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She gasps and chokes, scra precariously over the side of the table

I pace the floor, back and forth in an enrageddoard at the scuff but Nora, or the hidden ca back at ments and assumptions

But the only face I see, the only person I can think about is Claire I’ve tried for six years to put her out of le Claire’s face, and her death, in front ofme

"Niklas," I hear Nora say softly froht have been about to say fades into the quiet of the room

I spin around on my heels and htly, not enough to rab the back of the chair I had been sitting in and slide it out roughly before dropping all of ht into it

Nora just looks atpartially on the table, but finally her body slides off and she stands upright, adjusting her silk blouse

I point at her chair

"Sit"

She does without arguo either way at the drop of a hat--tell her about Claire, or blow her brains against the wall

I pull a pack of cigarettes from my back pocket and toss them on the table

I don’t look directly into any caonna tell her what she wants to know, but I’o fuck herself And so can Dina Gregory And Dorian’s ex-bitch And Woodard’s daughters And Izabel And my brother

"I was thirty when I met Claire I was thirty when I fell in love with her And I was thirty when she was killed…"

Six years ago…

"Claire was an assignnment It wasn’t like I had never done these kinds of jobs before: get close to a woman, date her for a while, pretend that I was nor to find soirl to settle doith Most of them were hits Murderous bitches, woar, who did what they had to do to get their husbands inheritances Whatever Back then I never worked in the field like Victor did--I wasn’t as skilled as my brother--and I wasn’t anyone’s liaison, either I worked on the inside, charet infor theut et She was a decoy My et her to trust me so I could find out about a et for a year, and the only lead we had on him was Claire We didn’t even knohat kind of relationship Solis and Claire had--lovers, partners in cri was possible at that point"

I point sternly at Nora "But one thing I knew for sure once I got to know her was that Claire was a good woman, and whatever her involvement with Solis, she didn’t know shit about his double-life She wasn’t part of it and didn’t deserve to be--Claire was bait"

I stop abruptly

"Go on," Nora tells "