The Black Wolf (In the Company of Killers, #5)(19)

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 f*ck-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 f*cking 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 f*cked up issues that the normal people in this bar could never fathom, much less match. But whether I ever go back 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.