The Black Wolf (In the Company of Killers, #5)(3)

A white-hot pain stung me in the back and my knees buckled beneath me, sending me to the ground. I wanted to cry out in pain, but I knew it would only make them hit me harder, longer. I bit down on in the inside of my cheek so hard that the metallic taste of blood pooled inside my mouth.

“I will ask you again, Fleischer,” the guard with the police baton said—though according to my back, the ones standing beside me also had batons. “What made you return?”

I could hear his voice, but my eyes were clenched so tightly because of the pain, that I couldn’t tell where he was standing anymore. He was closer though, that much I knew.

Slowly, my eyes crept open, my vision was blurred for many long seconds.

He was standing directly over me.

I raised my head and looked at him and finally answered, “I belong here, sir. I pledged my life to The Order and I will die in its service.”

“Stand up.” His voice was calm, but stern.

I did what I was told, pushing through the pain and forcing myself to my feet. I raised my chin to appear strong and obedient; my legs were shaking only because of the pain, but I maintained my firm posture.

“Take him for punishment,” the guard demanded the others, “and then begin his transfer.”

They thought I would cry when I was stripped of my clothes and flogged with a whip. They thought I would beg them to stop, choke on my own vomit.

But I didn’t cry. Fuck them.

I took it until I passed out. A second longer and I would’ve cried I’m sure, but I was spared the humiliation of a weak, sobbing boy, by the bitter sweet visitation of unconsciousness.

That was the last time I saw my brother, Victor, for several long years. But I never forgot about him, and I never stopped loving him, and I always kept our secret. But I vowed to one day be more like him, to live up to his skill and his dedication to The Order, because not only did I respect him, but I never again wanted to see that hurtful anger in his eyes. Everything I did from that point on I did for my brother. By the time I saw him again, Victor already had nine kills under his belt—the first at the age of thirteen, carried out one week after I was transferred. And when he turned seventeen, one year after we were under the same roof again, he was given the full rank of Assassin, the youngest assassin ever appointed by The Order.

I was still a failure, with a disappointed mentor that knew I’d never be sent out into the field.

A wave of jealousy swept over me, but I’d hoped I’d hidden it well. No matter what I did, or how hard I tried, I only seemed to fall further behind him, and I knew I’d never live up to him.

But he was my brother, and not even a jealous heart would ever make me betray him.

I believed him when he told me that night that he’d never do anything to cause me harm. I believed him with my whole life and my whole heart and my whole goddamned soul.

I believed him…





Niklas





Present Day




The whore with big brown eyes and perfect tits, raises her blond head from my chest.

“Did you hear anything I just said?” she asks, her eyes slanted.

Fuck no I didn’t.

“Yeah,” I answer, “you were telling me about your sister, or some shit.”

She huffs and sits up the rest of the way on the bed, her breasts bouncing, her ass jiggling—I haven’t f*cked her yet, but I’m getting around to it. She had just given me a massage minutes earlier.

I reach over to the nightstand and take a cigarette from the pack, placing it between my lips.

The whore snarls at me.

What the hell is she waiting for? An apology for not giving a shit?

“What?” I argue as I drag my thumb over the lighter and a flame appears.

She shakes her head and leans her naked body over me, reaching for another cigarette from my pack and then lighting it on the end of mine.

“Nothing,” she says with offense. “You just said that you wanted to talk first, so that’s what I was doing—pouring out my heart about my rich bitch sister. And you weren’t even listening.”

I puff on the filter slowly, taking a long drag.

“What do you want me to say?”

“Nothing,” she repeats bitterly, dropping it.

But I’ve never known a woman who said “Nothing” and really wanted to drop it. Bitches and their mind games—if it wasn’t for the * I’d stay the hell away from them all.

“Maybe I should start charging you for my time,” she says with smoke streaming from her plump lips. She scoots toward the headboard and sits slumped against it, one long naked leg bent, the other lying flat against the mattress.

I laugh lightly.

“I’ve never paid for sex in my life,” I say, flicking my ashes in the ashtray on the nightstand. “And I never will.”

“I said for my time,” she corrects me. “This talking bullshit, for example.” Her blond head falls to one side and she looks over at me with a spreading grin. “I’d never charge you for the sex, Niklas.”

I smile faintly.

After I’ve smoked the cigarette down, I crush the filter in the ashtray. The room I’ve been staying in since I left our Order is a shithole, but I’ve always preferred shitholes to luxury; old boots to shiny dress shoes; worn jeans to posh suits; rot-gut whiskey to expensive wine. Only thing I can think of clean and pure and not stained by moral perversion that I like, are women. Not necessarily this particular woman—I like her not because she’s a whore, but because she’s proud to be a whore—but women…like Claire. The only woman I ever loved more than my mother.