This meeting can’t last long—it’s been too long already.
“Now that we are alone,” Francesca says, sitting on the sofa next to me; she hands me a glass of whiskey, “I’ve been dying to have you elaborate on some things.”
“What things?” I take a sip and set the glass down on the end table.
Francesca scoots closer.
“You said something earlier tonight,” she begins, “about a family betrayal”—she twirls her hand at the wrist—“that your brother betrayed you? I cannot help but feel empathetic.” You don’t know the meaning of the word.
“We have much in common,” she adds.
“Yes, we seem to,” I say. No, we have nothing in common—you’re a fruitcake.
“I can’t help but want to dig deeper inside that head of yours,” she goes on. “We are both dominant souls who thrive on power; we both revel in punishment; we have both been betrayed by our brothers, and it seems we both have a weakness we cannot hide.”
“Emilio and Naomi,” I say, knowing.
She nods; her hand rests on my inner thigh. She wears a lot of perfume—I fucking hate that stinking shit; give me a woman’s natural scent any day.
“When it comes to love,” she says, “we cannot change who our hearts want.”
“No, we can’t,” I say, and then I feel my mind drifting, slipping away into a recent memory. A forbidden memory.
“Niklas?”
I blink back into the moment. Then I reach for the whiskey glass and gulp the contents of it down in one drink.
“Let’s talk about something else, shall we?” she suggests. “I gather that love is a sensitive topic for you—it is for me as well; I like to avoid it as you do. Tell me about your brother, then.”
I snort, shaking my head and wishing I didn’t just drink down the last of my whiskey.
“Unfortunately,” I say with a mock smile, “the topic of my brother’s betrayal and the one about love are pretty much the same fucking thing.” I put up my hand quickly, ending an accusation before it begins. “Of course, I didn’t have the same…problem that you have with your brother.”
Francesca smiles slimly.
“Well what did your brother do?” she asks.
“He killed the woman I loved.” Why am I telling her this shit so freely? So easily? It took Jackie longer than this to get anything out of me and I had been fucking her for weeks. Maybe it’s because Francesca is a complete stranger, and I’ll never see her again after all of this is over. Because she’ll be dead. Maybe I just need to get it all out. Oh nice—I choose a lunatic as a psychologist.
“Ah, I see.” Francesca crosses her legs; her hand remains on my inner thigh. “But why would he do such a thing? Were you not close as brothers?”
“We were always close,” I tell her, thinking of Victor, mourning our severed relationship, knowing that I can never truly forgive him and that nothing between us will ever be the same. “And he killed her because he thought he was protecting me.”
“The older brother?”
I nod.
“And do you still have a relationship with this older, protective brother?”
I hesitate before answering, “A working one, it seems.”
“You work for him?”
“I work with him,” I establish quickly. “Or, at least that’s the way things are supposed to be”—I shake my head—“but I’ve always felt more…beneath him than beside him.” I look off at the wall—I need to leave. Soon.
“Ah, yes,” she says. “The leader of the wolf pack, your brother. The alpha male. Getting all the respect and glory.” She smiles. “He should be careful; wolves are protective, territorial—but also cannibalistic. Should your brother show weakness, step into a snare trap, he will be torn apart by the other wolves. And then you will become the alpha.”
Francesca’s hand slides away from my thigh and she stands from the sofa. She ties her bloody white robe closed in front of me, but I take nothing from the gesture other than an involuntary action.
“Family bonds,” she says, pacing slowly, “can be a tricky thing. I have eight sisters and only one brother; my mother hates every one of us—except for Valentina; Valentina is her favorite. She is the eldest; she was supposed to be in my place as Madam, but I was chosen over her by our father.” She smiles, looking off at the wall, appearing briefly lost in a memory, or maybe a face. She grins. “But I am my father’s favorite, and what my father wants trumps my wretched mother’s wishes.” She pauses as if to savor that truth and then says, “But I have learned in my time living with my sisters, all of whom want what I have, that to be my own person so I’m not forced to live in their shadow, I have to play dirty, and let nothing nor anyone get in the way or I could end up kissing my mother’s ass like Valentina does. I could end up kissing my older sister’s ass.”
I smile darkly.
“So you’re this beautiful terrible creature who disfigures her property because it keeps your family under your control?” I know that’s not it. Entirely.
She smiles. “No,” she says. “I do that because I enjoy it.” The smile stretches; so does mine. She paces some more, arms crossed loosely under her breasts. “We are unique, you and I, the black wolves of our families, mutations; we are special. The only difference I see is that I lead my pack, and you, being the loyal, devoted brother that you are, choose to live in an older sibling’s shadow.”
I sneer, look away. “You don’t know anything about me or my brother,” I say. “How would you know if I was loyal and devoted to him?”
Francesca, unfazed by my gall, answers with a clever grin, “Because your brother is still alive. If one of my sisters had killed the man I love, my revenge would be merciless and swift. Loyalty is not so unlike love: you do things for it that you would not otherwise do; you feel a terrible, all-consuming sense of responsibility to uphold it; you go the extra mile to prove it; and most of all, you accept the pain it creates because to deny it would be to deny the loyalty itself. The only difference between loyalty and love is that for love you do all of these things because you want to, and you would do them again, and again, and again. Loyalty is learned; love is organic.”
I glance down at my lap—she’s right and I want to kill her for it.
“You may be right,” I say, looking back up at her, “but you still don’t know enough about me for us to be having this conversation.” I stand from the sofa. “My apologies, but I really need to go. Thank you for the evening. I will be in touch.”
“Niklas,” she says, stopping me in my casual stroll toward the closed door. “I did not mean to hit a nerve.” She moves up behind me, places a hand on my shoulder and walks around my body to face me; her fingers leaving a trail across my chest. The bitch wants to kiss me, the way she keeps looking at my lips; her closeness; the seductive sweep of her eyelashes; the parting of her mouth. “Few men have ever intrigued me the way you do. From the moment I saw you, I knew there was something about you, a mystery I needed to unravel. It wasn’t your money that bought your private meeting; it was my curiosity. I would have given you the meeting for free.”
She walks around me slowly, her fingers falling away from my back.
“I can tell you are very strong, destined for great things,” she continues, “just like I was before I did something about it, before I seized the moment and took what was mine. But for all the power that keeps your mask in place, behind it I feel like there is a wounded soul, dying to break free. And I would love to be more acquainted with him.” She stands in front of me, pressing her body to mine.
“And what do you think,” I begin, “this wounded soul, dying to break free, is destined to do?”
She touches my bottom lip with the tip of her finger; her dark eyes sweeping over my mouth.
“Kill your brother,” she whispers onto my lips, brushing hers against mine. “Take your revenge, and then take what is rightfully yours.”
She slips her tongue into my mouth; my body, not my ratio
nal mind, reacts to her warm flesh. My hands quickly find her hips, gripping the flesh in my rigid fingers; I push her body against the door, tearing away at her robe and it comes apart in front of me; her tits spilling out into my hands. I kiss her hard, hungrily. “I want to feel you,” she whispers when the kiss breaks. “Let me feel how much of the black wolf you really are.” Her mouth collapses around mine again, and her hand finds its way into my pants.
I growl, low and guttural, against the side of her neck when I feel her hand gripping my cock with painful abandon—the rougher the better, you crazy bitch. If I don’t stop myself I’m gonna fuck her. I don’t give a shit about who she is, what she is, or what she does—I’m gonna have to fuck her.
Izzy’s face framed by her butchered auburn hair pops into my mind, and I stumble back a few steps—I can’t leave her alone any longer.
Francesca, looking disappointed, but not slighted, tilts her head to one side.
I straighten my suit.
“I’d love to stay longer,” I say, “but I’m going to be honest with you—I don’t feel good about leaving my girls alone with your pissed off brother roaming around without his leash.”
Francesca smiles, and then closes her robe about her, loosely so that her tits are still easily seen.
“I understand perfectly,” she says. She steps up to me, reaches out and smooths her fingers down the length of my tie. She appears to be thinking about something and then says, “Why don’t you join me again tomorrow before you leave; just you and me; leave your girls at your hotel. That will also give me more time to think about which of my cyprians I can show you next. Tomorrow I can have six or seven of them for you to look at.”
And that’ll give me enough time to figure out how I’m going to get you out of this mansion, bound and gagged so I can collect a payday.
I lean in and kiss her lightly on the mouth.
“I will be here.”
The girl, Sian, is awake when I go back into the room to find Izabel and Nora the same way I left them.
“I won’t go with you!”
“I’m sorry, Niklas,” Izabel, as Naomi, says as I come into the room without Francesca. “I tried to talk to her, told her you wouldn’t hurt her if she cooperated, but she won’t listen to me.”
Miz Ghita—ordered by Francesca to give me whatever I need before escorting us out of the mansion—stands at the open door, waiting. “I will get her some clothes,” she says and walks into the room with us and opens a closet.
I move past Izzy and stop in front of Sian, looking down at her still sitting on the floor in her bloody gown.
“Take off your gown,” I demand, looming over her. When she doesn’t act fast enough, I repeat, “I said take off your gown.”
Finally she obeys; she trembles as she raises her arms above her head, struggling to get the fabric past her shoulders. I crouch in front of her and help her with it, dropping it on the floor afterward. She sits with her legs pressed together over to one side; her arms covering her naked breasts.
“Did the doctor sew you up?” I ask.
She nods, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Show me.”
She doesn’t move; her eyes grow wider.
“Spread your legs and show me,” I repeat, this time with an air of warning.
Her body shaking, her arms come uncrossed and her knees break apart apprehensively. I help her with that too, speeding up the process so we can get the hell out of here. She spreads her legs before me and I examine her carefully so I don’t hurt her—I’m not leaving this place before I’m sure she’s been properly cared for after giving birth. I can’t take her to a hospital and I sure as hell won’t be sewing her up myself. Fuck that.
“Good,” I say, push her legs closed and then reach into my pocket. “I want you to swallow this.”
She looks down into my hand at the pill, then back up at me, shaking her head no.
Grabbing her by the back of the head with one hand, I shove the pill down her throat with the other, pushing my finger deep so I know she swallows it. She gags; thrashes in my grasp, her eyes watering from the sting. Then I close her mouth with my hand and hold it there firmly. “Swallow it.”
Her throat moves, and then I pry her mouth open again and check to make sure the pill is gone.
Izzy helps Miz Ghita get Sian dressed in a flashy cocktail dress, afterward slipping on a pair of glittery high heels with straps around the ankles—an outfit I chose so that when I carry her, passed out, into the hotel, she’ll just look like she’s been out on the town parting all night and no one’s likely to think anything about it too suspicious.
Sian is unconscious in the car before we even make it to the hotel. I wrap her in my suit jacket and carry her in my arms through the elaborate lobby and into the elevator, her legs over one arm and her head nestled against my chest.
“Too much wine,” I tell the old woman next to me as we ride up; I smile, and then wink at her for good measure. The old woman’s face flushes with heat, and she looks the other way. When she steps out onto her floor, she looks back at me, holding her gaze until the shutting doors cut her off.
“Better be careful,” Izzy whispers in my ear, “or you’ll be eating cougar meat tonight.”
“Have I told you yet that your hair looks like shit?”
Izzy’s nose wrinkles on one side. She smirks.
“No, but you must be mistaking me for a woman who feels like she’s defined by her looks rather than her strength. What, Niklas, did you expect me to cry in a fucking corner over it?”
In a way, yeah. On the other hand, this particular reaction to her hair being hacked off, doesn’t surprise me, either.
The elevator doors break apart and we head straight for our suite. I set Sian down on the bed in the private room opposite the main living area, and I do a sweep of the room for any electronic devices, in case we had any unwanted visitors while we were in the mansion. Izabel and Nora wait in the main room without breaking character.
“It’s clean,” I announce, coming out of the kitchen area.
Like a blinding flash of light, Nora’s fist comes soaring toward my face, knocking me against the wall. She’s on me like a cat on its prey before I know what the fuck just happened; her brown eyes swirling, blazing with—what the hell is that? Ha! This bitch is fuming pissed, but I swear to God she looks like she wants to fuck me.
Niklas
With my back against the wall, Nora’s hand tightens around my throat. I don’t fight her; I put my hands up beside me against the wall too, and I grin. “Damn, woman,” I say, laughing, choking out the words.
She bangs my head on the wall and presses her body against mine to hold me in place; I feel her fingers digging into my throat just underneath my jawbone.
“What the fuck did I do?” I still can’t help but laugh.
Her fingers tighten; her nostrils flare; her eyes swirl.
“You know what you did,” she growls.
“Was it the whipping?” Laughter. I can’t help it!
Bang! Little black dots spring before my eyes when my head hits the wall.
The laughter dies around me; so does my smile.
“Screw this,” I hear Izabel say. “I’m going to bed.” And I hear the door to the private room close.
I grab Nora by her throat and we reverse places; I shove her as hard as I can against the wall, glaring into her face, our noses almost touching; my fingers splayed around her throat and her jaw. I’ve wanted to do this for so long—paybacks, bitch.
“Thought you could handle it?” I growl right back at her. “I did what I had to do—it could’ve been much worse.”
“It wasn’t what you did,” she says through strained words; my hand hindering airflow. “It was that you enjoyed it too much.”
The grin slips back onto my face.
She tries to knee me in the nuts, but I move enough to avoid it and she catches me in the gut instead. It takes the breath out of me; I recover quickly, but
the second of distraction is all Nora needs to reverse our roles again and she pounces on me. I don’t even know how, or what part of her body is on me where, all I know is that I’m falling backward with her on top of me, and I feel flesh against flesh, and the silk of her hair on my face and my neck and my arms. When she’s done hitting me in the face—because I finally get ahold of her wrists to stop her—I open my eyes to find her straddling my chest; my head pressed between her powerful thighs, squeezing it like a goddamn grape. I let go of her wrists and take her by the elbows, easily tossing her off and onto the floor on her back. She slaps me once, twice when I’m on top of her, but I like that shit so I don’t hold her arms.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she hisses, glaring up at me. “I thought you never break character? I have to say, I’m disappointed.”
“I got the job done,” I tell her, hovering over her, straddling her waist. “So far.”
“Could’ve been done more smoothly.”
“How so?”
“If you hadn’t been arguing with your girlfriend in front of everybody, I wouldn’t have had to make a scene, and you wouldn’t have had to enjoy beating me with a whip.” She snarls and then slaps me again; I feel the hot sting on the side of my face and it just makes my dick harder.
“I think you liked it,” I say, grinning. “And I think you like slapping me. You’re getting off on it.”
“Bullshit.” Her fist soars toward my head and I stop it with my hand; the grin deepens in my face.
I lean toward her, pushing myself against her even though she’s struggling to push me off; it’s all a show—she has me right where she wants me. I’m as hard as a fucking rock. And she knows it; she can feel it between her legs—that look on her face is priceless. Restraining her left hand against the floor, I grab her bottom lip with my teeth and bite down, hard enough to hurt, but not hard enough that she won’t like it; her other hand is wound in the back of my hair, pulling. “I’ll tell you what, Nora Kessler,” I say, releasing her lip from my teeth, “I’ll put my cock in you and we can call it even.”