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I look over at him

"You are beautiful, Izabel Your defiance provokes me Your mouth infuriates me Your obsession with independence le thing about you" He tilts his head slightly; his eyes regarding me quietly for a moment--my stomach flutters and , but I hope that I’ll be your last everything"

There it is-- pieces

I look away from his eyes

Did Victor hear me tell Nora that I used to love Javier? I know he heard everything--even if he didn’t, I’ladly filled hi back at the screen "I know I told you once that I never loved Javier, but I was ashalance at the floor "I’ it"

"You cannot help or control who you fall in love with," he says "It was a long tio, and you were in an extraordinary situation, and I cannot fault you for it, or tell you that it rong"

My eyes ain "Doesn’t it bother you?"

He hesitates and then answers, "No As I said, it was a long ti to each other for a while

Then finally I step up closer to hi his lips

"You arehis

He sether

"On another note," he saysthe inforether that I have on Nora and hat you just found out, I’h I still have no idea why she’s here or who she’s here for, I believe her to be a part of the Shadow Sect"

"What the hell is that?"

We look back into the screen together, watching Nora in her chair, calm as ever

"More appropriately nains "It’s an organization round than The Order or the black markets Its purpose isn’t to fulfill contract hits, but to produce contractors"

"Produce them?"

"Yes In the same way that Nora told you, meanization, trained as assassins and spies from the moment they leave the womb They have no mother or fathers to care for thened names In a sense, Nora Kessler is more experienced than even I am, almost entirely numb to the basic human emotions, like love and sympathy, that would ents when I was born, but h I rarely saw him, when I did, he treated me as any father would treat his son I, just as Niklas did, had a normal childhood until ere taken away by The Order to be trained ere just boys" He nods toward the screen "But with Nora, a life of killing ca time with my father came to me If she is in fact from the SC-4, and I believe she is, it could s, and what her business is here with us doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of theaze focused on Nora, and I notice so that feels like…not a sexual attraction that I should be jealous of, but so in on a rare speci to be studied because of the wealth of inforulfed by several different conflicting emotions, none of the else on her?" I say, trying to ignore it "So away fro his back to it "I had Woodard run her DNA through the data files I took with me when I left The Order I wanted to see if she matched up with any of the operatives that were under e of the table "There were no matches with any of the operatives, but there was a match with one of our hits"