The Black Wolf

by J. A. Redmerski

  Yes, she could still be alive…but nothing much can convince me that she’s anywhere in this mansion. And I get the feeling Niklas already knows this; he’s probably known it all along. The only reason we’re here right now is for Francesca Moretti. Only after we find her can we find Olivia Bram. Alive, or at least a trace of what was once her when she was alive.

  Niklas

  Valentina Moretti steps out onto the stage and makes her way to stand in front of a tall glass podium with a microphone affixed to the top. I knew that particular lookalike played a bigger role than the one she played in the great hall. And I knew there was something more important about her, something different that sets her apart from the other decoys. This particular woman definitely has some kind of power around here; she wears it in the way she walks, the way her dark eyes pass over the guests as if they’re her prey—she wears power and confidence like a coat, and that is reason enough for her to be my prime suspect.

  When the voices of the guests fade and Valentina has everyone’s full attention, she speaks into the microphone.

  “Good evening. As always we are delighted to have you join us for the weekly showing; and as always, we have quite a collection for you to bid on tonight—we think you’ll be thoroughly pleased.”

  Thankfully she’s speaking English; there may be a diverse group of buyers here from many different countries, but English is one the most vital languages in the world to learn, especially for those who want to thrive in business and academia—this is where I actually envy my backstabbing brother: he’s fluent in many languages, and took to learning them like a shark learning to swim; I was never so good at that shit.

  “To those of you who have been here before, please keep in mind the rules. To those of you who are new”—Valentina looks right at me, first and foremost, and then at a few other guests—“the rules are as follows.”

  She places both hands on the sides of the glass podium; there’s nothing on top of it that she’d be reading from because she knows the rules by heart.

  “You do not have permission to approach the merchandise for further inspection unless you are willing to pay for it. All of you will be able to see the merchandise undressed from where you are, but to get a closer look, you must raise your red paddle, which is your way of agreeing to the examination price—you bid only with the black paddle. Secondly,” she goes on, “you are not to speak directly to the merchandise; if you would like it to stand a certain way, to bend, or to speak so you may hear the voice, you request it of the seller and he or she will give the order. The same goes for touching: you are not to touch, skin on skin, what you do not own. If you require a more thorough examination of the merchandise, latex gloves will be provided, but that too must be paid for. Lastly, your opinion of the merchandise is just that: your opinion. You are not permitted to speak to other buyers about any conclusions, positive or negative, you have drawn after closer examination”—Valentina glances at me once more; she must’ve been informed of my little show with Trevor Chamberlain and the left-handed servant girl—“If other buyers want to know more about the merchandise, they must pay the examination price as well—not be given complimentary information—so that they may draw their own conclusions.” She looks at me again. I smile vaguely.

  “And as always”—Valentina looks back out at the crowd—“if you have any questions about the merchandise, please raise your hand—not your paddles; you raise a paddle and you pay; accidents must always be met with punishment, ladies and gentlemen.” A low wave of laughter moves through the crowd.

  “With that said,” she adds, “let us begin.”

  A flurry of whispering voices and the shuffling of bodies against the seats spills out over the vast space as each buyer reaches underneath their chairs to retrieve two paddles, one red one black, affixed to the underside. I do the same once I realize that’s what they’re doing.

  Valentina remains standing at the podium in all her mysterious grace, looking out at the crowd, waiting for everyone to get situated. She’s dressed in a pinkish-gold dress—like a conch seashell—that hangs to the top of her knees, decorated in strips of cream-colored lace; thin straps hang about her shoulders; mile-long tanned legs; eyes painted dark; lips the color of a pink rose. She doesn’t look at me again, which intrigues me. I can’t tell if the bitch has an interest in me and she’s playing hard to get, or if all of her surreptitious glances are just her keeping her suspicious eye on a potential rival—I’m beginning to think it’s more the latter.

  But where the hell is the so-called Francesca Moretti?

  Just as that thought enters my head, she walks out onto the stage escorted by my favorite cocksucker, Emilio. And behind them, Miz Ghita comes out with two servant girls: the left-handed one named Bianca, and another dark-haired girl with striking similarities, clearly two of Francesca’s favorite pets. Three men in suits and bowties come out afterward, each carrying a chair, and place them side by side behind and to the right of Valentina at the podium. The men leave as ‘Francesca’, Emilio and Miz Ghita sit down; the servant girls remain standing next to Miz Ghita, their hands folded down in front of them, their eyes lowered.

  Valentina prepares to speak again, licking the dryness from her lips, swallowing, looking out into the crowd of onlookers. Then from behind, a man walks out onto the stage, dressed in a suit and tie; his hair is blond, short, neat, and he’s young, in his middle twenties maybe—he kind of reminds me of Dorian Flynn, minus the impish smiles, wisecracking mouth, and sexually whipped personality of a man in love. Nah, this guy has probably never smiled in his fucking life; has more important things to do than to act a fool like Dorian; and as far as being in love, or being ‘sexually whipped’—he knows how that feels about as much as a wealthy man knows what it’s like to live on the streets, eating out of dumpsters.

  This particular man is a master, as will be all of the escorts who bring out the ‘merchandise’ onto the stage. And the young blond-haired girl walking in front of him has probably spent the last several months of her life being trained for this very moment. She could’ve been fresh out of high school; a college girl just starting out, working as a waitress somewhere; or maybe even still in high school when she was abducted. She’s still young; can’t be older than nineteen. I wonder how long it took for him to break her.

  “Our first piece up for bid tonight,” Valentina announces, speaking into the microphone, “is a Class B girl from France”—(Class B, denotes non-virgin; nineteen years of age or younger)—“She was fully trained and obedient in under three months; is fluent in French and English; she can play the violin, and has a pleasant singing voice. Yes, what is your question?” Valentina points at Trevor Chamberlain sitting two seats down from me.

  “Does the girl have any freckles on her chest area?” Trevor speaks up, his smooth voice rolling over the audience as if he were also speaking into a mic.

  Valentina looks to the girl’s master.

  The master, with his hands clasped behind his back, answers clearly, confidently, “There are six freckles on her chest area, light in color.” He gently grasps the hem of her little white dress and pulls it over her head, afterward dropping it on the floor.

  The girl stands naked in front of the crowd, her slender arms down at her sides; she doesn’t tremble; nothing about her posture suggests that’s she’s tense or afraid or angry—she’s whatever her master wants her to be, inside and out.

  The master points out each freckle; I can see a few darker freckles on her arms, but the master is smart not to draw attention to anything that’s not in question.

  I glance over at Trevor Chamberlain—he likes the girl; freckles on the chest must be something he has a particular fondness for.

  Trevor raises his hand again, almost eagerly.

  Valentina nods, giving him the go-ahead.

  “Being fluent in two languages,” he begins, “as well as playing an instrument suggests that the girl might’ve come from a wealthy family—is she still being s
earched for?” His question translates: I’m not interested in buying a girl whose family has enough means and wealth to eventually find her.

  “You are correct,” the master says, “the girl was from a wealthy French family, but I can assure you no one is looking for her; she will be a fully secure purchase.”

  “But how can you be so sure?” Trevor asks, this time without raising his hand; Valentina doesn’t seem overly annoyed by this, but she does make note of it.

  “Because it was her family who sold her to me,” the master says.

  Interesting—a family that doesn’t need money because they’re already wealthy, yet they sell one of their own to a slave master? Interesting, but not unbelievable. And strangely enough, not uncommon. This is a fucked up world, after all.

  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 fucking 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 fucking 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 fucking 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 fuck 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?”

  I glance over at her. “I’ll talk about that with the Madam.”

  Miz Ghita’s aging face sours, but she doesn’t respond.

  In under a minute later, we’re entering an enormous room that looks like three offices in one. Books line the tall walls from floor to ceiling, surrounding a massive desk with an arc-shaped window situated behind it. A matching leather sofa and loveseat and oversized chair is placed strategically out ahead of the desk; expensive Italian rugs cover the marble floor underneath the furniture, giving some red and brown and blue color to the otherwise blinding white floors.

  “Have a seat.” Miz Ghita gestures toward the furniture.

  I sit in the oversized chair; Izabel sits next to me; Nora on the floor at my feet with my briefcase.

  Miz Ghita leaves the room.

  Knowing there are cameras and equipment watching and recording our every move and sound, I use the time alone to make our act even more believable. I reach down and grab a fistful of Nora’s hair in my hand, jerking her head back forcefully on her neck—it’s the first time since her little ‘accident’ in the great hall that Niklas Augustin has really had the opportunity to scold her in private for what she did.

  “You’ve embarrassed me, Aya,” I tell her, literally breathing down her neck. “And I don’t like to be embarrassed.” I pull on her hair harder; her brown eyes look up at me with regret and apology—fake, but believable. I grind my jaw and lean in closer, my mouth mere inches from hers. “If I didn’t have important business with these people, I’d ask to use one of their rooms and I’d take the fucking time to punish you here. But when we get back to the hotel—don’t look away from my eyes, girl”—I wrench her hair so hard the corners of her eyes stretch—“when we get back to the hotel, you’re to remove your clothes immediately, stand in the room and wait for me to get out of the shower. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, Master,” comes her small voice.

  I hear people entering the room from behind me, but I h
old onto Nora’s hair a moment longer, glaring into her eyes, not thinking about any of this shit with Moretti or Olivia Bram, but instead about that night Nora sat across the table from me, when I relived the worst moment of my life: Claire’s death. I’ve hated this bitch since that night. I didn’t hate her before, when she clocked me in the face in the auditorium; I didn’t even hate her when I first sat down at the table with her when it was my turn to confess—honestly, the bitch gave me one helluva hard-on. She had the whole fucking show and quite frankly I was impressed with her. But then she had to succeed in getting under my skin; she had to go and break the seal on my emotions—she made me crack; she made me want to crack, and that pisses me off almost more than anything. The only thing worse is that she altered my relationship with my brother; she pulled the veil from my goddamn eyes and changed everything—and for that I’ll never forgive her. I would’ve rather gone on living the lie, believing that Victor had never and would never betray me. Because he’s the only family I got, the only family I’ve ever had since my mother was murdered.

  And now I have no one; no one I can trust.

  And Nora will pay for what she did. One way or another she’ll pay.

  Releasing her hair harshly, Nora’s head sways on her neck for a brief second before she gains control of it, and then she looks at the floor.

  I stand to properly acknowledge ‘Francesca’ entering the room, as always with her escorts, Emilio, and two of her favorite servant girls. I glance at the entrance, waiting for Valentina to come walking in behind them, but am surprised to see another one of the decoys, instead. Miz Ghita enters afterward, closing the double doors behind her. The nameless decoy sits down on the loveseat, says nothing, and no one feels any need to introduce her. She looks at me, a faint but noticeable smile at her lips. She crosses her long legs, straightens her back and drapes her dainty hands over the top of her knee.