“You lie, Emilio!” Francesca lashes out.
“I’m telling you the truth!”
Then they start arguing in Italian, screaming at one another; veins visible in Emilio’s head; Francesca’s eyes wide and feral; the baby wails in her loosening arms. And then Emilio reaches in and takes the baby from her, holding it carefully so as not to crush or drop the little girl, while at the same time he and Francesca continue to scream into one another’s faces in a language I don’t understand. But just like before, when Francesca and Valentina were talking, it doesn’t take much to get a general idea of what they’re saying: Francesca refuses to relent in her accusation of Emilio and Sian having slept together, and that the baby is his. Emilio continues to tell her she’s paranoid, maybe he’s even telling her she’s crazy, I could never really know, but I’m shocked at the display, seeing a once very devoted brother who wouldn’t dare do anything to anger his sister, now in her face as if he’s her equal. And Francesca doesn’t kill him for it. She just continues to rage at him, to rage with him.
“Let me take the child,” Valentina speaks up from behind.
She steps up to Emilio.
He stops screaming, looking down at the baby with conflicted eyes.
Then he places the baby in Valentina’s arms.
“Sell the goddamned kid,” he snaps. “It’s not mine; I don’t fucking care what you do with it.”
“I intend to sell it,” Francesca says, voice booming.
“No! No! Don’t take her! Let me go with her!” Sian cries.
Francesca pushes her way past her brother and storms over to the bed, wrenching both hands in Sian’s hair and dragging her off the bed and onto the hard floor; she lands with a thud! Then Sian is dragged across the floor by her hair, kicking violently, crying out curses and words of plea at the same time. “You evil fucking bitch! No-No Please…I’m begging you, Madam!” She can’t decide which face to wear—the obedient or the retaliatory one—knowing that neither one will help her.
Next to me, Niklas hasn’t moved. He has stood there, as calmly as I think I’ve ever seen him, and watched this scene unfold with little more than an interest. At one point I saw him smile darkly, one corner of his mouth had lifted at a precise moment when Francesca looked at him, and it’s unnerving how believable it was to me. That’s why Francesca brought us here, why she wanted Niklas to see this: his earlier act had convinced her that they are just alike, and now she wants to show him up, or perhaps show off for him.
Francesca, with Sian’s hair still wrenched in one hand, makes a gesture with the other at Valentina now standing at the foot of the bed holding the baby. “Give it to me,” she tells her, and I think she’s talking about the child until I see a flash of silver as Valentina pulls a knife from underneath her dress, attached to a sheath at her thigh.
My breath catches—so does Emilio’s.
But neither of us can move to do anything. Think, Izabel, think! What the fuck do I do? Maybe Francesca’s only going to hurt her; I can’t break character for that—I can’t break character at all, but I won’t let her kill that girl. I have to do something! I glance at Emilio, his eyes scarcely hiding trepidation, and I feel like his thoughts aren’t too very different from mine.
Francesca takes the knife from her sister. “Then if the girl means nothing to you, Brother,” she says as she drags Sian, kicking and crying across the floor toward Emilio, “you can watch me slit her throat.”
No. No, no, no, no…Emilio, do something!
And then he does.
“I can do you one even better, Sister,” he says, holding out his hand. “I’ll slit her throat myself.”
That seems to have pleased Francesca; a dark smile slips up on her face. Emilio steps up to her; his right hand moves down the length of her arm, over the silk of her robe to find the bare skin of her wrist. His long manly fingers touch her slender ones softly, tenderly and with forbidden affection. And then his mouth finds hers; his tongue slips between her lips and he kisses her as passionately as any man would who loves a woman with his last dying breath. I gasp quietly—at the knife in his hand, the exchange of power; at the forbidden kiss that both moves me and makes me uncomfortable at the same time.
Emilio won’t kill Sian; I feel it in my heart.
But then what—I gasp again, this time so sharply I know that if anyone were paying attention to me that they surely heard it, but I’m the least of anyone’s interest right now. I watch the knife in Emilio’s hand like an inevitable car accident in slow motion—he’s going to kill Francesca; he’s going to kill Victor’s payday…
“You know,” Niklas speaks up coolly, and every pair of eyes in the room turn to him, “I’d really hate to spoil the demonstration of loyalty between you two…as disturbing as it is”—he clears his throat facetiously—“but I’d hate even more to pass up possessing a girl like that one.”
Sian, still on her knees with her hair in Francesca’s hand looks to and from Niklas and Emilio’s black dress shoes, not daring to look up at him, her eyes darting back and forth, her breath quick and heavy. The baby in Valentina’s arms makes a suckling sound as it feeds from Valentina’s breast. Emilio, slow to move any part of his body, stunned by the turn of events, stares at Niklas with a blank, unreadable face.
Francesca observes Niklas with heavy suspicion.
She steps away from Emilio, leaving him with the knife, and pulls Sian’s hair, tightening her one-handed grip. Then she drags her across the floor again, this time toward us. Sian’s arms shoot up, hooking around Francesca’s wrist, but she’s too weak to break free—Francesca is as strong as she looks.
“I’d rather you kill me!” Sian screams. “Don’t take me away from my baby!”
Francesca releases Sian’s hair and stands tall over her, daring her to move. Sian, knowing there’s nothing she can do, that no matter how hard she fights there’s no way she’s getting out of this room.
“You want to buy her?” Francesca says, as if she doesn’t believe it. She smiles. “She’s not even one of my cyprians; she’s been one of Emilio’s favorite girls, hasn’t seen the outside of my estate in ten years to have been fucked by anyone other than my brother.” She steps into Niklas’s space, sizing him up; I take a step back to stand next to Nora. “She doesn’t fit your criteria, Mr. Augustin.” Formalities again? That’s not a good sign. “I’m beginning to think you want to save her.” Instinctively I go to reach for Pearl, only to stop myself, realizing I’m weaponless.
Izabel
Niklas smiles slimly, unaffected by her taunts, her accusations. “Paranoia, Madam Moretti,” Niklas says, offering her the same formalities, “it really is a blemish you could do without. But you’re right in a sense: I do want to save her, but not necessarily from your blade; I’d like to save her for mine.” Niklas’s gaze falls on Sian. Then he steps around Francesca and begins to pace slowly around Sian on the floor; his hands clasped on his backside.
“You said yourself that she was a whore,” Niklas points out. “A true whore—were those not your words?” He stops pacing for a second, long enough to look back at Francesca with a perceptive smile alight in his face. “I think anyone who has been spreading her legs for someone like your brother for ten years, has probably been doing the same for any man who works in this place. She’s a survivor, Miz Moretti”—Sian lowers her forehead to the floor—“I knew a girl like her once, forced into a life of bondage, raped by men who she knew would kill her if she ever told her master; forced to feel certain…feelings for a man who showed her affection because it was the only way she knew how to stay alive.” I swallow. Hard. And I hate him for those words I know were about me. And yet, I care for him in ways I don’t understand. He stops pacing in front of the girl’s head; her long black hair lies disheveled against the bright white floor; the toes of his shiny dress shoes touch the tips of her fingers. He looks down at her as he speaks. “And now, after giving birth to a baby she’ll never hold, or feed, or touch, or name, or si
ng lullabies to because I have absolutely no interest in buying a goddamned child, she’ll fight more than ever when I take her away. And she’ll hate me immensely for it.” His head turns to Francesca. There’s a dark smile playing discreetly in his features. “This one, Miz Moretti, is precisely the kind of flawed whore I’m looking for.”
Sian draws her hands toward her face and she sobs into her palms; her back, covered by a white gown, bounces as she trembles; she curls into a fetal position and wails, stirring the attention of her newborn child suckling the breast of another woman just feet from her. Again, I notice the women in the hall crossing their chests and mouthing prayers. And again, I witness more of the real Emilio as he stands feet away with a knife in his hand and a gaping hole in his heart, unable to make use of either. He knows that if he speaks out against any of this, if he refuses to let Niklas take Sian, that his wicked sister will kill her. And maybe he knows too that if he kills Francesca, that Sian will die anyway because neither of them will get out of the mansion alive.
Letting Niklas buy her, probably nowhere on Emilio’s list of options, is the only option he has.
But he doesn’t like it—rage lies beneath the surface of his face, seething, growing, harder and harder to contain, but like me, he continues to play his role.
Francesca appears to contemplate Niklas’s offer. She looks to her sister. Valentina shrugs lightly, patting the baby carefully against its exposed back. Then Francesca turns to Niklas again, glances briefly at the briefcase in his hand.
“I will sell the girl to you,” she says, “for everything you have left in that case of yours.”
Everything? But then what will we use to buy or bargain with for Olivia Bram? Victor’s money? He will be pissed.
Niklas holds the briefcase out to Francesca and she takes it. Sian scrambles to her knees; she reaches up with both hands and grasps the legs of Niklas’s dress pants, pulling and fingering the fabric into her fists. “Please, if you buy me, buy my baby! I’m begging you, Master, please!” Her voice is hoarse from crying and screaming so much. “PLEASE!” she roars up at Niklas and her voice cracks.
Niklas crouches down in front of her, slowly, with such ease and power. He cocks his head to one side, studying her; then to the other side. He reaches out and brushes her cheek with the back of his fingers. Then the other cheek. Then he moves away a few strands of hair that lay across her forehead, tucking them behind her ear, taking his time. Her dark blue eyes are rimmed with red; the whites of her eyes streaked and mapped by little inflamed veins; tears track down her cheeks, drip from her chin. Niklas touches the bruised skin under her left eye with the pad of his thumb, gently and with as much disingenuous comfort as Francesca had meant to give the baby when trying to calm it.
“From now on,” Niklas says in a calm, frightening voice, “you will be known as Lia.” His thumb moves to her mouth, tracing her bottom lip and stopping in the center, pulling the lip gently away from her teeth. Sian swallows desperately; she stares directly into his eyes, knowing that her new master compels it. “You will speak only when spoken to; you will do anything and everything I tell you to do, and you will do it to my satisfaction or you will be”—he licks the dryness from his lips—“punished in ways that will make you wish I had let the Madam kill you.” He leans in and touches his lips to hers ever so gently, as if he’s savoring the taste of her on his mouth, his new toy that he can’t wait to take home and open. Every part of her. Physically and emotionally. For a moment I forget who he is; I’m so quietly shocked by his act that I’m beginning to wonder if it’s still an act at all; my heart is pounding violently in my chest.
“W-What about my baby? Please buy my baby!”
Niklas’s big hand crushes the girl’s throat. He rises into a towering stand, lifting her from the floor and off her feet. My hand is over my mouth before I can stop it. Sian kicks her feet back and forth; blood trickles down the insides of her thighs; her hands grip Niklas’s wrists, trying desperately to pry his vise-grip fingers from her throat; her pale face begins to turn colors; her blue eyes bulge in her face. She gasps for air to fill her lungs with, but no matter how wide she opens her mouth, the air can’t get past Niklas’s hand.
Emilio starts to move forward, just a small step that Francesca doesn’t see because her back is to him, but then he stops when Niklas releases Sian and she falls against the floor, choking, gasping; the natural white color of her face coming back to the surface to replace the red and purple. She lies down on her side, helpless, hopeless, crying into her hands.
“Sister,” Francesca says to Valentina, “take the child away.”
“NO! DON’T TAKE HER—”
Niklas knocks Sian out cold, cutting her off. Emilio turns and leaves the room promptly, when—and because—I know that all he wants to do is kill Niklas. But he can’t unless he wants to give himself away and give Francesca reason to kill Sian.
“I’ve no clue what you see in such uncivilized behavior,” Francesca tells Niklas. Her robe has come apart; impossible not to be aware of it, though she doesn’t care and goes on talking with her naked body on display. “Challenge or not.”
Niklas grins. “I just like it when they fight,” he says.
Francesca grins right back at him, understanding, and then she gets back to business.
“One of the conditions of your purchase,” she says, “is that you get her out of this country no later than tomorrow afternoon.” Translation: I want her away from my brother whom I have an unhealthy obsession with on so many levels of crazy.
Tomorrow? We’re never going to find Olivia Bram—hell, I’m beginning to doubt we’re going to pull off kidnapping this insane woman.
“That’s when we planned to leave anyway,” Niklas says.
Francesca switches the briefcase to the opposite hand.
“Are you sure you’re not interested in buying the child?” she asks, suspiciously. I think she’s still testing him.
“Oh, I’m sure,” Niklas answers right away. Then he takes a cigarette from his jacket and lights it up in his mouth. “But I am still interested in viewing your cyprians.”
Francesca’s left eyebrow hitches up.
“You want to buy more than one girl? That can certainly be arranged.” Without looking away from Niklas, she calls out to the women in the hall, “I suggest you get in here and get this room cleaned.”
The women scurry into the room and start cleaning at once: stripping the bed of its bloody sheets, dusting, sweeping; they look terrified. I wonder if the housekeepers live here too. I wonder how many times they’ve all huddled together somewhere like they were doing in the hall as this spectacle with Sian went on, and plotted to escape; or plotted to kill Francesca—too afraid to do either.
“Maybe,” Niklas says. “And if not this time around, I’d still like to see the merchandise, for a future purchase.”
Yeah, not this time around because you’ve spent all of the client’s money on the wrong girl.
The cyprians are brought to the mansion minutes later; Miz Ghita comes in to alert Francesca of their arrival downstairs.
“Why don’t you follow me,” Francesca tells Niklas. “No, please leave your girls here. I would like a chance to speak with you privately.”
Niklas nods and then looks to me. “Stay here with Aya and Lia while I talk with the Madam.”
I nod reluctantly, timidly, making sure my Naomi mask is still securely in place. When he starts to walk away, I step up behind him and grab his hand for added effect. He stops and turns to face me.
“Please don’t leave me alone…long,” I whisper, but not so low that Francesca can’t hear me.
Niklas leans in and presses his lips to mine. He pulls away and I open my eyes, looking up at him, pretending to be afraid.
“No one will hurt her here,” I hear Francesca say, but I never take my eyes off Niklas’s. “Shelia,” she calls out, and one of the housekeepers stops dusting and stands attentive. “Fetch two guards and have them sta
nd outside this room. No one leaves or enters it other than your crew.”
“Yes, Madam,” the housekeeper says, and then hurries out the door.
Moments later, Niklas is leaving with Francesca. I look at Sian still lying unconscious on the floor. And then I look at Nora, still the most obedient slave girl I’ve ever seen in my life. I don’t know how she does it; she just stands there with her hands folded down in front of her; her head lowered, always looking at the floor; never showing fear, uneasiness, even discomfort. After everything that has happened, Nora Kessler has played her role seemingly without coming close to breaking character for even a second. It fascinates me and disturbs me at the same time. Could I ever really be just like her? Would I want to? She would’ve let that girl die for the sake of her role—I believe that. But that’s what makes her so good. Nora Kessler is a machine. Do I want to be that good? A machine? With no remorse, no conscience? Unable to feel pain because I refuse to let it in by way of emotions? Do I really want to be like her? I want to say no, because it’s the human thing to do.
I want to say no…but why can’t I?
Niklas
I refuse all four of the cyprians brought in for my private showing—none of them were Olivia Bram. Didn’t expect otherwise.
Miz Ghita escorts them out of the small room, leaving Francesca and me alone for the first time. Just me and her, sitting together in a room that’s surprisingly devoid of the typical white everything. Two walls; the one behind and in front of me are filled from floor to ceiling with books. The floors are hardwood; the furniture black. I take a seat on the sofa offered me and make myself comfortable.
I’m worried about leaving Izzy alone in this place. I know she can handle herself to an extent, and—I can’t believe I’m going to say this—I know she’ll stay in character, but it’s Emilio who worries me. I just bought—and hit—the woman who I think he might be in love with, and who just gave birth to his kid—aside from his sister, I’m his least favorite person in this mansion. ‘Naomi’, as everyone here already knows, is my weak spot. And Emilio is the type to go straight for the weak spot.