The Black Wolf

  “She’s right,” Olivia says, smirking; she turns the knob and opens the door. “You should be on your way; go play the hero to someone who wants to be saved. I don’t. I enjoy my life. And I’ll slit my wrists the right way before I let anybody ever take me away from my life ever again.”

  I glance at her wrist, the one holding the door open, and see that she’s no stranger to attempted suicide: one scar stretches horizontally from one side to the other, and all I can think about is how these people went to the trouble to save her life just so they could make money off of her. She must’ve done it long before she was placed into service—maybe the scar was what got her thrown into service. How long did it take her to accept what her life had become, and to stop wanting to end it? How long was it before her strength left her and she gave herself over fully to these people, forgetting who she was? And then I imagine Izabel…no, I imagine Sarai, imprisoned in Mexico for most of her young life. But she’s still here. She fought and she won—she truly is the strongest person I’ve ever known.

  Izabel and I step out into the hall.

  “Don’t tell my dad that you found me,” Olivia says. “If he comes here, he’ll only end up getting himself killed. And besides, I don’t want to see him. I never want to see him again. That life is over.” And then she shuts the door in our faces; the metal lock on the other side slides back into place.

  I don’t say anything on the drive back to the plane, but my silence isn’t only because we couldn’t help Olivia Bram. All kinds of shit is going through my head, from the few people I care about, to the many I don’t. And even on the plane, soaring over the ocean, I keep to myself. Nora asks me once about that ‘trying again’ suggestion, but I brush her off and she doesn’t seem to care. Izabel wants to talk to me, but she’s afraid to say anything. And it’s better that way. I can’t talk to her right now; least of all people Izzy.

  When I set out on this mission, I thought maybe I could find it in me to somehow forgive my brother. I wanted to. Because he’s the only thing I have in the world. But I just couldn’t do it. And I know I never will—some things just can’t be forgiven. Will he kill me for what I’ve done? Nah. It’s not like I ratted him out to outsiders—I just kicked over his fucking sandcastle is all. He’ll build a new one. And I might just kick that one over too.

  Izabel

  Home has never felt so good; gone just a few days, it felt more like weeks and if I never see that place again, I won’t complain.

  James Woodard is the first person I see when the three of us—including Niklas, which makes me nervous—walk into the building at our Boston headquarters. He looks better than when I saw him last, not as sickly.

  “Everything all right?” I ask.

  He steps up to me with a laptop tucked underneath his arm. “Much better,” he answers. “Thought I was having a heart attack shortly after you left; rushed to the hospital and found out I’m just stressed out.” He laughs. “The doctor asked me what I did for a living and I said ‘I work for an underground assassination organization; I’m their information guy’, and the doctor laughed and said, ‘Well my suggestion is that you tell your boss to give you a few days off or he’s gonna kill you too.’”

  I chuckle.

  “Victor’s upstairs in his office,” he tells me. “He’s waiting for you.”

  I swallow hard, steady my breath, try to calm my nerves. James and I look at Niklas at the same time, probably both thinking the same thing: Is one of them going to kill the other? So much for steady breath and calm nerves.

  “What happened to your hair?” James says.

  I touch my hair and pose as if showing it off. “I got a haircut; don’t you like it?” I just smile.

  Niklas pushes past us and heads straight for the elevator; Nora and I follow.

  “Niklas, please don’t do anything you’ll regret,” I plead as the elevator takes us up.

  “It’s probably best if you leave me alone with my brother.”

  “No, it’s not,” I say. “I’m going in there with you.”

  “Afraid he’s going to kill me?” Niklas smirks.

  Yes…a small part of me is afraid, but I don’t know why.

  “No,” I say, because the larger part believes he won’t. “I just want to be there.”

  When we step off the elevator, the hallway feels shorter than usual; in no time at all we’re coming upon the meeting room double doors and my heart is pounding violently against my ribs. Niklas wastes no time, pushes one door open and goes right in, either unafraid of Victor’s retribution, or fully prepared to counter it—I think it’s both.

  Niklas is the only person Victor acknowledges when we enter the room. He stands from the elongated meeting table, leaves his hands on the top of it, his back arched.

  “Niklas.” Victor nods.

  “Victor.” Niklas nods.

  The tension in the room is already suffocating me.

  “Izabel, Nora, I need you to step outside.” Victor’s voice is calm, but it feels ominous. He still doesn’t look at either one of us.

  Great. I knew this was going to happen.

  “Victor—”

  “Now.”

  Finally his eyes meet mine from across the long table, and in them is something I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. A chill slithers up the back of my neck. No more words are needed; Nora and I turn on our heels and leave immediately.

  Niklas

  Victor’s hands slide away from the table as he straightens his back and stands upright. For a long time he doesn’t say anything; and for a long time neither do I. Oh, I have plenty to say to my brother—I want to punch him in the face—but he’s going to be the one to start, the one who sets the tone. Because I know if left up to me, only one of us will walk out of this room alive. And since I love my brother too much to ever kill him, it’ll probably be Victor.

  He sits back down at the head of the table.

  I sit on the table and light up a cigarette. He hates it when I smoke inside. Do I give a fuck?

  “I suspected when you agreed to go on this mission,” he begins, “that you had every intention in wrecking it; it is the only reason you went.”

  I smirk. Take a drag. Nod. Listen. Let him get it all out. Smirk some more.

  “But I wanted to give you a chance,” he says. “I had hoped you would come to your senses. Instead, you managed to not only kill the target and cost us three million dollars, but you used the client’s money on a girl who was not even his daughter, and since there clearly is no Olivia Bram to show for it, that money has to be replaced by me.” He rests his back against the seat and sighs lightly. “I have to say, Brother, I expected more from you, and all I got was a tantrum.”

  Smirk. Take a drag. Nod. Listen.

  “Is that the way things are going to be between us?” he asks.

  “Things changed between us….Brother, when I found out that you’re not who I thought you were.”

  “Believe what you want about what happened that night,” he says. “But I did not know you were in love with Claire—”

  “Don’t you say her name!” I roar, pointing two fingers at him, the cigarette wedged between them. I come off the table and move forward. “Don’t you ever say her name to me again.”

  “Sit down, Niklas.” His voice is calm.

  Mine is anything but. “You killed her; you killed her and you knew I loved her”—I motion my hands—“I don’t care what your excuse is, Victor; I don’t care what you want me to believe, or want Izabel to believe, but you should know me better; you insult my intelligence by expecting me to believe you didn’t know—you’re trained to know!”

  “I said sit down.”

  I throw my cigarette on the floor and crush it underneath my boot. But I don’t relent; I don’t sit down. I can’t. I won’t.

  “But you’re good at that,” I say, icily. “You’re real good at making people believe you’re someone you’re not—Izabel will be the next one to die because of you—”
/>
  Black spots spring before my eyes, accompanied by a white-hot flash and the brutal sting of Victor’s knuckles underneath my eye. I feel my body falling backward; the back of my legs hitting the chair as I start to go down. But I snap back quickly and grab the chair instead, keeping on my feet, and I whirl around at him, catching him under the jaw with my fist. We fight hard, exchanging blow after blow, taking out our buried rages on one another. He buries his fist in my gut, knocking the wind out of me; I kick him in the chest, sending him across the table; he clocks me in the face with his elbow; I grab him from behind, locking his throat beneath my arm; he manages somehow to toss my body over his head and slam my back against the table; I manage somehow to get out from underneath him after two blows to the face and hit him so hard he stumbles back against the wall. One minute. Two. It feels like forever the fight goes on. And then he has me in a chokehold, more secured than the one I had him in moments ago. “Go ahead! Fucking kill me!” I say, choking; his arm tight across my windpipe. “I’m not gonna…live in your shadow…anymore, Brother”—he puts more pressure on my throat—“I’m not gonna…be what you expect me to be…I know who I am now…and…as long as I live, I’ll be that person. So kill me now because…that person is not, never has been, and never fucking will be…Victor Faust!”

  He releases me violently and air rushes into my lungs; I stumble backward, stopped by the table; gasping, holding my throat. Pulling back my fist faster than he can react, I send it soaring against the side of his face, knocking his head back on his neck. When it comes back down, blood is dripping from one corner of his mouth; he wipes it away with his hand.

  But he doesn’t retaliate. He just looks at me—we look at each other, both of us knowing that this fight is over, that neither of us have won, but the battle between us will rage on.

  “Aside from Claire,” I speak up, calmly, “do you want to know what hurts me the most?”

  He doesn’t answer, but I know he wants to know, and I’m sure as hell gonna tell him.

  “That you really thought I went on that mission to destroy you.” I shake my head; my heart is heavy. “I mean sure the thought crossed my mind, but I never thought I’d actually do it; it was never a real intention. I went, Victor”—my words are becoming ice—“because I didn’t feel right about Izabel being there. And you know what?” I step toward him—he stands his ground—and I look him in the eyes. I start to say one thing, about Izabel, but decide against it and say another. “As far as killing Francesca Moretti, yeah, there at the end I admit—and I don’t regret it—that I killed her because I wanted to; I did it for the sole purpose of making life more difficult for you.”

  I spit blood on the floor and walk away from him.

  “But it wasn’t until that moment,” I say, looking back, “not any time before it, that I did anything out of spite.”

  I reach into my pants pocket to retrieve the flash drive given to us by Emilio. I toss it to Victor and he catches it.

  “Your client,” I say, “can find his daughter easily. We went back for the girl at the last minute and tried to bring her home, but she…in Izabel’s words, was already too broken. Not my problem.” I round my chin and then add, “I’ll pay the client back the money owed, myself. I have plenty of money, and I don’t really give a shit about any of it. I have more important things to care about.”

  I start to leave the room when Victor’s voice stops me.

  “I am sorry about Claire.”

  Every muscle in my body tenses hearing him say her name; not because I want to kill him for it, but because I feel like his apology is sincere.

  I shut my eyes softly; my back to my brother.

  I say nothing, push open the door and leave.

  Izabel and Nora are standing in the hallway; I know they heard everything; the looks on their faces: Izabel is heartbroken; Nora doesn’t have much of a heart to break, but even she seems to feel some kind of remorse.

  “Where are you going?” Izabel calls out after me.

  “To the bar,” I answer.

  She runs up behind me, fitting her hand partway around my wrist, stopping me. I stop but I don’t look at her.

  “I…I wanted to tell you on the plane that…I didn’t mean what I said, that you were a selfish opportunist—Niklas, I know you saved Sian because you didn’t want to see her die. And I’m sorry.”

  I start to walk away.

  “Are you going to disappear again?” she asks.

  “If you or my brother needs me you know where to find me.”

  She nods, thanking me with her eyes, and then she lets me go.

  Izabel

  Devastated doesn’t even begin to cover how I feel about the news of Dorian.

  “Izabel, I am sorry.” He says, standing behind his chair at the head of the table. “His betrayal ran too deep; I could not let it go.”

  “Because you were afraid of what everyone else might think?” I accuse. “Make an example of him so no one will even think of opposing you? That’s very tyrant, Victor.” I regret my words immediately after saying them.

  I turn to face him, dropping my crossed arms to my sides, letting the anger deflate out of me. “I’m angry; I won’t tell you that I’m not, or pretend that it doesn’t hurt, but…” I sigh heavily, “…I know you had to do it; it’s just hard for me to accept it as easily as you can. Or Nora. Or Fredrik. I guess I just have a long way to go before I’m like you.”

  Victor walks over to me; he touches my botched hair in both of his hands—he was a little surprised when he first saw it, but he never said a word about it. “Izabel,” he says softly, “I have come to realize that being exactly like me—or Nora, or Fredrik—is the last thing I want for you.”

  I start to argue, to question what that means exactly, but he stops me.

  “Like my brother,” he says, “you are your own person; like Fredrik and Nora and even James Woodard. I do not want you to spend the rest of your life trying to be somebody else—I just want you to be you, use your own strengths and skills to pave your way in this life; it has worked well for you so far.” His hands find my face and he cups my cheeks; I sense that what he’s about to say is painful for him. “And the last thing that I want…is for you to be like me.”

  What is he saying? Where is this coming from?

  “Victor, what does that mean?”

  He presses his lips to my forehead. Then he looks into my eyes. “It simply means that you are better at being human than any of us, that you have not fully given your life over to this life, and I do not think you ever should—just hear me out. Please.”

  My mouth closes.

  “I have few regrets in life,” he says, “and one of them—the one that will always haunt me—is allowing my brother to follow me into a life that he never wanted. I knew when we were just boys that Niklas wanted freedom; he has always wanted to be his own person, play by his own rules, live by his own standards, and not in the shoes or the shadow or beneath the gavel or the whip of anyone else. But he gave all that up to stay by my side, because my brother’s love for me knew no bounds. I loved him the same, but I was blinded by my own wants and needs, and by the time I realized my mistakes, it was too late. He was what he was, became what he became, and then I found myself fighting to keep him alive: killing our father; lying to The Order about his abilities, and his…emotional faults. I did what I had to do to protect him, from others and from himself.” He pauses, looks at the floor, then back into my eyes. “And when I look at you, I see Niklas as that boy all over again, and I will not let you follow me into misery the way I let my brother. When I look at you I see someone I care for and love so deeply that I would do anything—anything, Izabel—to protect, not just your physical life, but your humanity and your freedom to choose your life.”

  “But I choose you,” I cut in, making myself perfectly clear. “And I choose this life, Victor. And I’m not doing any of this because of you. It’s what I want.”

  “I know,” he says; his hand
s slide from my cheeks to my shoulders, down the length of my arms. “I no longer question or doubt your reasons anymore—I know this is your choice, and it does make me feel better about letting you go through with it. But there is one part of you, Izabel, that you are trying so hard to change, and I will not let you change it.”

  “What am I trying to change?”

  “Your humanity,” he says. “You feel like you must be as calculating and insensitive as Kessler; you want to be able to stomach torture, to be able to face Gustavsson’s demons as if they were your own; and you want to be as disciplined as I am, even if it means having to set aside your compassion and your ethics the way I do without guilt. You want to be all of these things because you think they will make you a better operative”—he places his hand on my heart—“but deep down you know it is wrong; you are beginning to fight an internal war, your mind wanting one thing, but your heart wanting another…and to be human means to always go with your heart. The moment you betray your heart is the moment you lose everything.”

  My gaze finds the wall. I don’t know what to say—that he’s right? I feel like I’m screaming inside of my head and my face is doing too good a job concealing it. I want Victor to be wrong.

  “You did well on the mission,” he says, bringing me out of my thoughts. “You have proven you can handle whatever is thrown at you. I was concerned. I will not lie to you; I did not think you would be able to get through it. Tell me,” he says, “what would you have done if Niklas did not step in and save that girl from being killed in front of you?”

  “I…don’t know,” I say, “but I wouldn’t have let them kill her. I feel like…I would’ve thought of something—a distraction, maybe—to try and stop it. I wouldn’t have blown our cover, but I know I would’ve thought of something if Niklas hadn’t.”

  “You would have put yourself at risk to save her life.”