the reasoning I just provided you.”
“Telling me who you work for is something I’d kill you for?” I wasn’t following.
“Telling you anything would be grounds for retribution of some kind. You hold all the power here, and I’m not going to give you anything to use against me to worsen that imbalance.”
I shrugged, deciding it was time to just call Simon and have him get me her background already.
I could wait her out, but we’d need to relocate. We were running out of food. We were overheated. Knowing who she belonged to and what she was working on could modify where I wanted to relocate her.
The next night, when I heard her calling out and asking for more water, I lingered to sit with her just to be near her. Maybe my presence could unnerve her. It didn’t. All night long, we talked more. About everything and nothing in particular.
Like this, she posed more of a threat against me.
Watching her get used to me was a reward.
It forced me to realize that for the first time in many years, someone was looking at me with understanding, not fear.
She was acclimating to my being here and in power while not giving up her hope that she’d reclaim her independence.
And because of this exchange, I let her see through me in small ways, wondering if she’d get a glimpse of the man I was beneath the persona of the monster I was supposed to always be.
After I gave up and texted Simon to seek information about her, unsure if the text worked with the spotty reception here, I tried to limit my exposure to Sadie.
Every time we talked or even sat together in the heat, I grew more addicted to the fire in her eyes.
While it was freeing to connect with her like this in a twisted way, I hated how much she was getting to me. Getting under my skin.
I sat up from our agreement to disagree, a recurring theme any time we tried to get answers from each other.
“I’ll be back,” I said, standing.
I winced, my back to her.
I don’t owe her an explanation for what I’m doing.
She didn’t reply.
Needing space from the longing I was experiencing for her to really let me in, to trust me with her intel, I went out to clear my head for a while.
Yeah, like breathing in this humidity out here is any better than in there.
I stood and sighed, shoving my hands in my pockets as I scanned the lush greenery of the jungle.
And like any other occasion when I stepped out of her room, I seriously debated who had captured the captive here.
According to all I’d ever learned and been told, a kidnapper was not supposed to befriend their hostage.
I’m not supposed to lust after them either.