The Black Wolf (In the Company of Killers, #5)(68)

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 rational 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 f*ck her. I don’t give a shit about who she is, what she is, or what she does—I’m gonna have to f*ck 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.”