Page 85 of The Circle

And then my calculations and probably-useless scheming are interrupted by a voice. A strong, assured, indomitable-sounding voice.

“No need for histrionics, Ms. Watson. She’s right here.”

Emerging from the shadows of the backstage area is a tall man. Lean. White hair. Dark suit. He has a long, jagged scar running down his face. It disappears inside the collar of his crisply starched shirt, but it gives the impression that it continues running well down his body.

I look to Christine again, this time pointing in the direction of the man in a gesture meant to suggest that I’m asking, That the guy?

She gulps. Her eyes go wide with something like panic. And she nods. She remembers. She knows who this is. She’s met him before. And he scares her.

He walks with a limp and brings along with him… Andra.

He holds her hand. She shuffles out beside him, looking not exactly scared but not exactly not-scared either.

“Andra!” Eliza goes rushing toward the stage but is stopped by a wall of armed guards, one of whom sticks out his hand and pushes her back. She slaps at him. “Don’t you fucking touch me, you cunt! Give me my daughter! Now!”

The man on stage raises a hand to try to calm her. Then one of the soldier boys runs onto the stage and places a chair for him next to the table with the diamond.

He sits and firmly but still somehow tenderly lifts Andra to rest on his knee.

Eliza is doing all she can to hold herself in place, but it’s obvious she wants to charge the stage and grab her kid, consequences be damned.

I’m tense. I’m ready. If this thing flares now, I’ll do whatever I have to to keep Christine, Andra, Alec, Eliza, and myself safe. Probably in that order.

The man on the stage, the man who Christine referred to earlier as Mr. Gorny, speaks again. And what he says this time grabs my attention in a way that, yet once more, completely throws for a fucking loop anything I was thinking up until now.

“Gentlemen,” he says, and the entire line of armed guards turn to face him, “thank you. You may now excuse yourselves. I believe Anton and I can take it from here.”

It’s not that he has just dismissed all of his soldiers that throws me. Nor is it that this fucking guy who’s brought us here is called Anton and not Hans. And it’s not that the guy onstage is now stroking Andra’s head, or that Eliza is about to pop, or that Christine looks terrified or that Alec is starting to almost wobble on his feet, his knees giving way, and it appears he is about to drop to the floor that knocks my brains loose in this moment.

It’s that I understand why.

The voice. This man’s voice. This Mr. Gorny’s voice. I know it.

I’ve heard it before.

Many years ago, for a brief little while, I knew him.

We all did.