Final Call for Mercy

22

T-3

"Why?" I asked Nicolas as we waited for every one of our guests to arrive. "You know that if you don't want her to be used for this plan, I'll come up with something else."

He nodded, "I know."

"So why?" I pressed. "I thought you wanted her to give you more information on your parents. Do you think she's lying?"

"No. Actually," Nicolas laughed sardonically, "I'm almost certain she hasn't lied for a single moment she's been here. To me, at least."

"Then...?"

He shrugged and I kept quiet. Pushing him felt wrong. His parents were a sensitive issue. And it must have been important if he was looking for answers in a captive rather than my father and if it was something Giovanni hadn't told him before. Since the moment he decided to hear her out, I've felt the curiosity eating me alive, but I let him come to me. He never did.

"Some of the things she said..." he shook his head. "The image I have of my parents in my head—I don't care if it's a rose-tinted view of them. Deep down I always knew they weren't the innocent people that my small self thought they were. None of us are in this life. But...I don't know, maybe it's selfish of me, but I don't want to ruin that perception of them. It sounded like everything Ximena wanted to say would do that. And, even if it makes me a bad person—hell I already am—, I don't care about what they did. I don't want to ruin who my parents are to me."

His eyes met mine and I could almost touch the need for validation that poured through them. So, I smiled and held his hand. "Of course. What does it matter what they did now, anyway? The memory of them is what'll live forever. You get to choose what that memory is."

He picked up my hand and kissed it. "Plus," he said, a small frown on his lips. "She kept babbling about Veronica not being who she said she was. It was making me angry." He shrugged, "so kill her. I can hardly care now."

I laughed, leaning into him, "you wicked, wicked thing."

He leaned as well, mumbling his words onto my lips, "I have no objections, your honor."

The door opened and Nicolas and I sprung apart. I sat straighter in my chair at the head of the table, crossing my legs and placing one hand on my lap, the other on the surface of the table. My fingernails began tapping on the wood, creating a sense of control that washed over me. Control I need to show dominance over the people who had no qualms about stabbing me in the chest.

With Elijah and Diego at each door, the men began filing into the room. The leader of each member of the resistance. The ones that Dion Bisset could round up. And, at the end of the line, entering with his head down, the man himself. I motioned for him to sit on the first chair to my left, opposite Nicolas. 

I looked at every face, one by one. By the final one, I had a frown on my face. Oh, this was already off to a wrong start. "Where's China?"

"Pardon?" Bisset asked.

I looked at him, each of my nails, save for my thumb, tapping once on the wood. Du-du-du-dun. "The leader of the Chinese, Ru Tai Wang. Where is he?"

"Oh," Bisset said.

"I see the new Ukrainian leader failed to show up as well. I was expecting that, honestly. But where's China? I thought I said I wanted all you friends here, Bisset."