The Black Wolf (In the Company of Killers, #5)(21)

“Why?” I crush the cigarette in the ashtray.

“Because…” Her words trail, and that alone makes me finally look at her face. What’s she searching for in that impetuous head of hers? Whatever it is, she seems sullen, frustrated by the answer.

“I’m not going,” I cut in, resolved to get this over with so I can go back to watching a football game I don’t care about, drinking whiskey that’ll probably give me the shits later, and eventually going upstairs to my room to pass out on a bed that hurts more than any bullet ever has.

Finally Izabel answers, “If you don’t go, Victor won’t let me go.”

That certainly gets my attention, but I’m careful not to let Izabel notice the extent of it. I have my suspicions about what could be the reasoning behind Victor’s stipulation, but I need more information.

Suddenly I’m lighting up another cigarette.

“Still in need of a chaperone?” I taunt her, smoke streaming from my lips. “Is my brother afraid you might end up in the closet with a boy more your age? Or out of the closet with that bimbo?”

“Don’t be a jerk,” she says defensively, and I feel better now that I’ve finally gotten under her skin a little—I was beginning to think I’d lost my touch. “Just let me explain everything before you say no,” she adds.

Giving in so this can’t be dragged out any more than it’s going to, I turn fully on the bar stool and give Izabel my full attention, careful not to give her any impression that I might change my mind.

“Explain away,” I say with a straight face, motioning my hand. “But the answer will still be no.”

Izabel swallows nervously, and looks around the room for a moment. Then down at her hands still resting atop the bar. Then eventually making her way back up to me. I wish she’d just get on with it, but for some reason, I can’t help but wish she’d just sit there like that, too: quiet and calm and in need; I guess I just find a strange comfort in her complicated innocence.

Her green eyes meet my blue ones.

“He’s sending us to Italy to find and kidnap a madam named Francesca Moretti…” the rest of her words fade into the darkest folds of my mind.

Francesca Moretti was all she had to say—I knew the basic details of this mission before she told me. And, in turn, I realized why my brother will only allow me to escort Izzy there. I don’t know whether to be relieved by the stipulation, or to think of my brother even less than I already do because he’s letting her go on a mission like this at all, with or without me.

Izabel tells me everything, mostly in a quiet voice and choppy sentences that stop and start up again after Jay and nearby customers move in and out of earshot. Then she reaches into her boot and slides a flash drive across the bar to me, in which I pocket immediately.

“The password is MX37A,” she says in a soft voice, leaning toward me. “Nora and I got a chance to look over everything before we came here.”

“Izzy,” I say, not looking at her, “why in the hell do you want to do something like this? After what you went through in Mexico—I just don’t get it. There’s something fundamentally wrong with you, woman.”

Izabel snarls and shakes her head, leaning away from the bar and dropping her hands in her lap.

“It really pisses me off enough that Victor still thinks I’m some messed up girl traumatized by her past—I’m sick of that being thrown up in my face, Niklas.” Her expression hardens, her jaw tightens. “I’m not afraid of it. I don’t flinch and recoil when Victor touches me because I was raped. I don’t have debilitating flashbacks of my old life when someone says a trigger word around me—maybe I should but I don’t. I’m over it, so why can’t everybody else just get over it?” It was more a heated statement than a question.

The light smell of Nora’s perfume wraps around my head again as she walks back up.

“I’m going to wait in the car,” she says and Izabel passes a set of keys to her. Before she leaves, she steps up beside me and says against my ear, “I look forward to working with you, Niklas. Let’s learn to get along—I’m not the one who betrayed you. Try to remember that.” She walks away through the small crowded bar and clouds of cigarette smoke like a goddess making her way through a crowd of peasants.

“So she’s working for my brother now?” I’m at a loss.

“Like Nora said, it’s a long story, but yes. Niklas, just like with this thing between you and Victor, that’s not what I came here for—I need you on this.”

“You were right,” I say, “I’d rather it burn when I piss.”

Jay walks over to re-fill my shot glass, but Izabel stops him, placing her palm over the top of it. With an uneasy look, Jay walks away.

She leans in closer to me, her darkly painted eyes boring into mine indignantly, her nostrils flaring; she’s fed up with my shit—now that’s the Izzy I’m used to.

I smile to myself.

“Get over yourself, *,” she growls and slides the shot glass beneath her palm, away from me. “We’ve all lost people we love. We’ve all done things we regret, things we wish we could take back—every one of us, Niklas.” She leans in even more, closing the space between us so that only I can hear, or probably more-so so that I fully understand the intensity of her words. “But Victor has only ever had his love for you in mind—he killed his father to protect you. And if I remember correctly, before you ever knew about what really happened to Claire, you tried to kill me to protect him.”