Chapter Ten #2
Oliver chuckled. “Damn, man. You’re going to get me teary.”
“You’re not the man you present yourself to be. You would
never touch another man’s woman, especially a friend. And if Vivian wanted you,
she would have asked you out.”
Oliver was silent.
The pit of Mal’s stomach threatened to churn. Had she?
Oliver was a bit like Tarquin. He had money and the ability to fit into high
society.
Oliver’s eyes rolled. “See, I knew it was still in there
somewhere. No. She’s always viewed me as an annoying brother, and I see her as
a sister I would like to protect.”
“Yes. You grew up knowing her and Sophy, right?”
“Sophy is not my sister. She’s a thorn in my side that one
day I will deal with.” Oliver frowned briefly and then went back to his normal
smirk. “You know they’ll be here soon, right?”
“Who?”
“Vivian’s father owns part of this company and has a private
jet. He recently found out his daughter is in a relationship with an ex-soldier
who’s ten years older than he is. Who he’s never met, and who is going to be
protecting her on her first mission in the field. Do you honestly think he’s
not coming for a visit?”
They were thousands of miles away. Surely they wouldn’t hop
on a jet to come talk to their daughter when everyone had a bloody cell phone
and video call capabilities. Oliver was joking.
He hoped.
* * * *
Vivian lowered the lights before sitting down on the
chair across from where Sosa was lying on the couch. She had both feet up,
resting on the arm, but at least she’d taken off the combat boots she wore.
Sosa had a habit of dressing in all black and always looking like she was up
for some wet work.
It was a mask. She wore the dark loose clothes and no makeup
in an attempt to hide her beauty. She had a delicate face and light blonde hair
that would have gotten her on the cover of a magazine had her life gone
differently.
There was a mug of tea on the table in between them and a
couple of cookies that everyone else would call biscuits. Vivian had discovered
Sosa was very food focused.
Because they’d used food to control her at The Chateau.
She’d gotten barely enough to keep her in shape and always hungry.
“How are you feeling after the meeting?”
Sosa was quieter than usual this morning. More somber. She
tended to come in talking gossip and asking Vivian if she’d watched whatever
show Sosa was obsessed with this week. She’d come in quietly today, and Vivian
thought it had something to do with the fact that they’d found all that
evidence and it was pulling them back into the world Sosa tried so hard to get
out of.
“Well, I had to think about the people who torture me and
the fact that they are still having fun in parties while my friends are in
graves,” Sosa admitted.
The use of the word friend was an interesting
development. “I thought you spit every time you said Gabby’s name.”
She was silent for a moment. “I’ve been thinking a lot about
her lately. I suppose what she does is not betrayal. Not really. I think I
should start thinking of it as weakness. As a sickness in a way. She wasn’t as
strong as I was. She couldn’t turn away from the training. I think she want
better life so I bring her in, but she did not.”
Vivian forced her voice to stay steady because that was such
good progress. Sosa hated these sessions, but she was getting something out of
them. “I wouldn’t say she didn’t want it. I would say she didn’t trust it, and
that won out over her desires for freedom. It won over her friendships. She was
a frightened young woman. We do terrible things when we’re scared.”
Sosa shifted and sat up, a gleam in her eyes. “What terrible
things have you done?”
“I wasn’t talking about me. I was thinking of something that
happened to a friend of mine.” She was thinking of Andrea and how she’d hurt
Mal when all she ever had to do was present the problem to him and he would
have helped. But she’d been scared. “I think the mark of what kind of a person
we are is if we’re willing to harm others to save ourselves.”
Sosa’s eyes rolled. “All right, Almost Doc. Let’s do what
you people do. I’m bored with this.” She sighed. “That’s not exactly true. I
have things I wish to get out of my head, but I can’t. I’ve tried, but I can’t
make myself do it simply because it would be good. I need a reason. So let’s
negotiate.”
Was this actually happening? She knew she should tell Sosa
to only speak when she was ready, but what if this was how Sosa processed? What
if she couldn’t tell her secrets simply for herself. What if she needed a
bargain? Transaction would be a language Sosa understood. “What do you need in
order to feel comfortable speaking?”
She picked up the cookie and took a bite. There was a
casualness to her every move. As though this was nothing more than a fun game,
but Vivian saw through it. “I need this to feel more like we’re talking.”
“Like a dialogue?” Vivian asked.
Sosa nodded. “Like friends speaking.”
This was a bad idea, but she was out of good ones. What Sosa
wanted wasn’t a friendship. Not really. What she wanted was to not be the only
one stripped bare. “All right. How do you see that going?”
“You ask question,” Sosa began. “I answer honestly to my
friend and then I get to ask question.”
This was going to go poorly, but she couldn’t back off.
There were some patients who you got one real shot with, and this might be
hers. “I can do that. Are you nervous about identifying people at the parties?”
Sosa’s eyes rolled. “No. It has been said to me that I will
be protected. I would rather not be protected. I would rather kill them all.
But Damon says no killing, Sosa. He will not even agree that I should be able
to torture them. He thinks I am delicate princess.”
“I assure you he knows what you were forced to do,” Vivian
replied softly. “He doesn’t want you to have to do it again.”
“Then what do I do for rest of life?” Sosa asked, her words
barely a whisper, and then she sniffled and moved on. “The likelihood of anyone
I know being at that party or the wedding is slim. The people who handled me
and the others, they rarely go to functions like this. There were rumors that
there were others, but I did not meet them.”
“Others?” She wanted to go back and follow what Sosa said
about the future, but this seemed important. Getting any information about what
happened at The Chateau was imperative.
“My turn.” Sosa leaned forward. “Why are you afraid of Mal?”
Not a hard question but a complex one. And frustrating
because what Sosa had said was important, but a deal was a deal. “I make poor
choices when it comes to men. I have a set of rules for dating because I’ve
pretty much screwed it up every way I possibly could. Even when the man was
wonderful, it turned out he couldn’t handle my family and we weren’t compatible
as more than friends.”
“You’re talking about the man therapist?”
No. There were rules. If Sosa was going to use them, then
she could, too. “My turn. What did you mean when you asked what you would do
with the rest of your life?”
She knew she should ask about the “others,” but Sosa was her
patient. She wasn’t some case to be solved. She was a human being who had
undergone enormous trauma.
Sosa sighed like she wished she’d never said the words. “Has
no one thought about this? Am I supposed to stay hidden away here forever? Is
the only place I can go the locker room or conference room of various sex clubs
where I’m not allowed to have sex? Those do not count as questions since you do
not have answers.”
“I don’t think anyone is planning your future, Sosa. They
want to get through this dangerous time,” Vivian offered.
“The danger will never stop,” Sosa said. “I did not go to
school. They do not care that I can read beyond their instructions. I have no
knowledge or skills beyond what they give me. So if I cannot ever join one of
the teams, what am I supposed to do? Again, not a question because you cannot
have answer. What attracted you to other therapist? He seems unlike the men you
have dated here.”
This was going to be a frustrating session, but she had to
remember that patience was her best tool. “William was kind and we had the same
goals. He met Ariel at a conference and when she realized how close his
practice was to The Garden, she asked if he would take some of her overflow or
patients who needed a male therapist. I met him when I came to work here. He
was smart and I liked him.”
“He seemed safe.” Sosa didn’t make it a question.
“Yes, he was safe, and I had dated men I thought were safe
before. I think I held back with him. He didn’t seem to need more than I was
willing to give, but that kind of backfired on me when he didn’t care enough
about me to deal with my family.”
Sosa frowned. “Your family is awesome.”
“My family is a lot, and he doesn’t come from that
background. His family is refined and intellectual. You’ve met mine. William
viewed them as the barbarian horde he could never introduce to his parents.”
Sosa’s face lit up. “Yes, that is why they are awesome. I
don’t know how anyone would complain with Ian and Charlotte in their family. No
one will mess with you or they will crush them. I wish they were my parents. No
one would have taken me from them.”
She loved the enthusiasm for her family, but Sosa was
forgetting some facts. “I assure you people have messed with my cousins.”
“And are they around to mess with them anymore?” Sosa asked
with a dark look that was both satisfaction and envy.
“No.” Vivian was left out of a lot of the CIA stuff, but she
knew there were bodies buried and not to ask about them. There was a part of
her that wondered if William hadn’t figured out how dangerous her family could
be and chosen to not risk himself. She didn’t blame him. Her family was
surrounded by danger. More than one family gathering had gone awry.
Mal hadn’t seemed to mind. In fact, he’d seemed like he’d
enjoyed poking at her uncle and trading verbal jabs with him. She had to admit
the fact that of all the men she’d ever dated, Mal was the one who would fit