The Black Wolf

  “The client believes Moretti is the one,” Victor says. “And I’ve seen his evidence, everything that led him to Moretti, and I admit it looks promising. But whether he is right or wrong, Moretti is still a job—a three million dollar job—and it is ours to carry out. As far as the one responsible for her abduction, that trail ran cold after three years, so the client began focusing on the buyer instead.”

  I watch Olivia Bram’s smiling face as she’s slid back across the table toward Victor. She was once me, I think to myself, getting lost in her bright, happy brown eyes. This photo could just as easily be of me. Flashes of the girls I shared a horrific past with in the compound move through my mind: Cordelia, Carmen, Marisol…Lydia. I remember Lydia the most; she was my closest friend, like a sister to me; she was murdered in front of my eyes—she died in my arms.

  “Izabel?”

  Snapping out of my thoughts, I look up at Victor.

  “Is something wrong?” he asks suspiciously, knowing.

  I shake my head slowly, still trying to shake Lydia’s face from my mind, her dead eyes staring back at me from my memory. “So, Francesca Moretti,” I speak up to further it along, “is basically like the wealthy men who did business with Javier, those I saw when Javier would take me to parties.”

  “Basically,” Victor confirms, “yes, she is the same.”

  I grit my teeth.

  “You cannot kill Moretti,” I hear Victor say, but his voice sounds far off because I’m in such deep thought. “Under no circumstances can you allow your emotions, your anger, or your need for vengeance, to get in the way of this mission. If Moretti is not taken to the drop-off location where she can be transported to the client, there will be no payday and the entire mission will be a wasted effort—she cannot be killed.”

  I feel Nora’s eyes on me, but I don’t look at her.

  “Is that why you told me the personal story about the client and his daughter?” I ask, already knowing that I’m right about this. “I remember what you told me on the plane to L.A. when you took me on my first mission to kill Arthur Hamburg’s wife locked in that secret room: ‘The less you know about their personal lives, the less of a risk there is for you to become emotionally involved’—did you tell me about Olivia Bram and her mother’s suicide and her father’s vendetta, because you want to see if I can get through this mission without being clouded by my emotions?”

  Victor nods.

  “The best way to learn to overcome is to face your weakness head-on,” he says, and then his gaze hooks mine. He leans forward a little in his chair and with silent determination and devotion he adds, “Izabel, you becoming a great operative is not the only reason I want you to overcome your weaknesses—I also want you to overcome them so they cannot haunt you anymore.”

  His words fill my heart with warmth, but still I’m incapable of smiling. I just nod, slow and subtle, and I know that he understands how much I appreciate his concern for me. If anything, it has only intensified my need to prove myself, to myself.

  I can do this.

  Then something suddenly occurs to me.

  “I guess it’s obvious how much I despise people like Francesca Moretti, people like Javier and Izel and anyone who had anything to do with them—I can’t hide it, can I?”

  Victor never answers my question, but he doesn’t need to.

  “Think of this mission as preparation for Mexico,” Nora finally comments. “You may not be on the inside with me when we get there, but I imagine it’ll still be quite the emotional rape just being there in Mexico where the worst things that ever happened to you occurred.” Her eyes hold mine, and for a brief moment I sense something pass between us—a secret that only she and I share about the child I had with Javier.

  I look away from her and back at Victor.

  But Nora’s right: being in that place is an emotional rape—there’s no other way of putting it. When I went back to Mexico with Victor, Dorian, Niklas and Fredrik, after Victor promised me he would help me have my revenge and we killed all of those men, I was a different person. I was a rage-filled killer, controlled by vengeance. When I slid my blade across the throats of Javier’s brothers, Diego and Luis, I did so with a sick mind. I enjoyed it; I all but got off on the sticky, warm blood as it flowed through my fingers; I smiled—I enjoyed it. That’s not being in control of my vengeance, that’s being controlled by it.

  I can’t be that person on this mission to Italy—I won’t.

  “You may not get to kill Moretti yourself,” Victor adds, knowing I’d love to, “but I can assure you, she will be dead before you leave there.”

  “I will do whatever I have to, Victor”—I look at them both, but then only at Victor—“even if it’s something I don’t want to do, I’ll do it. Whatever it takes.”

  Nora nods at me when my eyes pass over hers.

  “Good,” he says. “Because there may come a time when you have to do something you’d never do otherwise—nothing about this profession is easy.”

  The table gets quiet. I ponder: the mission to Italy, Mexico; I wonder how this meeting turned out to be mostly about me and my ‘weakness’, but then I brush it all aside and get back to what’s important.

  “OK, so what are we supposed to do when we get to Italy, exactly?” I ask. “Are we pretending to be buyers, or what?”

  Victor pauses and says, “No, actually you will be undercover as another man’s property.”

  All the color drains from my face.

  Izabel

  “Victor, wait a second,” I speak up after the stun wears off. “If this woman is just a madam and we’re going to some kind of high-class…brothel, or whatever you want to call it, then why do we need to go as some man’s property? Why can’t we just go as buyers?”

  “Because Francesca Moretti hates women,” Victor answers. “And it is rumored that she’s killed women she felt threatened her beauty.”

  I laugh. “Mirror, mirror on the wall. Seriously?” I laugh again, shaking my head.

  But Victor doesn’t find the humor in it.

  Instead he says, “And because the brothel isn’t the only business that Moretti runs. She’s also a seller in the sex slave trade.”

  My blood is on fire, but I keep it to myself.

  “She will not do business with either of you,” he goes on. “If you see any women there they will either be slaves, cyprians, members of her family, or I can almost guarantee you that if they are buyers, they will be much older and far less beautiful than Moretti herself.”

  Victor stands and straightens his suit jacket. He begins to pace with his hands clasped together on his backside. He doesn’t appear at all nervous—I’m not sure if Victor is capable of being nervous—but he seems…uncertain, perhaps?

  Nora and I watch him walk back and forth behind his chair for a few seconds until he comes to a stop. His hands break apart and slide down casually into the pockets of his suit pants.

  “You will need Niklas for this mission,” he announces. “You will have to convince him to join you in Italy.”

  My and Nora’s eyes draw together like two magnets across the table from one another. She’s clearly as stunned as I am.

  “So, I take it,” Nora says, turning her attention to Victor, “that this other man whose property we’re to be on this mission, is Niklas?”

  “Yes,” Victor says.

  I frown just thinking about being Niklas’s ‘property’. But it is what it is, and a job is a job, and I’ll do what I have to.

  “Um, Victor,” I say, “we don’t even know where he is.”

  “I’ve known where he is since last Thursday,” he says.

  Surprised, and a little bitter about not being told this news sooner, I just stare at him.

  “He has been sleeping in an upstairs apartment,” Victor says, “on Gaither Street just ten minutes from this building. Every night since last Thursday, he has spent in the bar on the bottom floor beneath his room.”

  “Great,” Nora says eagerl
y, as if she doesn’t care about not being told sooner, “then that makes it easier. We’ll go there tonight and bring him back.”

  “It’s not gonna be that simple,” I speak up, knowing Niklas a lot better than she does. “I doubt Niklas is going to be enthusiastic about doing a job, or any favors, for Victor.”

  “Izabel is right,” Victor tells Nora. “My brother has not forgiven me for what I did, and he may never forgive me.”

  Nora rests her back against the chair and then pushes her blond hair away from one shoulder. She crosses her arms and tilts her head to one side, preparing to make a point, it appears.

  “Well then, if that’s the case,” she says, “then why not just send someone in Niklas’s place? Why waste time with Niklas when you can just send someone else?”

  “Niklas won’t agree to it, Victor,” I add.

  Victor looks at both of us in turns and then says, “If you tell Niklas the details of this mission, and that you”—he looks right at me—“will be going, he will agree to it.”

  I feel the spot between my eyes stiffen.

  Nora looks almost as confused as I know I do.

  Victor begins to pace again, very slowly, his hands still buried in his pockets.

  “My brother is the only man I trust to go on this mission with you,” he says. “If you cannot convince him to go, I will be sending a woman from the First Division to go in your stead.”

  My mouth opens slightly in shock and argument.

  “What? Why?”

  His eyes lock on mine, full of knowledge and resolve and power. “Because as much as my brother despises me right now,” he says, “he is still loyal to me and he will always be loyal to me. He, more than anyone, knows my feelings for you Izabel, and he will die protecting you.” Finally he looks away from me, taking the gravity of his statement with him, which leaves me with so many unanswered questions, so many feelings of uncertainty: What does Victor expect to happen to me on this mission that he only trusts Niklas to be at my side? Why in the hell would Victor think that Niklas would actually die to protect me, the only person who has ever managed to stand between them as brothers (well, aside from Claire, anyway)? What makes Victor so sure that Niklas won’t just kill me, like Victor killed Claire, and make things even between them? And why does that knowing look on Nora’s face give me the feeling that she knows the answers to every single one of my questions already? Ugh! I hate her sometimes!

  “And the other reason I want Niklas on this mission,” Victor goes on, “is because the nature of the mission requires someone like him. Knowing my brother, he is the best operative in my Order for the job.”

  “Then what are we waiting for?” Nora speaks up impatiently. “What time do we leave for this bar?”

  I still haven’t managed to get past the questions swirling around in my head.

  “Niklas should be at the bar by nine o’clock tonight,” Victor answers.

  He slides both hands from his pockets and leans over, pressing them against the table; I can see something in his right hand, pressed between his curled fingers: small, plastic, black.

  “You leave for Italy in the morning,” he says and then slides a tiny flash drive across the table to Nora. “Everything the three of you will need to know about the mission is here. The password to access the files I will give to Izabel tonight.” He looks right me. “It would be wise not to go to that bar tonight with any hopes of mending this thing between my brother and me; it is a waste of time at this point; focus only on the mission.”

  Even though I get the distinct—and unwelcome—feeling that Victor thinks I might waste what little time we have by trying to talk some sense into Niklas where he and Victor are concerned, I say nothing about my suspicion and just nod in acknowledgment. The truth is, I probably would have if he hadn’t brought it up.

  Nora stands up in her tall, beautiful, deadly glory and sashays her hips down the length of the table toward the exit doors.

  “I’m excited,” she says, her expression bright and dark at the same time, her white teeth stark between the deep crimson of her lips. “And I don’t think I’ve ever played the submissive before—well once, but it was short-lived.”

  I shake my head and glance at Victor momentarily.

  “Looks like you might get to sleep with him, after all,” I say, rolling my eyes.

  Victor raises a brow, but says nothing—he doesn’t care about things like that, but surely, somewhere inside that methodical head of his, he finds it amusing.

  Nora places her full palm on the door.

  “Oh, Izabel,” she says dramatically, “that’s not what excites me.”

  “Oh?” Now I’m the one raising a brow.

  Her crimson smile lengthens and she says, “It’s just been a really long time since I’ve been on a serious mission. I was getting bored with these insignificant woman-scorned revenge hits and monotonous stakeouts—this mission in Italy, this…Francesca Moretti, is like candy to me.”

  She looks at Victor as if to say “Are we done here? Because I’m anxious to get started.”

  Victor nods, and with the gesture of one hand he waves her out. “That will be all,” he says.

  Nora pushes open the door, the room flooding with more light from the fluorescents in the ceiling out in the hall, and she disappears from sight.

  I turn to Victor, the extra light in the room dimming as the door slowly closes.

  “What makes you think your brother’s loyalty to you will always be unwavering, Victor?”

  I stand up to meet his gaze, waiting for his answer.

  “Because he is Niklas,” he says, “and I know no other man with more loyalty and heart, than my brother.”

  It was the last thing I expected to hear. So much so that I’m dumbfounded by such simple, yet deeply profound words.

  “Are we…”—I’m confused by my own question—“…Victor, are we talking about the same person here?”

  Heart? Niklas Fleischer? The rage-filled lunatic who shot me and wanted to kill me? A man who is unmatched in hatred and coldness and disdain?

  Heart? Really?

  The only heart I’ve ever seen in that man is one disfigured by decay.

  Victor leans in and touches his warm lips to the corner of my mouth. Then the other side.

  “You should start getting ready,” he says and then pulls away, leaving only the taste of him on my lips. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  He leaves me standing here; the sound of his dress shoes echoing down the hall is cut off when the door finally closes behind him.

  This is going to be interesting.

  Niklas

  The bartender pours me another shot and I drink it down, setting the glass on the bar afterward. My cigarette burns in the ashtray next to me, a dozen more all around me at tables, filling the place with smoke. A football game runs on two televisions set in the walls, one behind the bar. Rock music plays low from the speakers in the ceiling, but no one in this place is dancing or shouting over the music in a drunken stupor. This isn’t that kind of bar. Things here have been pretty relaxed in the weeks I’ve been coming here; regulars mostly: men having a drink and playing a game of pool to get away from home; women—like my temporary fuck-buddy, Jackie—who have nothing much better to do with their time than to hang out with people as pathetic as they are. Even me—I admit that right now I’m pretty fucking pathetic, but we’re all entitled to it every once in a while. But I haven’t been coming here to drown my sorrows in whiskey. I just like the atmosphere, the normal everyday faces, the casual conversations about petty bullshit that’s sometimes interesting to me considering most of my life consists of talking about how I killed someone, who I killed, who I need to kill next, what I’m going to kill them with; how much money I’m going to make when the job is done.

  I spend too much of my time with a small group of people who each have their own set of fucked up issues that the normal people in this bar could never fathom, much less match. But whether I ever go bac
k there again, to our Order, is still up in the air. I’m afraid of what I might do if I see my brother again—I only left because I wanted to kill him.

  “Another shot?” Jay, the bartender asks; he stands in front of me behind the bar with the whiskey bottle ready to pour.

  “Sure,” I say, sliding the shot glass toward him and he pours the drink.

  Behind me, I hear the bell above the door ring as someone walks in, but I don’t look back. Jay normally doesn’t either—usually just a quick glance—but I notice his dark eyes veer off in that direction, full of interest and intrigue, a sure sign that whoever just walked in isn’t a regular, and probably has a nice pair of tits.

  A little more interested now because of the possibility of a nice pair of tits, I casually wedge my cigarette between my fingers and take a quick drag before turning at an angle to see behind me.

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I say under my breath.

  I turn back around, facing Jay and the glowing television and the shelves of glasses and whiskey bottles. Raising the glass to my lips, I swig down the shot, just as Izabel, dressed like she should be in the kind of bar with loud music and dancing and drunken shouting, steps up beside me. Nora—I’ve got too much shit on my mind to even begin to understand what’s she’s doing here, what she’s still doing alive—sits down on the empty bar stool on my other side. Looks like a lot has happened in my short absence, a lot of really unexpected shit—hell, maybe Victor’s dead and James Woodard is in charge now; maybe Izabel is sleeping with Fredrik—at this point it seems like anything is possible.

  “What do you want, Izzy?”

  I don’t look at either of them; I puff on my cigarette, staring at the television. Jay asks them if they’d like something to drink, but they decline and he leaves us to our privacy.

  “We need you for a job,” Izzy says, hopping onto the bar stool on my left, her tall black boots propped on the metal spindle.

  I laugh lightly, shaking my head, and then gesture at Jay. He comes over and refills my glass.