Judas by Astrid Holleeder

Author:Astrid Holleeder
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2018-08-13T16:00:00+00:00

“How did it go?” Sonja, who’d been waiting for me at home, asked. “Was it a rat?”

“No, she wasn’t a rat. She’s onto him,” I said.

“Now what?” Sonja asked.

“I don’t know if this will work for us.”

“Why not?”

“It’s all about phases. First they want to talk, then they want a written statement. After that, they’ll decide if it will be useful to them and if they want to continue with us.”

“Oh, I won’t do that. Not when he’s still walking around free. It’s way too dangerous, As.”

“They say we can trust them.”

“Like hell we can. And what about his rats? I won’t do it. I’m not writing anything down. It’s just too risky. Do you trust ’em?”

“I don’t trust anyone, but I think these three women are okay. I don’t think they’ll screw us on purpose. I’m just worried about the top. That scares me more. What if he’s got his rat in there? Then these three have no authority, they’ll just have to do as the boss tells them. I really don’t know yet. But if I go through with it, I won’t do it by myself, Box. So what are you going to do?”

She was quiet for a minute, then spoke.

“It’s tough, but I can’t say if it’s the right thing to do. Right now, we’re all still alive. It’s not much of a life, but at least we are alive. If we testify, we probably won’t be, and is it fair to do that to our children? How are these kids supposed to make it without us? Who’ll protect them from him? That’s what’s bugging me. I really don’t understand why he hasn’t been shot yet. Everyone around him drops like flies except him. And he’s got so many enemies.”

“Then you’re just sitting around waiting for someone else to do something. That’s easy, leaving it to others. So far it hasn’t gotten us anywhere. We’re dependent on fate. I’d like to take my fate into my own hands, and I don’t care what happens.”

I was so fed up. All those decades, we had to be silent about everything we knew. All those years, he’d burdened us with his horrible information, stuff he had done. All those years, he used everything we held dear to put pressure on us. He destroyed the things we loved. Used us to serve his own best interests while undermining ours in every possible way.

We’d become his security system, his place to safeguard his secrets. He owned us. He had crowned himself king of the family, and we were his subjects. He had us living in constant fear of saying something wrong, continuously threatened against talking to the police.

I couldn’t keep on living under this regime. It was eating away at me. I needed to break free.

I knew for certain that if I told what I knew, it would be clear instantly that my statements should be highly confidential. I had to gamble, had to believe that they wouldn’t be shared with others or Wim himself—at least not by the three women.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.