by Lila Dubois
Antonio scowled, as he reclaimed his seat. “She is in no condition for—”
Leila cut him off. “You think so?” She shot a questioning glance at Antonio, pretending to be uncertain. “I'm not sure.”
“This is an inappropriate conversation,” Antonio said almost primly.
That prompted Karl and Leila to laugh.
“I still haven’t heard you deny the truth of it.”
She expected him to continue to demur. She should have known better. Antonio was a straight shooter. It didn’t appear to be in him to lie.
“We would be very good in bed together.” Antonio’s gaze was warm and sweet, like a good dark chocolate. “I could give you want you want.” His voice was low and rough like whiskey. “You can’t handle it, or me, right now.”
It was partially a challenge, but his words drove home just how much she still hurt. The Leila she’d been pre-torture would have definitely been turned on by the prospect of sex with Antonio—the man was sex-on-a-stick hot—but at the moment, she could only recall how it had felt to be naked, wet, cold, exposed. She tucked her legs tighter beneath her and tried to suppress a shiver.
Karl seemed to see inside her, seemed to understand her response without her saying a word. “It’ll get better,” he murmured.
Antonio frowned. “Leila. I’m sorry.”
She shook her head quickly, refusing to allow him to apologize for something she’d initiated. She had made the comment because it was her natural way of flirting with handsome men. “I’m trying to find my normal again. It’s not coming to me very easily.”
Karl reached for her, palm up, leaving the decision to take his hand to her. He wouldn’t grab it, wouldn’t push an unwanted touch on her.
She smiled and placed hers in his.
“I’m struggling too. I’m not used to feeling so…”
Leila forced herself to wait, wanting to hear what word he was struggling to find. She felt so many things—afraid, scared, uncertain.
Finally, he landed on the one that described her perfectly. “Helpless,” he said.
Antonio rested his hands on his knees, leaning toward them. “Neither of you are helpless. Ciril knew what he was doing. There is no such thing as perfect safety.”
“You mean no way to protect ourselves?” Karl asked softly.
“No.” Antonio help up his hands, looking frustrated. “I mean that he knew how to make you vulnerable so he could capture you.”
Leila’s chest tightened as her brain automatically changed the name Ciril to Six.
Antonio, ever the protector, had refused to leave them in that house to die, risking his own life to rescue them, and now he was fighting—not to save their bodies, but their souls.
Leila glanced at the ground, not able to hold eye contact as she admitted, “I’m not sure how to fix this. I always know.”
Antonio stood briefly before kneeling before her. He didn’t seek to touch her, something that left her relieved and disappointed at the same time. “Time will fix this. You have to believe that.”
Karl was still holding her hand. He squeezed it. “Antonio is right. It’s only been a week, Leila. Our bodies haven’t completely healed, so why would we think it would be different for our spirits? I know I don’t intend to let Ciril win again. He bested me once, strapped me to that chair. He’s not going to keep me there, helpless and scared forever.”
Leila nodded, batting back the tears. “I won’t either,” she whispered.
Karl lifted her hand, kissing her knuckles in a way that was old-fashioned, yet incredibly endearing. “We’ll help each other.”
“I’ll help you too,” Antonio said.
She reached out to him, holding her hand palm up the same way Karl had.
A smile was too much to ask for, but there was definitely pleasure in Antonio’s eyes as he took the proffered hand.
“With your permission, I’d like to find a therapist, someone who can come here and speak to both of you.”
Karl nodded, though Leila could see that—like her—he was uncomfortable with the idea of needing that kind of professional help. She knew the value of help, but seeing someone would mean talking about what had happened.
“Okay,” she agreed.
Antonio lifted his other hand, cupping hers between both of his, as Karl released her hand, needing a closer, bigger touch. Karl wrapped his arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head—it was a brotherly gesture, though there was no denying she didn’t regard him that way.
Leila was a warrior, a born fighter.
Except here.
With Karl and Antonio, she felt like a woman. And she liked it.
Suddenly, her future didn’t look as frightening or bleak. Until she found her strength again, she would lean on them.
The old Leila would have balked at relying on anyone for help.
This woman—the new one—felt the first sliver of peace.
Karl noticed the surface of his water glass rippling. He was certain there wasn’t a dinosaur approaching, which meant he was, once again, jiggling his leg so hard the whole table was shaking.
He forced himself to go still and smile. Neither Antonio nor Leila had noticed the table vibrating.
He wasn’t the only one who was distracted.
It had been like this for the last few days. In the weeks they’d been at the villa, the three of them had talked, laughed, eaten, and drank together. It had reminded him a bit of being in graduate school, when he and the other students working an archaeology dig would gather on the roof of the dig house with beers and ice cream and just talk for hours.
Saying that Antonio and Leila were his friends was both accurate and too simple a term. He and Leila had been through so much together, and Antonio was the only person who could fully understand because he’d seen them in their darkest hour.
In the past two weeks, several therapists and counselors had come to speak with Karl and Leila. They had plans for continuing their mental recovery. For the most part, they were physically whole again, though he still had bandages on the worst of the sores, there to protect the newly formed skin and prevent any new or further infection.
He should have been thinking about getting back to his life. With the assistance of the Masters’ Admiralty, his sudden disappearance had been explained to the universities and private clients that employed him. He had another week or so before he had to be back at work—security officers from his own territory prepared to take over bodyguard duties if Ciril hadn’t been captured by then—and he should be thinking about that. He should be checking in on what progress had been made by his graduate students on the various investigations and dig sites. He should be reading the journal articles that had come out while he’d been holed up here.
He should be doing those things, but what he was really doing was thinking about Ciril, the Domino, and just how poorly the pieces of this puzzle were fitting together.
He had questions, so many questions, and no one would give them answers. It had been a one-way flow of information, from them to others in the society. Antonio had sat them down and debriefed them several times, then one of Rome’s cavalieri came and did the same, with much more finesse than Antonio possessed. Everything the three of them had heard or seen when in Ciril’s presence had been documented, multiple times, and all that information had been handed over to the task force the fleet admiral had created to find Ciril.
Their part in the story was done.
That one-way flow of information meant the three of them were being kept totally in the dark about the progress. After some threats from Antonio, the cavaliere who came to interview them agreed to let them know when they were close to capturing Ciril. That was the last thing any of them had heard, which meant either the knight had lied, or they weren’t close to capturing the man who’d kidnapped and tortured himself and Leila.
Karl shook his head, yanking himself out of the circular thought pattern. He needed to either stay in the moment—cont
inuing to enjoy Leila and Antonio’s company—or he needed to start getting ready to return to work.
Antonio was on his right, half-eaten breakfast on the table before him. He looked as distracted as Karl felt, though to someone who didn’t know Antonio as well as Karl had come to know him, the look might be mistaken for anger. Antonio had his arms crossed over his chest. One lock of hair fell forward over his forehead, and his brows were drawn together.
Leila was on his left. She was stacking and balancing sugar cubes on her serviette. Now that he’d stopped jiggling the table, her tower was almost ten cubes high. Leila wasn’t one to mince words, so the fact that she hadn’t told him to stop meant she was so absorbed in thought that she hadn’t noticed he was destabilizing the foundation of her small-scale construction project.
He wondered if they were thinking the same things he was, stuck asking questions they couldn’t get answers to. Antonio and Leila were both security officers—which meant they were arguably among the most dangerous members of the Masters’ Admiralty—but that didn’t seem to matter when it came to getting information about the investigation. They were each sworn to obey their territory’s security minister and admiral. The admirals of Kalmar and Rome had ordered Leila and Antonio to stay in Venice, for the three of them to stay together. The admiral of Germany had stopped Karl’s family from flying to Italy and launching a search for the “secret location” where they’d been told he was recuperating.
Kalmar and Rome’s orders for Leila and Antonio had been a bit redundant, since the fleet admiral had given them that same order before the territory admirals even had all the information as to what had happened.
But Karl wasn’t under orders. He didn’t have those same restrictions…and he had a secret. He was one of the librarians.
“I’m going to go send some emails.” Karl pushed up from the table, carried his empty breakfast plate through to the kitchen, and set it on the counter. He grabbed a piece of fruit from a bowl, tucking it into his pocket.
His rational mind knew it was silly to horde and hide food like this, but it would take a long time for him to forget what it had felt like to starve. The small orange fit neatly in his pocket.
When he returned to the dining room, Leila was also on her feet. “I’ll walk up with you. I need to check my email too.”
Leila joined him in a silent trek through the house. They went up the stairs, her fingers trailing lightly on the polished wooden banister.
“How are you doing?” she asked him.
Karl smiled, though briefly. “I’m fine. Ready to get,” some answers, “back to work.”
Leila put a hand on his arm to stop him. “You don’t have to pretend with me.”
“I’m not.”
She stepped closer, then reached into his slacks pocket and withdrew the orange. She held it up, balanced on a trio of fingertips. “This is what it means to be fine?”
Karl took the orange and slid it back into his pocket. He put his arms around her, pulling her close. They were in Venice, which wasn’t exactly known for its chilly climate, but Leila wore a sweater and thick socks along with her leggings. The instant he touched her, she pressed in close to his chest.
“Still cold?” he asked quietly.
“Sometimes it feels like I just can’t get warm.”
“I’m sleeping with a bottle of water under my pillow.”
Leila pressed her forehead to his shoulder and sighed.
“Do you want me to call someone?” Antonio asked.
Leila stayed pressed against Karl, but turned her head to Antonio and reached out a hand. The other man walked over and pressed himself against Leila’s back. They encased her in their body heat. It wasn’t the first time they’d done this, and it might not be the last. Despite all their teasing over the last few weeks, moments like this weren’t sexual.
Not yet.
Karl frowned at that thought, then cleared his throat. Leila looked up and tried to step away, but with Antonio at her back, she didn’t get far. When she pushed gently, Karl retreated a pace.
“Go send your emails,” she said.
“Yes, I’m going to see what—” I can find out. Karl cut himself off and pretended to clear his throat. “Something in the air. I will see you both later.”
Antonio looked at Karl and raised one brow.
Karl did not want Antonio to start asking too many questions. He was too quiet and deadly to be good at drawing out information via questioning—hence the knight who’d come—but if he asked something, it would alert Leila, and she was like a dog with a bone. Back when they’d been in that hellhole, her fierce determination not to leave without him had been both frustrating and comforting.
He hadn’t told anyone besides the therapist that he had a recurring waking nightmare that the fire had spread while they were still trying to get him free, and he’d had to watch her burn to death, all the while insisting she wouldn’t leave him.
Karl forced a smile and went into his room, closing the door firmly. He stayed there, listening for the sounds of them walking away, before he grabbed his earbuds and went out onto the furnished rooftop terrace that overlooked the water.
Though he burned with the need for answers, he stopped to appreciate the view. The day he stopped taking pleasure in the beauty around him would be a grim day indeed. Ciril hadn’t stripped that from him.
The grand gardens that surrounded the villa included a private swimming pool and lush, green landscaped lawns. It would be the perfect place to travel for holiday, yet none of them had spent more than an hour here or there relaxing in the sun loungers. The pool, as inviting as it was, had remained unused.
He didn’t dare take a dip in the tempting blue water with his bandages. It was a shame. He loved swimming. More than that, he loved floating in water, his face above the surface, his ears below, muting out the sounds surrounding him. In that state, he could find peace and utter relaxation. Outdoor swimming pools were uncommon in his homeland of Denmark—the temperature rarely rising high enough to allow such enjoyment, the ground not exactly the ideal soil to sink a pool into.
He plugged in his earbuds and called Josephine.
Josephine was one of the librarians, along with himself and four others. The group was new, formed in the aftermath of the death of the previous fleet admiral by James Rathmann, a renowned numismatist, whose knowledge of ancient coins had provided a clue linking Ciril’s first kills—Christina, Nazario, and Lorena—to the Domino.
James was married to the new admiral of England, and it was that connection that had led the fleet admiral to allow the formation of a small think tank of scholars who would pool their knowledge and intellectual resources to work on issues facing the Masters’ Admiralty from within the proverbial ivory tower.
While James, as the default leader of the librarians, would have been a good person to call, there was a complication. James’s wife was none other than Sophia, Antonio’s sister. That meant James was probably well aware that the three of them were supposed to be resting and recovering, and therefore wouldn’t give him any information about the case.
Cecilia St. John, another of the librarians, was a financial analyst by day, but her hobby was history, particularly the history of the Masters’ Admiralty. A good option, except she was James’s cousin, which made her Antonio’s…cousin-in-law by marriage?
Karl tapped his thumb thoughtfully on the screen of his phone. Nyx Kata was a religious scholar, but there hadn’t been anything particularly religious in what Ciril had said, so he doubted she could offer any insights. Hugo Marchand was a political science professor, and given what they knew about Ciril—Serbian with family ties to Croatia—politics, particularly the historical presence of the Masters’ Admiralty in the region, might be important.
But it wasn’t Hugo he decided to call. It was Josephine.
Josephine O’Connor was Irish through and through. A resident of Dublin—where the librarians met—she liked to talk.
A lot.
And that was what he was banking on.
Karl dialed her number and waited for the call to connect.
Though they’d only met once, he knew a fair amount about Josephine, including that she could “talk for Ireland”—which he eventually figured out meant that if talking were an Olympic sport, she would be her homeland’s representative and undoubtedly a gold medal winner. She wasn’t a legacy, but she was close with the new fleet admiral, referring to him as Eric, rather than “Fleet Admiral.”
That closeness to their leader might backfire—she might be under orders directly from the fleet admiral not to talk to him.
However, the other thing he’d learned about Josephine was that she didn’t have a good verbal filter and seemed to have very little sense as to when and how to keep secrets.
The call connected.
“Karl? Alright then? Of course not. You were kidnapped and tortured. Jaysus, I shouldn’t be saying that out loud and reminding you about it. I’m so sorry. How are you? Wait, that’s hardly better than ‘alright then’.”
Karl’s lips twitched. “Hello, Josephine.”
“Ah bless you, you poor man.”
“I’m fine now. Healing. Thinking about returning to work.”
“Oh good. You have to keep busy. I’m so glad you called. We were worried. When you didn’t show up to the meeting…I’m sorry. We thought you were running late. Or busy. If we’d raised the alarm right away, maybe…”
Karl shook his head, though he knew she couldn’t see the motion. “That’s not why I called, and you—none of you—are to blame.”
“We are though. Next time someone goes missing, I’m going to go find them myself.”
“Don’t,” Karl said in alarm. “Don’t do that.”
“I may be small, but I’m a fighter.”
“I’m…sure you are.” Karl was having a hard time imagining Josephine, with her glasses and wild hair, in a fight. “But I actually called because I need some information.”