are rimmed with red; the whites of her eyes streaked and mapped by little inflamed veins; tears track down her cheeks, drip from her chin. Niklas touches the bruised skin under her left eye with the pad of his thumb, gently and with as much disingenuous comfort as Francesca had meant to give the baby when trying to calm it.
“From now on,” Niklas says in a calm, frightening voice, “you will be known as Lia.” His thumb moves to her mouth, tracing her bottom lip and stopping in the center, pulling the lip gently away from her teeth. Sian swallows desperately; she stares directly into his eyes, knowing that her new master compels it. “You will speak only when spoken to; you will do anything and everything I tell you to do, and you will do it to my satisfaction or you will be”—he licks the dryness from his lips—“punished in ways that will make you wish I had let the Madam kill you.” He leans in and touches his lips to hers ever so gently, as if he’s savoring the taste of her on his mouth, his new toy that he can’t wait to take home and open. Every part of her. Physically and emotionally. For a moment I forget who he is; I’m so quietly shocked by his act that I’m beginning to wonder if it’s still an act at all; my heart is pounding violently in my chest.
“W-What about my baby? Please buy my baby!”
Niklas’s big hand crushes the girl’s throat. He rises into a towering stand, lifting her from the floor and off her feet. My hand is over my mouth before I can stop it. Sian kicks her feet back and forth; blood trickles down the insides of her thighs; her hands grip Niklas’s wrists, trying desperately to pry his vise-grip fingers from her throat; her pale face begins to turn colors; her blue eyes bulge in her face. She gasps for air to fill her lungs with, but no matter how wide she opens her mouth, the air can’t get past Niklas’s hand.
Emilio starts to move forward, just a small step that Francesca doesn’t see because her back is to him, but then he stops when Niklas releases Sian and she falls against the floor, choking, gasping; the natural white color of her face coming back to the surface to replace the red and purple. She lies down on her side, helpless, hopeless, crying into her hands.
“Sister,” Francesca says to Valentina, “take the child away.”
“NO! DON’T TAKE HER—”
Niklas knocks Sian out cold, cutting her off. Emilio turns and leaves the room promptly, when—and because—I know that all he wants to do is kill Niklas. But he can’t unless he wants to give himself away and give Francesca reason to kill Sian.
“I’ve no clue what you see in such uncivilized behavior,” Francesca tells Niklas. Her robe has come apart; impossible not to be aware of it, though she doesn’t care and goes on talking with her naked body on display. “Challenge or not.”
Niklas grins. “I just like it when they fight,” he says.
Francesca grins right back at him, understanding, and then she gets back to business.
“One of the conditions of your purchase,” she says, “is that you get her out of this country no later than tomorrow afternoon.” Translation: I want her away from my brother whom I have an unhealthy obsession with on so many levels of crazy.
Tomorrow? We’re never going to find Olivia Bram—hell, I’m beginning to doubt we’re going to pull off kidnapping this insane woman.
“That’s when we planned to leave anyway,” Niklas says.
Francesca switches the briefcase to the opposite hand.
“Are you sure you’re not interested in buying the child?” she asks, suspiciously. I think she’s still testing him.
“Oh, I’m sure,” Niklas answers right away. Then he takes a cigarette from his jacket and lights it up in his mouth. “But I am still interested in viewing your cyprians.”
Francesca’s left eyebrow hitches up.
“You want to buy more than one girl? That can certainly be arranged.” Without looking away from Niklas, she calls out to the women in the hall, “I suggest you get in here and get this room cleaned.”
The women scurry into the room and start cleaning at once: stripping the bed of its bloody sheets, dusting, sweeping; they look terrified. I wonder if the housekeepers live here too. I wonder how many times they’ve all huddled together somewhere like they were doing in the hall as this spectacle with Sian