The Black Wolf (In the Company of Killers, #5)(42)

Trevor has no other questions.

I glance at Izabel sitting next to me, and she’s as unaffected as she was when she walked in here: she watches and listens quietly; her expression is calm and composed, not so much as a frown readable on her face—but it’s only a matter of time.

A few more questions come from other buyers in the crowd, and then one buyer raises his red paddle so that he can go onto the stage and examine the girl further.

The girl never flinches.

Neither does Izabel.

And when the price is paid for the buyer to touch the girl, and he stretches a pair of latex gloves over his hands, still, neither the girl nor Izabel show any signs of discomfort. Not even when the girl is bent over and forced to put her head between her legs and grasp her ankles. And lastly, when the potential buyer puts his covered fingers inside the girl to feel how tight she is, she and Izabel remain unaffected.

I still say it’s only a matter of time, Izzy.

Two buyers—Trevor Chamberlain is not one of them—bid back and forth until one purchases her for half a million dollars. Shit, I can’t imagine how much a virgin will fetch in this place.

Finally after forty-five minutes and six Class B girls—and one guy—later, a Class A is brought out onto the stage. Class A denotes a virgin and can be any age, but usually they’re under twenty years. I’m f*cking relieved, and kind of surprised, that there have been no underage girls or boys here.

This particular girl, with waist-length strawberry-blond hair, pale pink skin with hundreds of freckles, can’t be older than twenty. She, like every other broken soul brought out before her, stands naked, obediently and beautifully in front of the vultures waiting to pick her apart.

“What work has the virgin had done?” one buyer asks from the crowd.

“Dental was provided,” the master answers. “All of her teeth have been replaced with implants. She has also had her birthmark removed.” The master points out the area on her hip where the birthmark had once been.

I glance over at Izabel sitting unchanged next to me—maybe I didn’t give her enough credit. Nah, there’s still plenty she has yet to see.




Izabel





What does this mean? Why am I not fuming beneath the surface? How can it be that I can sit here on this chair and watch these helpless girls—oh, and that one poor guy—be prodded and gawked at, treated like cattle at an auction, and not want to fly out of this chair and kill all of these f*cking people? It’s not because I don’t care, or that I’m like these evil pieces of shit. Jesus—can a person be so desensitized to something that it no longer affects them at all?

I believed in myself enough to know that I could at least get through the mission without blowing our cover—I know I can pull that off no matter what Niklas thinks—but I didn’t expect for a second that I’d be this calm underneath.

But I haven’t seen everything yet, I’m sure.

No…I haven’t seen everything yet.





Nora





I’m going out of my f*cking mind; can’t raise my head, can’t speak. This is extraordinarily boring; I forgot just how mind-numbing a role like this can be at times. I can’t believe I ever looked forward to it.

But I’m a professional; even more-so than Niklas and Izabel with their ridiculous bickering—they should just f*ck and get it over with already—and I won’t break character, despite how badly I want to point out the real Francesca Moretti to Niklas and get this show on the road. Because I know who she is. I’ve known from the moment we walked into this place. And she’s as good at playing her role as I am—oh, she’s good all right.





Niklas





Trevor Chamberlain buys the virgin for one-and-a-half million dollars. That’s a lot of money, and it would seem like Mr. Chamberlain would be the man of the hour, getting all of the attention from the Moretti family on the stage, but they appear more interested in me. It’s been over an hour and the showing is coming to a close; there’s nothing else to bid on, and I didn’t raise a paddle or a hand once. They want to know why, I’m sure. Because it was clear they made every effort to point out—subtly, of course, so no one but me knew what they were doing—the flaws of each girl who walked out on stage: the brown-haired German girl with a scar on her knee; another brown-haired girl from France with a strange birthmark left in-tact in the center of her back; there was a brown-haired American girl who had thin lips—all of these things were made aware to me so that I could bid on them, or pay to get a closer look, but I did neither.

“The Madam will see you now,” Miz Ghita says after descending the steps of the stage in front of me.

The fake Francesca and Emilio Moretti leave through the exit on the stage, taking the two servant girls with them. Valentina Moretti stays behind to say goodbye to the guests, flanked by servant girls of her own.

“Nothing you saw suited your needs?” Miz Ghita inquires; her voice is laced with tamed censure.

With my briefcase in-hand, I walk alongside her down another brightly lit hallway; Izabel and Nora follow behind us.

“The girls were stunning,” I say. “But none of them had what I was looking for, unfortunately.”

“And what exactly is it that you’re looking for, Mr. Augustin?”