The Black Wolf

  The sister leads me down a set of steps into a dark basement, pushing our way past industrial kitchen equipment and boxes piled to the ceiling, until we make it to a door.

  “Go around the left side of the mansion,” she says with urgency in her voice. “You’ll see your car parked. I’m going back upstairs to buy you more time. If Mother goes into that room, you won’t get off the property.”

  I want to ask her why she’s helping me—ask her her name even—but there’s no time for that shit. Only stupid people do that in the movies.

  “Thanks. I think.”

  “It’s me who should be thanking you,” she says.

  She smiles, pushes open the door and I leave without another word. Only when I get inside my car, drive off the property without being shot at the gate, and get two miles from the mansion do I let out my breath. My fingers are white-knuckling the steering wheel; a vein throbs in the left side of my head—thumpthumpthumpthump in fast succession.

  Niklas

  “You did what?” Izabel’s eyes are blazing.

  Nora is laughing, shaking her head. “Oh wow, Niklas, what a way to piss your brother off.”

  “Nobody asked you,” I snap.

  She laughs again and looks down into a magazine.

  Sian sits quietly in a window seat with her legs drawn up, knees pressed to her chest.

  “I can’t believe you did this,” Izabel says 53642.70 ¸ exasperated. “This whole mission was for nothing—nothing except your revenge. Victor will—.”

  She stops herself.

  “He’ll what?” I challenge, feeling like I know exactly what she was going to say. “What’ll he do, Izzy, kill me? Go ahead and say it; you know you want to.”

  She swallows her words, crosses her arms and rounds her chin.

  “I was going to say that he’ll be furious.”

  I throw my head back and laugh out loud.

  “Cut the shit, Izzy—I know what you were going to say, and I know why. But don’t worry,” I go on, “he won’t kill me; not this time anyway. He’ll be pissed that I fucked up his payday, but he’ll let it go”—I point at her quickly—“I have you to thank for that.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah—you. He didn’t kill me before because you stopped him. And he won’t kill me now, because he knows you won’t forgive him for it.”

  “That’s bullshit—he’s your brother, Niklas, that’s why he won’t kill you. I have nothing to do with it.”

  “Keep telling yourself that.”

  Izabel shoots into a stand, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “Is that why you came on this mission? That’s it, isn’t it?” She steps up into my face. “Your plan all along was to go so you could screw everything up to get back at Victor—for something he shouldn’t be blamed for!”

  Trying not to let her screaming get too me, I shake my head and look away; take a deep breath. “Believe what you want, Iz; you’re going to no matter what I say.”

  “Oh, it’s pretty damn obvious to me, Niklas”—she points her finger in my face—“everything you’ve done was for yourself—selfish, childish fucking asshole! You made Nora play the slave role so you could beat her”—she jabs the tip of her index finger into my chest angrily; her eyes swirling—“and then you fucked her to shame her—”

  “Hey, nobody shames me,” Nora cuts in. “It’s all either of us wanted, Izabel.”

  We ignore her; Izabel glares at me, I glare back. I want to grab that finger of hers poking me in the chest and shove her into the seat behind her, but I can’t bring myself to do it.

  “And the only reason you made me play your girlfriend was so you could use me to get back at Victor”—her palm lays across the side of my face hard and a slap rings out; stunned by the hit, I just stand here, looking back at her, wide-eyed—“that kiss…” She can’t go on.

  Instead of retaliation for hitting me, I want to know what she was going to say, even more.

  “What about the kiss?” I ask; my cheek is stinging.

  Izabel’s hand drops to her side. She looks wounded…wounded.

  She shakes her head and readjusts her rage-filled expression, quickly covering up the one that made her vulnerable, the one that hurt me inside.

  “Then the money,” she goes on, looking away, disappointment twisting her features. “I thought you helped Sian because…” Her eyes lock on mine again, and in them is the same disgust and hatred for me that I always saw when I looked at her after we first started working together. And that shit hurts more than anything—I know now I’m the one of us who must look wounded. “The only reason you saved her life was to—you’re just an opportunist; you spent every bit of that money because you knew it would piss Victor off. And you had no intention of ever looking for Olivia Bram!”

  “That’s enough, Izzy.” A long deep breath rattles in my chest; my hands collapse into fists; I grit my teeth.

  She steps into my face again, puts her finger in my face again, boldly, accusingly, unforgivingly. “You’re the person I knew you always were, Niklas—a lowlife piece of shit who thinks of nobody but himself—”

  “I said that’s enough…” Breathe, Niklas, just fucking breathe.

  “You’re nothing; you’re just a—”

  My hands shoot up of their own accord and fall heavily on Izabel’s shoulders and I shove her into the chair; the adjustable back bouncing against the weight and coming to an abrupt stop. Izabel’s eyes are round; her hands grip the plastic arms of the seat; her head is pressed into the back as if she can’t push herself far enough away from me. With my hands still on her shoulders I lean in closer, inches from her stunned face. “You’re wrong!” I bark, putting pressure on her shoulders, shaking her. “I came on this mission because you wanted me here—I came here for you! Not for Victor; not even to take revenge on him! I came to protect you!” I point in her face, right between her eyes. “Everything that happened, with the exception of killing Francesca—.” I can’t even say it; I can’t because…I don’t know. Why do I care to defend myself to her? Fuck her! She doesn’t know me!

  Releasing her shoulder harshly, I step back and away from her. I can’t look at her.

  Fuck her…

  Izabel

  What have I done? Why do I feel so…like the worst person in the world?

  Niklas turns his back to me and grabs his briefcase from the seat across the aisle; he takes it three seats up and sits down so I can see nothing of him but the back of his head.

  I feel a guilty tear burning my eye, tracking down my cheek; I wipe it away quickly with the edge of my thumb.

  “Niklas…” I try to say, but I realize the sound of my voice dies before I can get his name out.

  “Emilio!”

  All three of our heads shoot up, turning in Sian’s direction just as she’s practically flying out of the seat by the window. Niklas jumps up, grabbing her around the waist before she can get past him and out of the plane. He grabs his gun from his pants. Nora grabs her gun from the empty seat next to her and rushes past me toward the door of the plane with Niklas.

  “Let me go! EMILIO! EMILIO!”

  I run up behind them, taking Sian into my arms, trying to hold her back, but she’s proving stronger now that the drugs have left her system.

  “Sit down,” I tell her, shoving her into a seat almost as harshly as Niklas had shoved me.

  “SIAN!” Emilio’s angry voice rings out.

  Two gun barrels are pointed at Emilio’s head when he comes rushing up the steps to get into the plane. I can just barely keep Sian restrained in the seat; sobbing, she digs her fingertips into my arm. “Please! Let me go!”

  When Emilio sees her, relief and heartache wash over his features; he can’t move toward her unless he wants to get shot, but he…oh my God, he does love her. I can see it in his eyes.

  “How’d you know where to find us?” Niklas demands.

  “I followed you when you left the mansion,” Emilio says, but he can’t take his eye
s off Sian. “Now let her go; let her go or I’ll kill you.”

  “She’s mine.” Niklas pushes the gun toward Emilio, daring him to move any closer.

  It suddenly dawns on Emilio—we aren’t who we claimed to be. He tears his gaze away from Sian long enough to see Nora pointing a gun at him, standing beside Niklas as his equal and not his slave; Emilio is confused.

  “Who are you people? I knew it! You’re a fraud. Sian, did they hurt you? Did he touch you?” His voice begins to rise; he starts to move forward anyway, wanting to get to Sian, until Niklas and Nora remind him who’s in charge, and he stops.

  “They helped me,” Sian calls out over the few rows of seats. “No one hurt me, Emilio.”

  Emilio’s eyes dart to and from Sian and Niklas; he’s in clear need of answers.

  “Step out of the plane,” Niklas warns Emilio, walking forward to force Emilio backward.

  “Sit down,” I tell Sian, and I shoot up from the seat. I look down into her tortured face, seizing her gaze, hoping to make her trust me. “Please just wait here; let me talk to them.”

  She nods, tears slipping down her cheeks.

  “Niklas,” I say, moving toward them, “let him inside.”

  “Get back, Izabel.”

  “Niklas, please—they love each other, that much is obvious to me; let him in the plane.”

  “Bullshit.” Niklas keeps his eyes and his gun trained on Emilio. “This motherfucker is sick; the whole family is demented; he fucks his sister for Christ’s sake!”

  “I’ve never fucked her!” Emilio roars. He moves back up the steps despite the guns pointed at his face. (Please don’t shoot him, Niklas, please don’t shoot him.) “Francesca and I were close all our lives, closer than any of our sisters; we were all each other had—and you’re right, our family is demented! But Francesca, as she got older, her love for me evolved into something…different. I never gave into it fully, but I did what I had to do—and I never fucked her! She needs help; she always has. But I’m not going to be the one to help her; I’ve wanted out for years.”

  “Then why are you still there?” Niklas asks, and I can tell he doesn’t believe a thing Emilio is saying—or he doesn’t want to. “Why give in to Francesca at all?”

  Emilio sighs and looks briefly at the floor.

  “Because she’s my sister,” he answers, raising his eyes, filled with shame and conflict. “For a long time I just pretended; I hoped she’d change, but she didn’t—she got worse.” He glances at Sian. “Then Sian came along and I changed, too. I vowed to her I’d help her get out, that we’d leave together.”

  “Then why haven’t you?” Nora asks.

  “I was waiting for the right time,” Emilio says. “It’s not as easy as it may seem; things had to be done…carefully.”

  “Looks like it was pretty easy for us,” Nora adds.

  “No”—Emilio shakes his head gravely; a knot moves down the center of his throat—“you don’t understand: we couldn’t just leave.”

  “Francesca was an evil bitch,” Niklas speaks up. “I give her that much, but aside from the shit she did behind closed doors, she didn’t seem like much else—her security was even a joke to me. If you were afraid she’d follow you, I doubt she would’ve gone far.”

  Niklas is right: the security at the mansion wasn’t as top-notch as Victor warned us it would be. I felt more in danger in Arthur Hamburg’s mansion in Los Angeles than I did here in Italy. It doesn’t make sense.

  “It’s not Francesca who’d find us and kill us,” Emilio says. “It’s not my sister who everyone is afraid of, believe it or not—it’s our father, Vincent Moretti. Francesca was his favorite, his Little Girl.” He looks across at Sian again and says, “We’ll be running forever, Love; my father, when he finds out from Francesca that I abandoned her, abandoned the family, he’ll hunt me down and kill us both.”

  “Then we’ll die together,” Sian vows, now standing behind me; she reaches out her hand to Emilio.

  I move to the side to let her pass.

  “Niklas, let her go,” I say, just as he begins to make a move toward her.

  Reluctantly Niklas steps to the side as Sian rushes past him and falls into the open arms of Emilio. Sobs wrack her body; he wraps her up in his embrace.

  “Our daughter,” Sian says, weeping, probing Emilio’s face with her hands, “where is she?”

  “Look,” Niklas speaks up, finally lowering his gun, “we don’t have time for this shit. Take her if that’s what you want to do, but we’re leaving.” I thought for a second Niklas might tell Emilio the news of his sister’s death, but he keeps it to himself, which is probably better.

  “I have a plan, Love.” Emilio kisses her lips, her nose, her eyes, the bruise underneath one eye. “I’m just glad you’re OK.” He looks at Niklas. “Thank you—not sure who the hell you are, and I still don’t like you, but thank you for helping Sian.”

  “I didn’t help her,” Niklas says, bitingly. “I don’t give a shit what happens to that girl.” He shoves his gun into the back of his pants, then he walks past Nora and goes back to his seat.

  You’re such a liar, Niklas…you care, you care.

  He doesn’t look at me when he sits down.

  “Can you help them?” Sian says to Emilio. “They came here looking for one of the cyprians; can you tell them how to find her?”

  Emilio looks at the three of us in turns, uncertain, reluctant, but appreciative and ultimately willing.

  “Because you helped Sian,” Emilio says and reaches into his pocket, “I’ll do what I can.” He produces a small keychain with three silver keys; dangling from it is a typical flash drive. He unclasps it from the keys and holds it out to me in the palm of his hand. “I kept up with the books,” he says. “On this drive you’ll find the photos and address of all the girls who work for my family.”

  This can’t be real! A solid, unexpected break into finding Olivia Bram! I thought for sure that hope was lost, that we’d never come close to bringing her home. I look down into Emilio’s hand, almost afraid to take the device for fear it might just vanish and all just be a dream.

  “It’s yours,” Emilio says, urging me to take it.

  “Thank you.”

  “We need to leave,” Emilio tells Sian. “We don’t have much time.”

  Just before Emilio takes Sian down the steps, she breaks her hand from his and she throws her arms around me. “Thank you, Izabel,” she says, and then she looks back at Niklas, who doesn’t bother to look at her even when she says, “You’re a good man; I’ll never forget what you did for me.”

  He doesn’t even acknowledge her.

  Emilio and Sian nod at Nora lastly, just before descending the steps and vanishing from sight.

  “Niklas?” I say.

  “What?”

  I walk over to him. “I know you think it’s a waste of time—”

  “Give me the flash drive,” he says, reaches out and takes it from my hand.

  The three of us look through the profiles of the girls on the drive for twenty minutes, over a hundred of them, until finally a miracle happens and we see Olivia Bram’s face staring back at us, same birthmark underneath her left eye the size and shape of an almond sliver; brown hair and tired brown eyes—life has taken a toll on her, but she’s alive.

  I can’t believe she’s alive…

  “Maybe we can finish this mission with something to show for it,” Nora says. “Bringing his daughter back might be enough to satisfy him; Victor can tell the client that Francesca Moretti was killed in self-defense, that it couldn’t be avoided.”

  “We’ll figure all that out later,” I say. “Let’s just find Olivia Bram and go from there.” I turn to Niklas, who still won’t look at me, and it crushes me but I deserve it.

  “Niklas?” I say carefully, hoping to spark a glance at least. “Nora and I can go, if you want.”

  He closes the laptop and stands.

  “I’m ready when you are,” he says. “Nor
a, stay here; if anybody comes looking for us, give me a heads-up. I don’t want to walk into any ambushes when we come back.”

  “What about me?” Nora asks, grinning.

  “You can handle yourself,” he says. “I hope you don’t expect me to hold your fucking hand now because we slept together.”

  Nora laughs. How can she not be offended? I’d punch him in the face for a remark like that.

  “Honey,” she says, smirking, batting her eyes, “you weren’t that good.”

  “I wasn’t?” Niklas is being facetious—he knows she’s full of shit—I know she’s full of shit. “So then when I get back, you won’t mind I try again.”

  Nora shrugs. “Sure, I’ll let you try again.”

  “Wait a damn minute,” I say, putting up my hand. “Nobody’s fucking on this plane with me on it.” I grab Pearl and then my gun and shove past them toward the exit. “I’m surrounded by crazy people.”

  Niklas meets me in the rental car not even a full minute later; he jumps in the driver’s seat, starts the engine. Before he puts the car in gear, he looks over at me. I think he’s going to say something about our argument, about me being the biggest bitch on the planet—I want him to—but the hope fizzles out of me when he says instead, “I’m going to make this clear—if Olivia Bram isn’t there, we can’t wait for her, and we can’t stay here another night; I know you want to save her but—”

  “But you’re right,” I cut in. “When they find Francesca, it won’t be long before they find us. I know we have to get out of here, and soon—we probably shouldn’t even be going for her now. Do you think he’s a mob boss or something; Vincent Moretti?”

  Niklas puts the car in drive and we speed away.

  “Whatever or whoever he is,” he says, keeping his eyes on the road, “he’s going to be pissed, and he’s going to be looking for all three of us. There were cameras in every room of that mansion—I’m sure I’m on camera…killing Francesca, among other things.”