The Black Wolf (In the Company of Killers, #5)(83)

“This is my home,” Olivia says, and there’s a bite in her words as she trades fear for defiance. “I’m not going anywhere.” She crosses her arms over her black blouse; the top three buttons have been left undone, revealing her cleavage. She wears a loose-fitting long black skirt that drops to her knees. Her feet are bare.

She lights up a cigarette from the lamp table and moves into the kitchen.

“Your father has been searching for you for years, Olivia,” Izabel says, following behind her.

I do the same, putting my gun away in my pants; I keep my eyes and ears open, especially conscious of the sounds outside of the apartment.

“Well he didn’t look hard enough,” Olivia snaps. She takes a long drag from her cigarette and then adds with smoke streaming from her lips, “I remember the day it happened; I was in the backseat of that goddamned car for ten minutes before they drove off with me, and I watched my mom and dad spend that entire ten minutes looking at shit-tourist-jewelry underneath a vendor’s tent—they didn’t even know. The men who took me knew, as if it happens all the time, that no one would see them sitting there in the open; they knew no one would notice when they snatched me and threw me into the backseat of that car. Because tourists are f*cking stupid; they’re so caught up in everything around them they don’t realize the second they step off that plane into a foreign country that they’re being watched, targeted by men just like the ones who took me.” Olivia takes another drag and then she laughs, her bony shoulders moving up and down. She shakes her head. “Those men were so good they had enough time to take another girl from the crowd and shove her into the car with me. Ten minutes. Two girls. Broad daylight. And no one saw a thing. I wondered for a long time how long it took my parents to realize I was missing.” She sets the cigarette in an ashtray, then crosses her arms, smirking at us. “You said my dad has been looking for me all this time? What about my mom?” She snorts. “I guess she gave up? Doesn’t surprise me; she was an emotionally unstable train wreck of a woman anyway.”

“Your mother committed suicide not long after your abduction,” Izabel says.

The smirk disappears from Olivia’s face, and for a second she doesn’t move anything but her eyes. And then she laughs under her breath, trying to hide the pain of such news by covering it up with humor and a what-do-I-f*cking-care attitude.

“Probably better off,” she says, shaking her head.

She takes the cigarette up again and smokes it down before crushing what’s left of it in the ashtray.

“Like I said,” she begins, “this is my home, and I’m not going anywhere. I have everything I need here; people who protect me and care about me—”

“These people don’t give a shit about you,” Izabel cuts her off. “And they only protect you because you’re one of their moneymakers. What do you think is going to happen to you when you get older, and the high-paying customers want someone younger to fulfill their sick fetishes? You think the Morettis are just going to keep paying your housing and putting food on your table when you stop bringing in profits?”

“I don’t expect to live that long,” Olivia comes back; a little smile slips up on her lips. “Fuck growing old—my tits won’t be sagging to my knees when I die. I’m going to die beautiful and strong and sexual—I’m going to go out the same way I lived. And I still have plenty of time.” She sashays her hips as she approaches Izabel, stopping in front of her and reaching out to touch Izabel’s face.

Izzy lets her.

“Don’t know what the f*ck happened to your hair,” Olivia says, smoothing her fingers down Izabel’s cheek. “But you’re beautiful. I could fix it for you; I could do a lot of things for you”—she glances at me and smiles—“for both of you, if you’ll let me.”

“We’re here to help you,” Izabel says, desperation in her voice drowning in fading hope.

Olivia’s fingers slide down Izzy’s neck, her shoulder. “He could f*ck me while you sit on my face,” she says, leans in and tries to kiss Izzy, but Izzy pushes her away carefully.

Olivia throws her head back and laughs, then walks away, past me and back into the living room toward the front door. “I think you two should leave,” she says, placing her hand on the doorknob. “I have a client in twenty minutes.”

I move past Izzy and step right up to Olivia, grinding my teeth.

“You’re coming with us,” I demand. “If I have to throw you over my shoulder—”

“Niklas,” I hear Izzy’s voice from behind; her hand falls on my shoulder, “we need to go.”

“Yeah, we will,” I say, “as soon as this girl puts some f*cking shoes on—”

“No,” Izzy says gently, and my stiff shoulders soften into a disheartened slump. “She’s broken and there’s nothing we can do to help her.”

“She’s right,” Olivia says, smirking; she turns the knob and opens the door. “You should be on your way; go play the hero to someone who wants to be saved. I don’t. I enjoy my life. And I’ll slit my wrists the right way before I let anybody ever take me away from my life ever again.”

I glance at her wrist, the one holding the door open, and see that she’s no stranger to attempted suicide: one scar stretches horizontally from one side to the other, and all I can think about is how these people went to the trouble to save her life just so they could make money off of her. She must’ve done it long before she was placed into service—maybe the scar was what got her thrown into service. How long did it take her to accept what her life had become, and to stop wanting to end it? How long was it before her strength left her and she gave herself over fully to these people, forgetting who she was? And then I imagine Izabel…no, I imagine Sarai, imprisoned in Mexico for most of her young life. But she’s still here. She fought and she won—she truly is the strongest person I’ve ever known.