Game of Revenge Read online

“By you,” she whispers.

  “By me.” His voice is matter of fact. “I sent the H’Allure company into the ashes where the Jewish founder resides. I returned the company to its rightful ownership.”

  “But why? Why you?”

  He doesn’t answer but continues telling his story, absorbed as if he is living it. “The daughter grew up, got married, and had a son. But eventually the guilt became too heavy, and she slowly gave way to the blackness of depression. One day, she slit her wrists in two buckets. Her son found her. He was ten.”

  Jo breathes in slowly, stabilizing the compassion that has risen violently in her. James seems unaware of her presence.

  “The son learned to be a survivor, to look after himself, to be in control. He was brighter than most and realized early on that money was the safest way to power. I moved to…” James had unconsciously slipped into a personal narrative, “…London and changed his name from the nondescript Peter Hansen to the international James Hampton. I even considered adding a discreet ‘von’ on my business cards but decided against it. The ‘von’ would limit me to certain echelons of society. I needed to be able to move freely across countries and between social groups. Before I was forty, I was wealthy. I had the power I wanted. By then, I—”

  “—By then you set out to revenge your mother.”

  He pulls her close, placing a kiss on her forehead. “That I did. “

  “That explains the numbers you have tattooed on your forearm.”

  For a while, they are quiet. The knowledge they now have of each other’s identities is not easily absorbed.

  “I meant what I said before, James. Our proof may be inconclusive, but we know that you, for your own private reasons, have set out to destroy the Bang-Henriksen family. You need to stop.” She reaches and grasps his hand. “Or I have to disappear from your life—forever.”

  He doesn’t answer.

  She nudges him. “It’s non-negotiable, James.”

  His eyes widen as he looks at her. He looks for a long time, then places his large hands on either side of her face. “So is this, Sarah. I bargain with nobody. And least of all with you. If you decide to leave me, that is your choice. I will regret it. I will miss you. But I will never trade anything for you. Nor will I, ever, trade you for anything.”

  She is confused. “What are you saying, then?”

  “That by putting this to me, offering me this choice, you have made an end to you and me.”

  Jo sits up abruptly. No! NO!

  Chapter 43

  It is a beautiful ride of twenty kilometers. Jo watches the rolling hills with rice fields and a tropical woody plantation. Occasionally, she and Dhammakarati pass through a small village with open shacks offering vegetables, candies, and petrol alongside the road. Large bunches of bananas hang from the ceiling. Pineapples are hung like Christmas decorations, watermelons stacked just so. Some of the shacks are shabby and appear to have been thrown together with whatever material had been at hand, while others are built with care and precision. Behind the shacks, colorful houses in pink, lime, and canary yellow are dotted around the landscape.

  It is so picturesque that it reinforces the deep sadness that rests like a massive slab of stone in her stomach and chest. She loathes a universe that can put her in such an impossible and painful dilemma. Over the past few weeks, she has been torn apart between the deep-seated sense of duty she feels toward Francis and his mission and her own role in balancing the injustice in the world with her instinctive, primitive need for James and the release from control only he has been able to give her.

  As so many women in history have done, Jo chose duty. And as most women, she resents that fact with a fierceness that renders her brittle on the inside and sharp on the outside.

  Dhammakarati’s face gives nothing away as he sits in the seat next to hers. He had shown up at the airport, unbidden and unwanted, but nevertheless there. She knows him well enough to realize that she can accept to have him in her sights—or she can ask him to leave, knowing all along that he will be in the shadows. He has decided to keep an eye on her, either of his own accord or because Francis has asked him.

  Francis? He is likely not well enough to care for anybody else’s wellbeing.

  At the gate to the monastery, she is frisked by two young monks. She looks questioningly at Dhammakarati, who, as the unofficial leader of the monastery, easily could have stopped it. He is afraid I am going to harm myself, she realizes. He wants to make sure that I at least am not bringing a weapon with me. She submits to the ordeal without complaint, even managing a smile for the two flustered young men.

  She and Dhammakarati walk side by side, the dignified monk and the blonde woman, along the wide, freshly raked and watered pathways. The smell of jasmine and frangipani is overpowering, intensified by recent rain. Nuns are walking around in pairs, while monks tend to walk by themselves, some with eyes lifted to the sky, others focusing on every single step they take so they do not inadvertently kill any insects. Dhammakarati greets them all with a slight inclination of the head. In some eyes, she reads a childish curiosity of what the two of them are doing strolling in the garden together.

  Jo breathes deeply and takes in the surroundings. Old, rain-beaten walls, covered by moss, surround the temple grounds. The walls seem impenetrable, protecting the enormous trees outside, as well as the peaceful life inside. Small houses are painted in the same curry color as the dirt road as if they’d risen out of the yellow mud that splashes one’s robes when the rains come thundering down.

  Abundant against the tall trees and heavy foliage of the evergreen forests, temple trees shyly offer their delicate flowers—some white and some pale pink or pale orange, sending their seductive fragrance across the land. Much more outgoing are the extroverted and flashy hibiscus, their voluptuous yellows, reds, and pinks out of place in this beautiful but austere setting. There is nothing restrained or humble about the hibiscus. They glory in their finery, mocking the monks and nuns who dress for humility.

  Dhammakarati stops, a restricting hand on her arm. A few meters in front of them, an enormous snake is lazily making its way across the pathway. She stiffens, her chest and stomach feel suddenly cold. Her eyesight is intensified. She knows with the rational part of her mind that her body is preparing for fight or flight, but that does not prevent her from winding up inside into a coil, ready to snap. The snake winds its way, inch by inch, maddeningly slowly in front of them. A strange humming noise comes from Dhammakarati, and the snake suddenly picks up the pace. Jo watches this with interest. She understood early on in their relationship that Dhammakarati has powers that can best be described as otherworldly.

  I want that, she thinks to herself, I want to be able to communicate without language. I want to be able to connect, as he can. Like the monk understands her thinking, he takes her hand and squeezes it.

  “I’ll leave you here,” the monk says. “Francis is residing in the house next to yours.” He points to a mud-colored house, identical to all other houses in this part of the grounds. “I’ll be back in a short while to make sure everything is all right.”

  She is alone with a sense of dread. What will she find? How badly is Francis hurt? She knows he is alive, but she doesn’t know how badly he has been damaged in body and soul.

  At first, she thinks it must be a mistake, that she has come to the wrong house. An old man is sitting on the porch, his legs covered in a blanket despite the oppressive heat. She knows in her heart that the man on the porch is Francis, but her mind refuses to accept it.

  “Jo!” his voice is weak and slow, but the smile on his face is familiar. She forces a smile of her own and steps up on the porch to spend the afternoon with him.

  The sun is setting when she finally takes her leave. They have discussed all current cases and agreed that Jo will take the reins until Francis recovers. They both know that Francis will never be the man he once was, that the chances of him winding up in a wheelchair are high, and that his physical mo
bility will take months to recover even partially. They also know that Schwartz will be the first item on their agenda once Francis is back at work again. What they haven’t discussed is James. He floats like a ghost between them, a dangerous topic that they both are loath to engage in.

  “I didn’t give you up, Jo.” His eyes are imploring her to believe him.

  She does. A tear rolls down her face. She takes his hand and squeezes it gently. No, my friend, you have been true to me—but the price you have paid has been damaging beyond repair.

  Epilogue

  A cruel wind is whipping the fjord into a dark, growling frenzy. The waves are topped with foam, a mist of sea vapor is drifting in over the beach, settling on the unprotected parts of her skin like tears.

  She shields her face in the hood of her anorak, trying to see where she is stepping without exposing her face to the brutal wind. One foot in front of the next. She can only see the tips of her boots, but that is enough not to stumble. Not enough, however, to prevent her from colliding forcefully with a body she recognizes.

  “James!”

  “You!”

  The sound of surprise in their voices is not due to the unexpectedness of their meeting, but due to the feelings the meeting elicits in both of them.

  He had called her earlier in the day saying, “It is time we meet.”

  She had agreed without having to think about it. It was indeed time. Seven months had passed since she had walked out of his house, seven long months where everything had tasted like ashes, and seven months of dullness and a deep sense of futility. The only thing that had kept her going was the responsibility to her team and a powerful sense of obligation to Francis. No way would she let him down. She was aware that he had not only suffered inhumanly to protect her, but he had been captured and tortured for her sins.

  Now she is here on a deserted beach in late November in the arms of a man with reddish hair and faded numbers tattooed along his forearm.

  Afterword

  If I have the gift of prophecy

  and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge,

  and if I have a faith that can move mountains,

  but do not have love,

  I am nothing.

  1 Corinthians 13:2

  Acknowledgments

  This book is dedicated to the men and women who have been deeply hurt by life and yet manages to rise about their own pain without deliberate damaging others.

  I am grateful to my clients who continually trust me with their deepest secrets and thus allowing me insight into the workings of the human soul.

  A great thank you is owed Jan Sigetty Boeje and his team, for giving the book a professional and enthusiastic treatment and bringing it out into the world.

  To my closets and dearest, who continually cheer me on in my writing.

  Thank you!

  Paul’s letter to the Corinthians

  About the Author

  Charlotte Larsen is a bestselling Scandinavian author of more than twelve books, including the bestselling crime thriller Game of Greed, and a series of management books.

  A graduate of Aarhus University and University of New South Wales, Charlotte is highly recognized as a specialist in managerial issues. Besides working on her next novel, she serves as a high-end management consultant for high performing industries such as the legal profession, finance, and defense.

  Charlotte keeps a blog on creativity, writes for a Danish broadsheet, and is generally an opinion maker in the Danish business community.

  She lives and writes in the Danish countryside and keeps a closet full of business suits in a flat in Copenhagen.

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