Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
I can feel her projecting something toward me. Something like grace. Something like understanding. Something like love. It holds me where I stand and we just… look at each other.
I assume Zander van den Berg perceives our collective silence as shock.
It is not.
It is something else entirely.
It is an understanding that it doesn’t matter what happened before. It doesn’t matter what we’ve been through or how we got here. It doesn’t matter that we’ve suffered through pain and trauma and anger.
All that matters is that we are here now, unified and determined, and that we are not the enemies of one another. We are bound against any and all who would try to take that bond from us. So we’re not going to give him what he wants. We’re not going to respond with the kind of question-asking hysteria that he clearly anticipates.
Alec’s favorite tactic of remaining calm and silent in the face of intimidation just naturally flows from all of us now. Because you know what? We’ve survived what we’ve survived and you can’t fucking scare us. That’s what.
And as soon as Zander realizes that we’re not going to start barraging him with a bunch of commentary, willingly, he begins talking again, starting in like the B-movie bad guy he fancies himself to be. I guess.
“You seem confused, my china. I understand. I would be too in your situation. Allow me to explain, because I know that dear Christine has had some difficulty recalling details ever since she took her tumble from that roof.”
He paces as he talks, limping along, back and forth like a hobbled panther. Which is, more or less, what I suppose he is. Which makes him uniquely dangerous. And even though we’re not showing it, we can’t let our guards down. I wonder if we’ll ever be able to let them down again.
“Well,” he starts up once more, “first of all, I’m not dead. I suppose that’s apparent, but just to emphasize the point: You are not here with a ghost or some figment of your imaginations. This is really happening.”
He props himself against the lip of the stage thing and tries to make himself look casual. Which is difficult for him. Everything looks like it hurts to a greater or lesser degree.
“Hard to believe it’s been almost eight years since this diamond”—he gestures behind him to the perfect, icy, seven-carat source of all our problems on the table—“was taken from me. Or, more accurately, taken from the buyers who had already paid for it.
“I assume you didn’t know that at the time. That it was already promised and accounted for. Or maybe you did. Maybe you knew exactly what the probable repercussions of seizing upon this… this magnificent apex of crystalline beauty”—(Alec doesn’t get his way with words from nowhere)—“would yield in result. Perhaps you meant to get your dear old vader in a bit of hot water, eh? Was that part of the game, my seun?”
He looks to Alec, a bemused grin on his reconstructed lips. Alec says nothing.
“No matter. It’s what happened. I do believe however that you didn’t imagine the Russians whose diamond it was intended to be would go so far as to seek revenge in the form of our demise. Mine and your ma’s. Not because you cared what happened to me, of course, but because I don’t think you would have ever willingly put your mother in such a position. Ironic, isn’t it, that she is the one who did, in fact, die as a result of your choices and I am somehow still here? Don’t you think so, my seuntjie?”
Alec doesn’t respond to the casual cruelty. The almost tossed-off way Zander talks about the death of his wife and Alec’s mother.
“In any case… I did. Survive. Obviously. If I’m being honest, there are times when I wished I had not. I know. Surprising to hear, perhaps, but true. The pain… oh, my dear, dear Alec, the pain was a challenge. At times. But, at other times, it fueled me. It fueled my desire to keep going and to clear all the various ledgers that needed clearing.”
He shifts his body as he talks about the pain, as if speaking about it has caused it to take hold of him all over again.
“And I must tell you, Alec, my seuntjie, believe it or not—and I’m certain you won’t, but perhaps I can change your understanding—the only thing more important to me than settling accounts during that time was ensuring that you were safe.”
At that, Alec does respond. Not verbally, but his neck twists in quiet curiosity.
“I knew that if the Russians discovered it was you who had it, you would be next. I knew that they would not stop until they had exacted their form of justice on you and your brother both. So, from my recovery bed, I began the process of setting some guardrails in place. But I didn’t know who I could trust and who I couldn’t at that point. You remember Roderick, of course?”