Killing Sarai

Vince leaves Victor and me alone as he walks with the woman through the room to introduce her to the other guests. I listen to him, noticing that he says the same thing to everyone that he said to us and that everyone here is introduced as ‘guests of Mr. Hamburg’. I start to wonder just how Victor plans to get Mr. Hamburg’s sole attention with so many other people in here, couples included, to compete with.

Victor drapes his free hand around the back of my waist and we walk through the room slowly, pretending to talk about the paintings and the statues. He’ll point subtly to this and that and comment on the detail or the color or the emotion it portrays. It’s all pointless, uninteresting observations that really don’t warrant verbal recognition in my opinion, but I play along anyway. Soon, I see that he was using that time to get across the room without looking lost or as though we needed the company of someone else to make us feel more welcome.

“I need to find the facilities,” Victor says, placing his glass of champagne down on a table at the hallway entrance. “Will you be alright on your own?”

“Of course,” I say with an air of a

He kisses my lips and then walks down the hallway. I watch until he turns the corner at the end. I know he’s not looking for the ‘facilities’ and I start to get nervous when he’s gone for more than a few minutes and I’m still standing here alone. I hope I don’t look in need of social rescue.

I get it anyway.

“I’m Muriel Costas,” a woman says stepping up to me with another woman and one younger man. “I’ve never seen you here before.”

“Izabel Seyfried,” I say and sip my champagne very slowly, letting her know it has more of my attention than she does. “And I suppose you wouldn’t since I’ve never been here before.”

She smirks, bringing her own glass to her rose-colored lips. She has long jet-black hair cascading over both shoulders that ends just below her plump breasts, her cleavage is pushed into view by the tight gray dress she wears. The woman standing beside her glances at her once, probably wondering if she’s going to let me get away with the attitude I gave her. I smirk at her too and turn my attention to the young man who can’t be much older than me.

I offer him a faint, seductive smile just to spite Muriel and he catches it. But then his gaze strays submissively when she looks over.

“Where does it come from?” she asks me.

“Where does what come from?”

She and the other woman glance at each other with soft grins, obviously sharing an opinion of me.

“Your money,” Muriel says as if I should know the lingo.

She sips her champagne.

“You are wealthy, though no one needs to know where your money comes from.”

My whole face darkens with a confident grin. “Only someone who feels threatened ever asks that kind of question,” I say and glance at the other two briefly to quietly flaunt my win of the control. It’s apparent to me they are Muriel Costas’ lost dogs and depending on whose hand offers the better scraps, they’re not immune to influence.

Victor re-emerges from the hallway.

Muriel’s face lights up when she sees him. She introduces herself immediately, offering him her hand for a customary kiss which I know has nothing to do with custom and everything to do with challenge. Victor accommodates the gesture and gazes into her dark eyes as he comes out of his half-bow, which he holds a little longer than I like. But Muriel is pleased and she makes it a point to look me straight in the eyes to let me know just how much.

They introduce themselves and start the pointless mingling conversation all over again. But instead of showing an ounce of jealousy, because I know nothing would satisfy Muriel more, I walk away from the four of them with my chin raised in an important ma

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 begi

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 i

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 fu