"Please. Please just let me go. I'm scared, I want to go home, please?—"
I look at her face.
I am about to speak when I feel two taps against my leg.
I look at her. She looks at me and the tears are still running, her expression is devastated and her eyes are completely steady.
I turn to the paparazzi.
"You came here for pictures," I say. "Here is your picture. Phillip Keller's daughter, held hostage." I let the pause sit. "And Keller won't pay a single penny to bring her home."
They look at each other. One of them, braver or greedier than the others, raises his camera. The shutter clicks. Then another. Then three more, flashing, and Nathalie wails and grovels and I watch her perform with a detachment I have to work to maintain because she is extraordinary at this.
I raise my hand and the cameras lower.
I take my gun from my jacket and I shoot the first SWAT officer.
Nathalie stops crying and I hear her breath leave her body in the silence that follows and I don't look at her because I don't want to see what is on her face. I shoot the second officer. She screams and the sound of it does something to the base of my throat.
She grabs at me, wailing, and I let her and I put one bullet into the bravest paparazzo and the room smells like fear.
Nathalie is making sounds against my arm that makes me want to finish this quickly.
"Tell Keller," I say to the remaining men, "that next time I won't be polite."
Renzo cocks his gun and the survivors are escorted out. The other men stay with the bodies and the room empties in under two minutes.
The door closes and Nathalie is still wailing.
"I won't hurt you," I tell her, taking off the mask.
She stops crying and she stands up.
She wipes her face with the back of her hand and her shoulders settle and her chin comes up and she looks at me with clear eyes and says, "I know."
I look at her. Her hair is still perfect despite everything. The two dried tear tracks on her face are the only evidence of the last ten minutes.
I look at her and I think about the two taps against my leg and the steadiness behind the devastated eyes and the way she haddropped to her knees without a second of hesitation the moment she understood what was needed.
I had underestimated her.
Again.
Chapter Thirteen
Nathalie
"Ijust thought looking scared would put some pressure on my father," I say.
He looks at me. The room still smells like gunshots and there is a bruise forming along his jaw from somewhere in the chaos and I look at it and I think about the two men on the floor behind us and I think about the sound the shots made and I think about how he hadn't flinched, not once, not for a second, and I wonder if he ever feels pain or if that part of him simply doesn't exist.
I move to walk past him.
His hand wraps around my arm.
"Did Renzo tell you what was happening tonight?" he asks.
I look at his hand on my arm and then at his face.
