Page 32 of The Expat Affair

I stare at the man I’ve seen only one time before, on the edge of a shabby park on the south side of town, and the fury that floods through me is hot and clean and pure—next to my love for Sem, the purest thing I’ve ever felt. Lars grins at my son through the glass, and my fingers tingle where they touch the gun. I want to shoot this man. If he so much as touches my son, I won’t hesitate. I’ll shoot him, and I won’t miss.

“Hey, kid, come here!”

He shouts it this time.

“Leave him alone,”

I say, and in a voice that is not my own. My jaw clenches so tight it hurts. This is the man on the other end of the texts, and while I can shrug off his threats when they’re aimed at me, pointing his attention and the gun at my son has black spots clouding my vision. “Leave my son alone.”

Lars tries again, this time in Dutch. “Hé, jongen. Kom hier—nú.”

Come here now.

Sem doesn’t move. Nothing. Not even a blink. He keeps his eyes on my hand and his butt in the chair, no indication at all that he heard. And he probably didn’t. Earlier I told him to look at nothing but my hand, and so far he hasn’t.

Good boy, I sign, and this time I don’t try to hide it. Stay.

Lars turns back to me with a frustrated grunt. “What, is he deaf or something?”

“Yes. Those things on his head are the processors for his cochlear implants, but he still misses a lot. He hears you, but only when he knows to listen.”

I sign another order, this time with both hands. Listen only to my hands. Not to what I say with my mouth.

Without looking up to meet my gaze, Sem dips his chin in a solemn nod.

“What did you say?”

“I told him not to worry. I said that everything’s okay.”

A lie I pray is the truth.

“Tell him to get over here. Tell him we’re going for a ride.”

My heart hammers in my chest, my palms going slick with sweat despite the freezing air. Not a chance in hell my son is getting in Lars’s car. I managed to get the magazine seated with one hand, but the gun is not loaded. For that I need both hands.

“A ride where?”

“First your house, then hers.”

Lars stabs his gun in Fleur’s direction. Two Prinses; two vaults full of diamonds.

But the fifth generation heirs of a diamond house have learned a thing of two in the last hundred-plus years. Like how to safeguard their stones with multiple levels of security, for example, by programming a code that opens the vault at the same time it sets off a silent alarm at the police station. Not that Lars will ever get that close. I only need a second or two to whip the gun out and pull back the slide, and then I will shoot that asshole through the heart.

“Tell your kid to come here.”

He swings his own gun to Sem. Pointing it at his little head. “Tell. Him.”

“Okay, okay. Come, Semmy,”

I say, signing through the glass. “It’s okay. You can come.”

I tell him more, too—to come straight to me, to not look anywhere else but at my hands.

Slowly, Sem slides from the chair. Leaves the iPad flashing cartoons and moves to the open doorway at the end of the wall. He peers around the corner, his gaze zeroing in on my hands.

I sign it once more: When I sign run, go as fast as you can down the stairs. Not the elevator but the stairs. Wait for me outside.

Lars shoots me a furious scowl. “What’s wrong with him? Does he talk?”

I nod, motioning my son to come straight to me. He scurries over, and I tuck him behind my body, holding him there with both hands. It’s what I was trying to do earlier, become a human shield, before Lars spotted him over my shoulder.

“At least let them go,”

I say, gesturing to Rayna and Jan’s blonde apprentice—Astrid? Ingrid? I don’t remember her name but I also don’t really care. It’s Rayna I’m concerned about. I need to get her out of here so she can do what I asked and call the detective. “They have nothing to do with this.”

Lars laughs, a dark, angry sound. “Not a chance in hell, lady. I’m not that stupid.”

The blonde spouts off a stream of vehement Dutch, promises she won’t tell, that she’ll keep her mouth closed, but Rayna keeps her gaze trained on me. She tilts her head to the side, and I can see the questions swirling in her pupils, questions she knows better than to ask out loud. Questions like: Where’s the gun? Why haven’t you pulled it out yet? I stare back with what I hope is an unambiguous answer: Soon. Be ready.

“Yo, kid.”

Lars leans down, propping a hand on his knee as he shouts at the side of Sem’s head. “You’re not going to give me any trouble, are you? Look at me when I talk to you.”

If Sem hears anything, he doesn’t respond. He just buries his face in my back.

“I’ll give you everything in the safe. Just leave Sem out of it.”

“Sem. Nice Dutch name. Hey, Sem. Sem.”

Nothing. No response. My fingers tingle with adrenaline, with determination. Two seconds. That’s all I need.

Lars straightens. “I thought you said he could hear.”

I spread my feet, make my body a bigger shield. “He can, normally. The batteries in his implants must be low. They—”

Lars lurches forward before I can finish, before I can react with more than a blink of surprise. He grabs Sem by the collar and gives a mighty tug. Sem squeals, his fists gripping at the fabric of my coat, his cries for help clawing at my heart.

But Lars is too quick and too strong. He wrenches Sem loose and drags him into the air, pinning him to his chest with one steely arm.

With his other, he holds the gun.

“Lars, please.”

My eyes fill with tears, and so do Sem’s. His mouth opens in a silent wail. “Please. I’ll give you anything you want.”

I stare at my son, at the twin streams of tears rolling down his cheeks, and Lars might as well have shoved his fist through my chest and ripped out my heart. My hand wanders to my bag, one finger ducking under the flap. “Point the gun away from my son. Aim it at me instead.”

“Not until I get my diamonds.”

“Here.”

Fleur tugs the velvet bag from her pocket, pries loose the strings, and pours the stones into a palm. “Fifty carats. You can have all of them in exchange for Sem.”

Lars’s cheeks flush red with fury. “Are you fucking kidding me? You’ve had those in your pocket this whole time?”

“They’re yours. Put Sem down and come get them.”

“How do I know they’re real and not fakes grown in a lab?”

“Because I’m Fleur Prins,”

she says, the same proud speech she gave to me only a few minutes earlier. “Because mined diamonds are my life, my destiny. I detest those second-rate imposters as much as you do.”

Lars’s fingers tighten on the gun, the barrel still dangerously close to Sem’s skin, but the diamonds are doing their job. Lars is distracted enough not to notice when I reach a hand into my bag, or the way Rayna has crept up behind me. My fingers making contact with cold, smooth metal . . .

“Here.”

Fleur wriggles her fingers so the diamonds bounce around her palm, and Lars is like Xander when he saw the Cullinan on my wrist: blinded by the fire and sparkle. “They’re yours. You can have all of them, just put Sem down.”

As usual, Fleur has thought this through. She waits until his grip has loosened a little on Sem to do it, to toss all those fifty carats up into the air. She hurls them high in the direction of one of the arched windows, directing them into a ray of milky sunlight. The stones spin in the gleam, shooting colorful rainbows onto the exposed brick, the dusty floor, our clothes. It works like a charm. Lars sees nothing but diamonds.

He doesn’t notice when I whip the gun from my bag and tuck it in the folds of my coat.

He doesn’t see Rayna step up behind me, how the gun slides from my hand into hers, the way my hand comes away empty.

He doesn’t see how Fleur skitters backward, getting into position.

The diamonds hit the floor and scatter, cutting lines in the dirt and dust. Lars dumps a wriggling Sem onto the ground and dives after them. He goes for the biggest ones first, snatching them up before chasing after the next, all in one fluid movement, and I don’t think about what will happen if Rayna doesn’t know how to use that gun. The only thing I see is Sem.

I snatch him off the floor with shaking hands and hug him to my chest while he sobs and sobs. “I’ve got you,”

I say, pressing my lips to his processor. “You’re fine. I’ve got you. You’re safe. Everything’s fine.”

I say it over and over until he hears me, until he understands the words and believes them, until his little body turns limp and shuddering in my arms.

Right up until he hears the shot.