A small smile manipulates one corner of my mouth—they may be fooling every other guest in this mansion, but I’m not every other guest. They’re just oblivious men—and a few women—who are here for sex, and none of them have any clue about this woman being a decoy for the real madam. They probably couldn’t give a shit less anyway, because unlike me, they’re not technically here for Francesca Moretti.
I look to Izabel, and then back at the decoy.
“This is my girl, Naomi,” I answer, and Izabel bows her head slightly, offering the decoy a smile. “Kind of like your left-handed servant girl, Naomi is my favorite; no longer a slave, however. What about your favorites draws you to choose them?” It’s simple conversation, really, but an unanticipated enough question that only the real Francesca would be able to answer without hesitation.
The decoy’s eyes shift to look at Miz Ghita. She appears puzzled, as if she doesn’t know what to say, but this time it’s the male escort who cuts in, which surprises me.
“I am Emilio Moretti,” he introduces himself proudly in a thick Italian accent. “Francesca’s brother. What business did you say you were in, Mister…Augustin is it?” He cocks his head to one side, scrutinizing me under hard, dark eyebrows.
Ah, so that explains his untouchable character—he’s almost as high up on the food chain here as Miz Ghita. And although I don’t for a fucking second believe that this particular woman is Francesca Moretti, I do get the feeling that Emilio is who he says he is. After all, the decoy, who can only pretend to be Francesca so much, needs the aid of the real Francesca’s closest and most trusted advisors. And in the case of a prominent Italian family such as this one, there is no one closer and more trusted than other members of the family.
“I’m an investor,” I say. “Stock market, real estate—”
“So you flip houses,” Emilio cuts me off, pissing on his turf; a snide grin follows, suggesting that flipping houses is for paupers and peasants.
The left-handed servant girl from before makes another round with a tray of wine, and I take a glass; my cool attention never leaves Emilio.
Smiling lightly, I bring the glass to my lips, take a small sip and then say afterward, “Actually, Emilio”—I take another sip just to draw out the moment—“there’s a lot of money to be made in, as you call it, flipping houses, if one knows what he’s buying. But to be honest, that’s not exactly what I do.”
“Then what is it, Mr. Augustin, that you do…exactly?” He takes a glass from the tray and brings it to his lips; his eyes remain on me, unblinking, over the rim as he drinks slowly.
“That,” I say with confidence, “is also better discussed in private”—I smile at the decoy standing next to him—“with the Madam. No offense, Mr. Moretti, but I don’t discuss my business ventures with anyone other than the one who sits at the head of the table. Clearly, you’re not that person.”
Emilio’s dark eyes flash, and he looks over at Miz Ghita standing next to the quiet servant girl holding the wine tray.
“I don’t think I like your tone,” he tells me.
I smile faintly, and then take another sip of wine.
“Yes, but your family’s establishment I suspect doesn’t give a shit about your opinion of my tone; my bank account is all that matters—isn’t it, Miz Moretti?” I glance at the decoy.
She takes a glass from the wine tray just as another one of the women who resembles her walks up without an escort.
Finally the decoy pretending to be Francesca steps up her game—now that she’s had time to figure out what to say. She looks over at Emilio, just as he’s about to say something in retaliation to me, and she holds up a finger to shut him up.
“That will be enough, dear Brother—I certainly don’t need you, or Mother, speaking for me.” Her dark eyes pass over Miz Ghita and then find mine. “To answer your question, Mr. Augustin: dark hair and the lightest brown skin, like Bianca’s here”—she reaches out to the servant girl and brushes the back of her fingers across the bare flesh of her shoulder—“is what makes me choose them; all of my most beloved pets possess these essential qualities.” She looks at Izabel. “What qualities must your favorites possess?”
“Well I only have one favorite girl,” I say without pause. “But what I look for in them are flaws. Particular flaws, however; I’m definitely not the kind of man who could put his cock in a woman who has the face of a horse.”
The decoy, the silent lookalike now standing beside her, and Emilio, all seem quietly stunned by my vulgarity. Even Izabel’s eyes meet mine for a brief second and I know she’s asking, “What the hell are you doing?”
Miz Ghita is unfazed.
What I’m doing, Izabel, is being myself—what did you expect, that I’d put on a suit and pretend that I’m Victor? You should know me better than that by now.
The fake Francesca smiles craftily. “That is certainly understandable, Mr. Augustin,” she says. “And I can assure you that you will find no women—or men—here who are not of the highest standards.”
“But he’ll also not find,” Emilio interjects coolly, “any flawed merchandise, so perhaps he should take his deformed strays and go elsewhere, rather than wasting your time, Sister.”
Turning my attention to Emilio, I say with a smirk, “Your attempts to get under my skin, Mr. Moretti, are infantile.” Then I lean toward him, lower my voice and say, “You really should keep your mouth shut; you’re making your family look bad in front of all these people.” I click my tongue and his brown face reddens; I look at the fake Francesca and add casually, “Looks like you could use an upgrade in the help around here—I’d be willing to offer a few pointers. Later, when we have our private meeting.”
“That’s enough!” the fake Francesca shouts at Emilio, putting up her hand to him again, just as he was about to lay into me. “I hate to say it, Emilio, but Mr. Augustin is right—you need to control yourself.”
Emilio’s head snaps around at the woman who is not Francesca, and his widened dark eyes bore into her with fury—looks like she’ll be paying the price later for her act being too convincing.
Emilio looks at me one last time, then his mother, and then turns on his expensive black shoes and walks away, trying to take as much dignity with him as he can.
“I must apologize for my brother,” says the fake Francesca. “However, it seems the two of you have something in common.”
One of my eyebrows hitches up higher than the other.
“Is that so?” I ask, quietly offended.
“Yes,” she comes back. “You’re both have a very low tolerance for other men.”
OK, I guess I can’t argue with that.
“But you should not count Emilio out,” Miz Ghita warns. “My son will not go down easily. To make your stay run smoothly, I would suggest calling this one your win, and not provoking him any further.”
“I’ll stay out of his way,” I say with the casual shrug of my shoulders, “as long as he stays out of mine.”
I notice the silent lookalike standing next to the fake Francesca, eyeing me. There’s something about her that I can’t quite shake; all this time she’s stood here and not uttered a word, and she’s clearly not a slave girl.
“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.” I reach out a hand. “My name is Niklas Augustin.”
She places her hand into mine. “Valentina Moretti,” she says, and I kiss the top of it, letting my lips linger longer than they did on the hand of the fake Francesca.
“A pleasure,” I say, and come out of my bow.
“I apologize, Mr. Augustin,” Miz Ghita says suddenly, “but Madam Moretti has other guests to speak with, and a showing in thirty minutes; we really must be on our way.”
I nod with respect. “Don’t let me keep you,” I say, looking first at the fake Francesca, and lastly at Valentina.
When they’re no longer in earshot, Izabel pushes up on her toes and pretends to be kissing my ear—she may as well be…
“What are
you thinking?” she inquires and then pulls away, a soft smile remains on her face, not indicative of the serious words we’re exchanging.
I lean toward her and slide my finger through her hair, tucking it behind her ear to free a space for my mouth.
“Well, I think we both know that woman isn’t Francesca,” I whisper onto her ear. “But I have a feeling I already know which one of them is.”
“So do I,” Izabel says, blushing, pretending. “Who are you thinking?”
“I’ll tell you when I’m one hundred percent sure of her myself.”
“Fair enough, but in the meantime,” Izabel says in a quiet voice, always smiling as if we’re simply enjoying one another, “you should try not to piss anyone off—Emilio seems like a real piece of work; he could probably mess this up for us. Heed Miz Ghita’s warning; don’t make this any more difficult than it’s already going to be.”
“I know what I’m doing, Izzy.” I stand with my hands folded down in front of me, nodding at guests as they stroll by.
“Yeah—you’re being Niklas Fleischer,” she comes back, as if that’s a bad thing.
Unclasping my hands, I hook my right on her slim waist and nod at another buyer as he passes with a girl on his arm—he glances at Izabel, probably still seeing her naked from her bold little display earlier.
“There’s not much difference between the two,” I say about the real me and the pretend one. “Besides, the worst thing I can do is show weakness, and letting another man belittle me in public is a weakness no matter what face I’m wearing. The real Francesca Moretti is a strong, vicious woman, or she wouldn’t be in the business or the position that she’s in. My guess is that she won’t give me the time of fucking day if I’m the type who’ll get on my knees and lick the shit from her boots.”
“Maybe so,” Izabel says, “but proving yourself at the expense of her brother probably isn’t the safest way to go about it.”
I look right at her. “Nothing about this is safe, Izzy. Not a damn thing. And you really shouldn’t have taken your fucking clothes off. What the hell were you thinking?”
Izabel smirks at me—Izzy, not Naomi—and then she leans toward me and says in a low, derisive voice, “It looked to me like taking off my clothes in that moment saved our asses. I guess some good came out of you shooting me, after all.” Then she adds bitingly, “But what bothers me the most was that you didn’t even remember.”
Grinding my teeth behind tightly-closed lips, I glare at her. “It wasn’t that I didn’t remember,” I bite back, “but that I’m always trying to forget.”
There’s a loud crash and the shattering of glass as another servant girl carrying wine who had walked past Nora falls to the marble floor; she and Nora tangled in a sloppy mass of bare legs and long hair; the servant’s dress covered in red wine. Every pair of eyes in the room dart our way, and the many conversations that had been going on all around us cease in an instant.
“Forgive Aya, Master,” Nora says as she goes to push herself to her feet, stepping around the wine. “A-Aya didn’t see the girl.”
Jumping back into my role—and that’s exactly what Nora was trying to achieve by tripping the servant with the wine tray—I reach down and collapse my hand around the back of Nora’s neck, yanking her to her feet. Afterward I take up my briefcase from the floor.
Miz Ghita is next to us, pulling the servant girl from the floor, but with a little less roughness. “Go to your quarters,” she demands, “and get out of your soiled clothes. Stay there until Emilio grants you permission to leave.”
“Yes, Madam,” the girl responds, bows her head and leaves quickly.
Two women, who look more like housekeepers than slaves, come in behind her with a mop and broom and a dustpan and begin cleaning up the mess. The rest of us step out of the way. Already most of the guests have grown bored with the display and are returning to their conversations—seems the fake Francesca has disappeared from the room entirely, though I don’t recall seeing when that happened. I guess my little spat with Izabel threw me off worse than I thought. What the fuck is wrong with me? I’ve never broken character before, or been distracted enough that it could blow my cover.
“Apologize to Madam Ghita,” I tell Nora.
She turns toward Miz Ghita, who is looking down on her with those fierce vulture eyes, and Nora says, “Aya apologizes, Madam, for being so clumsy.”
Miz Ghita looks only at me now, saying nothing to Nora.
“I’m beginning to think, Mr. Augustin, that we do not have a girl suited to your needs, after all. Missing fingers, scars, the grace of a fawn learning to stand”—she glances at Nora with disgust, then looks back at me—“I hope this one will be punished accordingly.”
“I’ve only been Aya’s master for a couple of months,” I explain. “This is her first public showing, so I’m sure you can understand her incompetence. But yes, she’ll be punished accordingly later, that I can assure you.”
Believing me, and granting us some slack now that there’s an acceptable reason for the display, Miz Ghita nods at me slowly, glancing at Nora in a sidelong manner.
“The showing will be held in the ballroom in ten minutes,” Miz Ghita says. “It is expected to last one hour; after that I’ll take you to meet privately with the Madam.” She starts to walk away, but turns around and adds in a low voice so only the three of us can hear, “So far it seems you check out, Mr. Augustin, but you should know that if you’re a fraud, here for any reason other than what you claim, we will find out.”
I smile slimly, my eyebrows crumpling in my forehead. “Well, thank you for the warning,” I say. I laugh, brushing the whole thing off as ridiculous. “Does this kind of stuff happen around here a lot? You seem paranoid, Miz Ghita—no offense.”
Her weathered mouth remains tight; her harsh eyes never blink.
“The Madam’s time is more precious than my own,” she says, ignoring my question. “You’ll have thirty minutes to speak with her, so make them count.”
“I intend to do just that,” I say, and tip my head to her.
Ten minutes later we follow a large group of buyers down one expansive stretch of brightly lit hallway toward the ballroom; flanked by towering pillars on either side made of white marble trimmed in silver. White. There’s so much of it; any other time I’d find it too sterile, but the color suits the mansion, and the classic, sophisticated look the designer was going for: white-and-gray marble floors, white ceiling, white paint on the walls; even the flower arrangements in the arch windows lining the hallway have white petals. And when we enter the sizeable ballroom, the white still goes on forever, across the shiny marble floor, up the steps of a stage at one end of the room; the long flowing curtains on the windows are white and gray—OK, maybe it is too sterile; I’m starting to feel like I could go snow blind in this place.
Out ahead, placed in a half-circle, are dozens of white-and-silver chairs facing the stage; three rows of them. We’re all ushered toward the chairs by men in black suits and bow ties, urged to make ourselves comfortable. I and Trevor Chamberlain are asked to sit in the front row; I take a seat, putting my briefcase on the floor; Izabel sits on a chair of her own next to me; Nora sits on the floor at my feet, her knees bent and her legs tucked underneath her ass, her hands in her lap, her head lowered, her posture straight. No one sits with Mr. Chamberlain, but that’s why he’s here: to buy himself a girl. Just like myself and every other buyer here, men and women alike, a few others with their property also sitting at their feet just like Nora.
Izabel sits quietly at my side, also with her back straight and her hands folded on her lap, but she’s looking straight at the stage. This will be her first test—when the merchandise is brought out. I hope like hell she can hold it together. We’ll be watched by unseen eyes—we’re being watched right now—because we’re new and no one trusts us yet. Don’t recoil, Izzy; keep that composed face throughout the next hour and give them no reason to question you.
Izabel
<
br /> I know I can handle it. I just need to focus on two things: the identity of Francesca Moretti, and finding Olivia Bram.
But something doesn’t add up about this whole situation where Olivia Bram is concerned. I know how these things work, I’ve been there, sitting at the master’s feet, sitting next to Javier in a chair of my own just as I’m sitting now next to Niklas. I know what’s going to walk out on that stage in a few minutes, because I’ve seen it. I witnessed hundreds of purchases just like I’ll witness tonight, in elaborate mansions just like this one, surrounded by wealthy deviants who are, in their own way, above the law. They’re here for slaves who haven’t been spoiled, young beautiful men and women so subservient, so well-trained that nothing can break them…because they’ve already been broken.
But what doesn’t add up is that if Olivia Bram was fifteen when she was abducted, she would be twenty-two now; seven years in captivity is a long time not to be deflowered, raped repeatedly—I know this from experience. There’s no way Olivia Bram would still be considered fit for purchase in a showing like this one—especially like this one. You don’t have to actually see the slaves to know that they’re of the highest quality, which includes few to no sexual partners—virgins would go for three times more than any other girl—exquisite beauty, complete obedience, and most of all youth. Olivia Bram, at twenty-two, already on the market for seven years wouldn’t meet the criteria of being up for bid in a place like this. Even myself and Nora wouldn’t be good enough to be sold on that stage.
So where the hell would Olivia Bram be in this place?
It kills me to think it, but my gut tells me that she’s not here at all, and that for as long as she’s been missing, there’s a good chance she’s already dead. She was likely sold years ago, on that very stage—there’s no telling where in the world she is now, if she’s anywhere.
Positive. Think positive, Izabel. You were held captive for two years longer than Olivia Bram has been missing; if you were strong enough to stay alive, then Olivia could be, too.
The Black Wolf Page 12
