“Ah, I see.” Francesca crosses her legs; her hand remains on my inner thigh. “But why would he do such a thing? Were you not close as brothers?”
“We were always close,” I tell her, thinking of Victor, mourning our severed relationship, knowing that I can never truly forgive him and that nothing between us will ever be the same. “And he killed her because he thought he was protecting me.”
“The older brother?”
I nod.
“And do you still have a relationship with this older, protective brother?”
I hesitate before answering, “A working one, it seems.”
“You work for him?”
“I work with him,” I establish quickly. “Or, at least that’s the way things are supposed to be”—I shake my head—“but I’ve always felt more…beneath him than beside him.” I look off at the wall—I need to leave. Soon.
“Ah, yes,” she says. “The leader of the wolf pack, your brother. The alpha male. Getting all the respect and glory.” She smiles. “He should be careful; wolves are protective, territorial—but also cannibalistic. Should your brother show weakness, step into a snare trap, he will be torn apart by the other wolves. And then you will become the alpha.”
Francesca’s hand slides away from my thigh and she stands from the sofa. She ties her bloody white robe closed in front of me, but I take nothing from the gesture other than an involuntary action.
“Family bonds,” she says, pacing slowly, “can be a tricky thing. I have eight sisters and only one brother; my mother hates every one of us—except for Valentina; Valentina is her favorite. She is the eldest; she was supposed to be in my place as Madam, but I was chosen over her by our father.” She smiles, looking off at the wall, appearing briefly lost in a memory, or maybe a face. She grins. “But I am my father’s favorite, and what my father wants trumps my wretched mother’s wishes.” She pauses as if to savor that truth and then says, “But I have learned in my time living with my sisters, all of whom want what I have, that to be my own person so I’m not forced to live in their shadow, I have to play dirty, and let nothing nor anyone get in the way or I could end up kissing my mother’s ass like Valentina does. I could end up kissing my older sister’s ass.”
I smile darkly.
“So you’re this beautiful terrible creature who disfigures her property because it keeps your family under your control?” I know that’s not it. Entirely.
She smiles. “No,” she says. “I do that because I enjoy it.” The smile stretches; so does mine. She paces some more, arms crossed loosely under her breasts. “We are unique, you and I, the black wolves of our families, mutations; we are special. The only difference I see is that I lead my pack, and you, being the loyal, devoted brother that you are, choose to live in an older sibling’s shadow.”
I sneer, look away. “You don’t know anything about me or my brother,” I say. “How would you know if I was loyal and devoted to him?”
Francesca, unfazed by my gall, answers with a clever grin, “Because your brother is still alive. If one of my sisters had killed the man I love, my revenge would be merciless and swift. Loyalty is not so unlike love: you do things for it that you would not otherwise do; you feel a terrible, all-consuming sense of responsibility to uphold it; you go the extra mile to prove it; and most of all, you accept the pain it creates because to deny it would be to deny the loyalty itself. The only difference between loyalty and love is that for love you do all of these things because you want to, and you would do them again, and again, and again. Loyalty is learned; love is organic.”
I glance down at my lap—she’s right and I want to kill her for it.
“You may be right,” I say, looking back up at her, “but you still don’t know enough about me for us to be having this conversation.” I stand from the sofa. “My apologies, but I really need to go. Thank you for the evening. I will be in touch.”
“Niklas,” she says, stopping me in my casual stroll toward the closed door. “I did not mean to hit a nerve.” She moves up behind me, places a hand on my shoulder and walks around my body to face me; her fingers leaving a trail across my chest. The bitch wants to kiss me, the way she keeps looking at my lips; her closeness; the seductive sweep of her eyelashes; the parting of her mouth. “Few men have ever intrigued me the way you do. From the moment I saw you, I knew there was something about you, a mystery I needed to unravel. It wasn’t your money that bought your private meeting; it was my curiosity. I would have given you the meeting for free.”
She walks around me slowly, her fingers falling away from my back.