I look between Francesca and Izabel, having no idea of Francesca’s intentions, but I know they’re dark and I know they have everything to do with Izabel and it makes me fucking nervous. Instinctively I move—calmly, not in a rush—toward them and take Izabel by the arm, pulling her from the chair.
Izzy stands immediately even without my help; she keeps her hands linked together down in front of her. I expect to be able to feel her heart hammering through the vein in her arm, but I don’t.
Francesca stands in front of Izabel.
“Look at me, girl,” she commands.
Izabel does. “But Madam, I’m not a slave,” she says in a soft, timid voice.
Francesca grabs Izabel’s chin in her free hand and turns her head left and right, at an angle, side to side, up and down, inspecting her—and no doubt testing her, testing me.
“I can see why she’s your favorite,” Francesca says, looking at me briefly. “She is very beautiful, despite the scar on her stomach.” She glances in Nora’s direction, but never actually looks at her. “The blond is also stunning, but the scars and the missing finger are too much.”
I guess that means she doesn’t feel inadequate next to Nora because of Nora’s many ‘imperfections’—but what does that mean for Izzy? Francesca already knows I have a soft spot for ‘Naomi’, but I think she wants to know just how soft; how far I’m willing to let her go. If too far, Izzy could be in trouble, but if not far enough I’ll look weak, * whipped like Dorian Flynn, and that’s the same as licking the shit from Francesca’s boots, and she’ll lose any respect for me she might have.
“Niklas,” Izabel says, her face still wrenched in Francesca’s hand, “I’m afraid.”
You’re also a good liar.
A flash of silver sends panic through me as Francesca raises the knife.
“What are you doing?” I demand; my arm is suddenly between Francesca and Izabel. “I don’t care who you are; I won’t allow you to disfigure my property—that’s my privilege.”
Francesca smiles, and although it feels slippery and dangerous, I hold my fixed expression on her, and my arm in front of her, daring her to hurt Izabel. I start to reach for my gun until I remember I had to check it in at the door.
“Niklas…please,” Izabel cries softly.
“I will not break skin,” Francesca promises, still with that slippery smile. “It’s only temporary, I assure you.”
Reluctantly I lower my arm and rest it back at my side. I look at Izabel, softening my eyes on her, my way of telling Naomi that everything will be OK, and then look back at Francesca. I nod, giving her the go-ahead, and hoping like hell I don’t regret it. Francesca’s grinning eyes fall away from me and she grabs Izzy’s hair and starts cutting; the sharp shearing sound of metal on hair, hacking away chunks of Izabel’s auburn locks. In seconds the floor is covered in dark red hair, scattered in heaps around Izzy’s feet atop the Italian rug. I look up at her, taking in the sight of her botched haircut as unevenly as a five-year-old with a pair of scissors. At least it wasn’t cut too short near the scalp anywhere that Izzy would have to shave the rest off later. Strangely, Izabel looks relieved—better hair than flesh.
“Now go sit down,” Francesca tells her and moves back toward the desk.
With her head lowered in shame, Izabel maintains her scared act and walks back to the oversized chair.
“I have never heard of you…Niklas,” Francesca says, sashaying her hips as she walks toward Nora slowly, knife in hand. “And I must tell you, that even though your story checks out and I have found nothing on you to indicate you’re not who you claim to be, I am still not convinced.” She stops feet from Nora and turns to look back at me. “Surely you understand my…hesitations.”
“I understand more than you know.” I walk toward her. “And if you weren’t so…thorough, Miz Moretti—”
“Francesca.”
“Francesca,” I say with a slow nod. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing business with you at all.”
“Is that why you chose to come to me rather than”—she gestures her fingers outward in a dismissing fashion; her nose is wrinkled on one side with contempt—“that incompetent woman who does not know the first thing about this business?”
“Madam Carlotta?” I smile, to further hit a nerve.
“Tell me, Niklas,” she begins, perturbed, “why did you choose to come here? The truth, of course.” She glances at a naked and heavily scarred Nora briefly and then turns back to me. “The better question would be how you knew I was more than a Madam? I will pay you for the name or names of those who”—she drags the blunt edge of the blade across the top of her hand—“spoke without thinking.”
I edge my way closer, maintaining my composed performance so she doesn’t feel like I’m worried about Nora the way I was with Izabel. I’m not really—I know Nora can handle herself, though I hope it doesn’t come to that.
“No one told me anything.” I stop two feet to her left and slide my hands into my pants pockets casually. “At least nothing about your on-the-side business in the sex trade. I figured that out on my own.”