The Black Wolf (In the Company of Killers, #5)(79)

“Then why are you still there?” Niklas asks, and I can tell he doesn’t believe a thing Emilio is saying—or he doesn’t want to. “Why give in to Francesca at all?”

Emilio sighs and looks briefly at the floor.

“Because she’s my sister,” he answers, raising his eyes, filled with shame and conflict. “For a long time I just pretended; I hoped she’d change, but she didn’t—she got worse.” He glances at Sian. “Then Sian came along and I changed, too. I vowed to her I’d help her get out, that we’d leave together.”

“Then why haven’t you?” Nora asks.

“I was waiting for the right time,” Emilio says. “It’s not as easy as it may seem; things had to be done…carefully.”

“Looks like it was pretty easy for us,” Nora adds.

“No”—Emilio shakes his head gravely; a knot moves down the center of his throat—“you don’t understand: we couldn’t just leave.”

“Francesca was an evil bitch,” Niklas speaks up. “I give her that much, but aside from the shit she did behind closed doors, she didn’t seem like much else—her security was even a joke to me. If you were afraid she’d follow you, I doubt she would’ve gone far.”

Niklas is right: the security at the mansion wasn’t as top-notch as Victor warned us it would be. I felt more in danger in Arthur Hamburg’s mansion in Los Angeles than I did here in Italy. It doesn’t make sense.

“It’s not Francesca who’d find us and kill us,” Emilio says. “It’s not my sister who everyone is afraid of, believe it or not—it’s our father, Vincent Moretti. Francesca was his favorite, his Little Girl.” He looks across at Sian again and says, “We’ll be running forever, Love; my father, when he finds out from Francesca that I abandoned her, abandoned the family, he’ll hunt me down and kill us both.”

“Then we’ll die together,” Sian vows, now standing behind me; she reaches out her hand to Emilio.

I move to the side to let her pass.

“Niklas, let her go,” I say, just as he begins to make a move toward her.

Reluctantly Niklas steps to the side as Sian rushes past him and falls into the open arms of Emilio. Sobs wrack her body; he wraps her up in his embrace.

“Our daughter,” Sian says, weeping, probing Emilio’s face with her hands, “where is she?”

“Look,” Niklas speaks up, finally lowering his gun, “we don’t have time for this shit. Take her if that’s what you want to do, but we’re leaving.” I thought for a second Niklas might tell Emilio the news of his sister’s death, but he keeps it to himself, which is probably better.

“I have a plan, Love.” Emilio kisses her lips, her nose, her eyes, the bruise underneath one eye. “I’m just glad you’re OK.” He looks at Niklas. “Thank you—not sure who the hell you are, and I still don’t like you, but thank you for helping Sian.”

“I didn’t help her,” Niklas says, bitingly. “I don’t give a shit what happens to that girl.” He shoves his gun into the back of his pants, then he walks past Nora and goes back to his seat.

You’re such a liar, Niklas…you care, you care.

He doesn’t look at me when he sits down.

“Can you help them?” Sian says to Emilio. “They came here looking for one of the cyprians; can you tell them how to find her?”

Emilio looks at the three of us in turns, uncertain, reluctant, but appreciative and ultimately willing.

“Because you helped Sian,” Emilio says and reaches into his pocket, “I’ll do what I can.” He produces a small keychain with three silver keys; dangling from it is a typical flash drive. He unclasps it from the keys and holds it out to me in the palm of his hand. “I kept up with the books,” he says. “On this drive you’ll find the photos and address of all the girls who work for my family.”

This can’t be real! A solid, unexpected break into finding Olivia Bram! I thought for sure that hope was lost, that we’d never come close to bringing her home. I look down into Emilio’s hand, almost afraid to take the device for fear it might just vanish and all just be a dream.

“It’s yours,” Emilio says, urging me to take it.

“Thank you.”

“We need to leave,” Emilio tells Sian. “We don’t have much time.”

Just before Emilio takes Sian down the steps, she breaks her hand from his and she throws her arms around me. “Thank you, Izabel,” she says, and then she looks back at Niklas, who doesn’t bother to look at her even when she says, “You’re a good man; I’ll never forget what you did for me.”

He doesn’t even acknowledge her.

Emilio and Sian nod at Nora lastly, just before descending the steps and vanishing from sight.

“Niklas?” I say.

“What?”

I walk over to him. “I know you think it’s a waste of time—”

“Give me the flash drive,” he says, reaches out and takes it from my hand.

The three of us look through the profiles of the girls on the drive for twenty minutes, over a hundred of them, until finally a miracle happens and we see Olivia Bram’s face staring back at us, same birthmark underneath her left eye the size and shape of an almond sliver; brown hair and tired brown eyes—life has taken a toll on her, but she’s alive.