Page 32 of Kristoff

“I’m not really hungry. Is it okay if I wait to eat?” she asks softly. Where is the feisty woman who would simply tell me to fuck off with the tray?

“No, you need to eat something.” I’m taking advantage of her warped sense of submission, but I don’t care. She’s lost weight since she’s been with me, and she’s been battered and bruised.

She sighs but comes to me anyway. I can see the movements still pain her, but she doesn’t comment on it. I help her sit in the chair at the table and hand her the spoon. “At least the yogurt. It’s softer and shouldn’t hurt your throat too much.”

“Okay.” She sinks the spoon into the vanilla yogurt.

I take the chair across from her and study her eating. She’s taking small bites and each time she swallows, I can tell it hurts. She’ll have ice cream for lunch, I decide. And I’m going to rip out the fucking throats of those men.

“I need to ask you a few questions. You need to be honest with me,” I say with a hardness forced into my tone. She responds better to it, and I need her cooperation if I’m going to sort out everything and get my plan into action.

She nods and takes another bite.

“When is the last time you spoke to your sister?” I ask, folding my hands in my lap and crossing my ankle over my knee.

“I talk with her every day. So, the day before I was taken.” Her voice is still hoarse but at least she doesn’t wince every time she speaks.

“I mean talk. When’s the last time you talked?” I ask again.

Her brow furrows. “What do you mean? I just told you.”

“I looked through your phone. You’ve texted her almost daily, but I didn’t see her in your call list. So, when’s the last time you actually talked to her, heard her voice, saw her?” I have information for her, and it’s going to hurt. She’s going to be knocked for a loop, so I need to bring her to the conclusion herself, or at least as close to it as possible. Maybe it will soften the reality. Though nothing has been soft about her reality since she’s come into my world.

“She’s busy,” she says defensively. “She’s not even in the country most of the time,” she goes on to explain.

“When?” I ask again. My patience is slipping.

She heaves a heavy sigh and takes another bite of her yogurt. “Why does it matter? She won’t find me in time.” Does she think that I’m trying to track down Danuta because I’m afraid she’ll show up and ruin everything?

“It matters because I’ve asked.” I manage to keep my voice even.

When she looks at me, it’s with a serene acceptance. The hope that burned so annoyingly in her days ago has fizzled out.

“A month, maybe more. But she texts back most of the time.”

Most of the time? After skimming through her phone, I’ve become more obsessed with her relationship with her sister. Every day Magdalena texts her sister with an update on what she’s up to and asks Danuta about her day. Maybe - and I’m being extremely generous - Danuta answers her a quarter of the time.

“Your sister’s older than you and your parents died when you were young, is that right?” I ask.

“Why are you asking all this if you already know?” She sounds irritated. Good. “My parents were killed in an accident when I was in high school. Since Danuta was legal age, she was given guardianship, so I wouldn’t go to a group home. Once I went to college, she transferred out of the local police department and went into the CIA.”

All of this, I already knew.

“Did Danuta know you were coming to England to track down my father?”

She nods. “Yeah. I told her where I’d be, gave her the address of the apartment I found.”

“So, she knew you were coming to expose my father’s business?”

“Yeah. She didn’t like it, told me it was too dangerous. I explained I was only getting a story from the outside. I wouldn’t have any contact with him or any of his people.” She stops talking and laughs. “Which apparently was incorrect.”

I reach over the table and pat her hand. “Focus on me, Magdalena. Forget yesterday.”

Forget? She’ll never forget, but I’ll do my damnedest to give her something better to focus on.

She slips her hand out from beneath mine and picks up the glass of water I brought her. She wanted orange juice, but her throat is too raw, it would have been painful.

“When your father dies, and you take over the business, do you think you’ll keep the same business model?” she asks in prime journalist voice.

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