Wrath's Storm: A Masters' Admiralty Novel

by Mari Carr

  Jakob’s fear for her and guilt, along with all complete rational thought, was wiped away as a fresh wave of bone-breaking agony took him.

  Twenty minutes after Walt had hung up the phone, there was a knock at the door, and Walt went to answer it as Jakob struggled to stand. According to Walt, the hotel general manager had said they needed to check with their legal counsel before releasing any security footage.

  Walt opened the door, and Jakob cursed silently.

  Because the man who walked in wasn’t from the hotel.

  Tall, heavily muscled, with short-cut hair, the man radiated danger. Jakob had expected Hungary to send one of the harco—a knight.

  Instead, they’d sent a security officer.

  If the knights served as the law-and-order enforcement of each territory, the security officers were the spies and assassins. Jakob had turned down a position as a security officer. He’d had enough of that life, and joining the Masters’ Admiralty had given him the push to change the path of his own life. He’d been tired of being the bad guy. He’d wanted to be the good guy for once.

  Vadisk Kushnir was born to be a security officer.

  Jakob was a large man, but Vadisk made him feel small. And it wasn’t merely the man’s height that made him so intimidating. Vadisk was, without a doubt, the most muscular man Jakob had ever seen in his life. Vadisk had twisted slightly as he entered the room due to his broad shoulders and tree-trunk-sized biceps. If he was green, he’d be the Incredible Hulk.

  “Hi, I’m Walt, the one you were speaking to on the phone, were you able to talk to—”

  “No,” Jakob said, interrupting Walt.

  “No?” Walt looked at Vadisk, his shoulders tightening. “As in, no he’s not here with the hotel’s security footage?”

  Vadisk eyed Walt.

  Jakob eyed Vadisk.

  Walt turned and mockingly thumped his head against the wall. “This is going to take forever if both of you are going to do the silent and dangerous thing.”

  Jakob didn’t have time to respond because another wave of pain turned his world on end. He dropped back to the bed, blind and deaf to anything but pain for a few moments. The sound of his own agonized breaths were the first sounds he heard. A moment later, he was able to tune in to the conversation.

  “This needs to be administered with imaging,” Walt declared.

  Vadisk scowled. “We don’t have a CT scanner.”

  “Damn it. Langston and I were going to make a portable one of those next, but…” Walt sounded unsure, which was unlike him. “I can’t blindly inject him with a nerve blocker.”

  “Then we will put him someplace safe. You come with me and we will find Dr. Fischer.” Vadisk’s English grammar was good, though his thick Ukrainian accent made him sound like a thug. German movies and TV liked to use Eastern European actors to portray villains.

  Jakob opened his eyes, blinking back the tears.

  Vadisk leaned over him, his face twisted in a grimace of sympathy. “I’ve heard bullet ant stings are some of the worst pain,” he said to Jakob in passable German.

  “It’s true,” Jakob croaked.

  “English, guys. English. Please.”

  Vadisk, who was casually sitting on the bed beside Jakob, shrugged in apology. After the revelations about Petro and what had been going on in Hungary, the territories had all upped their inter-society surveillance. Jakob was glad now that they had because it meant he knew exactly how dangerous the man casually perched on the bed was.

  Vadisk’s military record had been sealed so tight, they’d only gotten mission reports for a few of his ops. He hadn’t been a security officer for long—he’d been brought in by the new admiral of Hungary when she overhauled the entire power structure of her damaged territory.

  “I brought you a nerve blocker.” Vadisk held up two capped syringes. “The doctor won’t give it to you.”

  Jakob’s heart leapt at that. “Walt. Do it.”

  “No, and here is why.” Walt took a breath, then paused, shook his head. “I was going to explain in detail, but I have this sinking feeling neither of you would listen. So I will use small words. This is a bad idea. This is dangerous.”

  Jakob looked at Vadisk. “You do it.”

  Vadisk uncapped a syringe. “Maybe in your neck?”

  “Sweet baby Jesus, give that to me!” Walt lunged across Jakob and snatched the syringes.

  Vadisk looked down at Jakob and winked.

  There was a distinct possibility Jakob was hallucinating all of this.

  “Okay, Jakob, I need you to take a deep breath. There’s a nerve bundle in your shoulder, the brachial plexus, which, given the site of the string, is the most likely set of nerves to be affected.” Walt’s voice had gone into what Jakob now knew was doctor mode. Calm, controlled, explaining what he was doing as he did it.

  Walt’s finger probed his shoulder, and Jakob balled up the duvet in his fists.

  “Want me to hold you down?” Vadisk asked.

  Jakob’s pride wanted to say no. But his pride didn’t matter. What mattered was getting himself functional so he could find Annalise.

  “Yes,” Jakob hissed from between his clenched jaw.

  Vadisk held him down at wrist and chest. Walt kept up a calm dialogue as he touched Jakob’s shoulder. The pain of the needle didn’t even register. The burn of the medicine was noticeable only because it was different from the deeper pain caused by the neurotoxin.

  The pain ebbed, but it had done that before. It always came back.

  “Can you make a fist for me?” Walt asked. “Okay, good. Now can you flex your wrist, like this?”

  When Jakob was able to do both, Walt nodded, a little of the tension Jakob hadn’t noticed fading.

  “Better?” Vadisk asked.

  “It comes and goes,” Jakob said. “Not sure yet.”

  Walt checked his breathing, pulse, and had him move his arm, which didn’t hurt as much as it had.

  Experimentally, Jakob sat up. “I think it worked. Good job, Doc. Also, you have the best bedside manner. Has anyone ever told you that? Calm. Kind. Really good.”

  Walt’s eyes widened. “Okay then. Nerve blocker turns you into talky Jakob.”

  “I love to talk,” Jakob said. “But everyone told me I was annoying.”

  Vadisk nodded. “Seems accurate.”

  Jakob barked out a loud laugh. The Incredible Hulk was funny.

  Vadisk stood. “You mentioned security footage. What do we need? I will get it.”

  “Footage from the hotel’s front doors. Blond man knocked into me. He must have had a pin or something with the venom on him. You know, I should have just killed him for running into me. It’s fucking inconsiderate.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” Walt murmured.

  “I will get the footage. You have a secure computer?”

  “Of course.” Jakob stood under his own power, even stretched. The lack of pain was nearly euphoric. “Then we find the woman I love and kill whoever took her.”

  “A good plan.” Vadisk disappeared out the door. Jakob was starting to warm up to the guy. He was going to help him get Annalise back.

  Walt tried to push Jakob back down on the bed. “I’d like to take your vitals again. What I did was so fucking dangerous…so fucking stupid…”

  “You just want an excuse to get your hands on me,” Jakob said. “And I get it. I’m hot. You’re hot. The sex will be amazing, but we have to wait for Annalise.”

  “Maybe I got it in your bloodstream and it’s gone into your brain…no, you’d be dead.” Walt was looking at his watch while he held two fingers on Jakob’s wrist.

  “Who do you think is after us?” Jakob mused. “I mean, it doesn’t matter, I’m going to kill them, but do you think it’s the serial killer?” Saying that sobered him up because if Annalise was in the hands of a serial killer, one who liked to cut off people’s heads…

  “Why would he?” Walt asked, but his eyes were pinched with worry. “I mean, we don’t k
now anything about him yet, right?”

  “Maybe her stalker. But no, he didn’t follow her when she went to that academic conference.” Jakob shook his head. “No, not him. If it was, he would have had to follow us from Frankfurt and…” Jakob let his words trail off. “But his letters have been getting more deranged. She gets at least three a week, but don’t tell her that. And this is the first time in months, a year, Annalise has been anywhere besides her heavily secured house or office at the university.”

  “Maybe he’s desperate and he followed her, hoping you would slip up—”

  Jakob jerked away from Walt.

  “Wait, wait. I didn’t mean it like that.” Walt put a hand on Jakob’s shoulder. “I misspoke. I’m not blaming you.”

  “You should. She should. I’m not good enough for her. I should never have touched her.” Jakob was haunted now by the feel of her body under his hands. Could hear the soft sound of her demanding moans.

  “Don’t say that.”

  “I never kissed her,” Jakob said. “I was going to, but I didn’t…didn’t get to kiss her.” And now he never would.

  “Okay, there’s a lot of emotion going on that we need to unpack, but we might have to set some of this aside.” Walt was using his doctor voice again.

  Jakob hadn’t kissed her. Why the fuck hadn’t he kissed her? He’d dreamed of kissing her for so long, there was a small part of him that believed he already had. It was as if his dreams of her had morphed into memories of things that had never happened.

  He couldn’t lose her. It would kill him.

  Vadisk opened the door, holding up a thumb drive. He paused, looking back and forth between them, but before he could say anything, Jakob jerked away from Walt. He grabbed his computer, took the thumb drive from Vadisk, and plugged it in.

  He scrolled through the footage. Watched people file out, the sidewalk filling. He saw himself emerge, followed by Annalise and Walt.

  And then he saw the blond man. He wore a heavy leather jacket and had a thick winter scarf wrapped around his neck and chin—overkill given the relatively mild daytime weather.

  He stood still and focused amid the milling crowd, one arm across his chest, cupping his shoulder. Covering, protecting whatever mechanism he was about to use to incapacitate Jakob.

  Then he moved, walking quickly. Just before he reached Jakob, he dropped his hand, and there was a glint at his shoulder, like something metal or…? He angled toward Jakob, crashing into him. Any doubt as to the intentionality of what had happened was gone.

  “Get his face,” Vadisk said.

  “We need to see if he takes Annalise first,” Jakob countered.

  “Get his face and I can start running facial recognition.”

  That was a good point. Jakob took a screenshot, quickly transferring it to Vadisk. It wasn’t a full frontal shot. The camera angle meant they had a three-quarter profile shot that showed most of his face, with the bottom of his chin obscured by the scarf. Jakob stared at the screenshot.

  Did he recognize the man? Was this the stalker? The serial killer? Someone else? Perhaps someone holding a grudge from Jakob’s past as a BND agent?

  Shoving those questions aside, he started the video again. They watched as Walt went to help the injured woman, and then as Annalise guided Jakob to the corner, her body language radiating concern.

  She’d said she loved him.

  But how could she? Annalise was everything that was good in the world, and he’d done things in his past that would forever leave a black stain on his soul.

  “Is there another angle?” Walt asked.

  “No,” Vadisk replied. “This camera covers the entrance and is the only one on the front.”

  Damn it. He’d picked this place because it had good security, but he’d been looking for physical security in the room setup and access, not checking how many security cameras they had.

  The corner was just barely in frame, but it was enough to see as the blond man, now wearing a sweater with no leather jacket or scarf, approached Annalise. She turned to talk to him, then quickly whipped back around to face Jakob when he started to slide down.

  That was when the blond man grabbed her. The classic grab, one hand around her middle, the other clamped over her mouth. He was fast, efficient, yanking her backward into the lane. She was gone before Jakob finished collapsing.

  She’d been right there, and he hadn’t helped her. Hadn’t even seen her be taken.

  A moment later, a tiny Skoda Fabia drove out of the alley, going too fast. It went past the front of the hotel and then disappeared from camera range.

  “Partial plate,” Vadisk said. “I’ll run that, and I’ve already started the facial recognition.”

  “You’re a police officer?” Walt asked.

  “No. But I have access.” Vadisk tapped his phone.

  “Check passport control,” Jakob said. “Any German passport holders who entered Poland in the last thirty hours.”

  “Oh, you’re a knight, then,” Walt said.

  “No.”

  Walt sighed. “Do I want to know who you are or what you do?”

  “No,” Jakob and Vadisk said in unison.

  Ten long, tense minutes later, Vadisk’s phone beeped. He looked at it and grinned. “Got him.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “I’m so sorry. I don’t want it to be like this.” Her kidnapper’s brow was creased with worry as he put the car in park.

  They’d only been driving for thirty minutes, and yet the wooded area where he’d stopped the car felt remote and isolated. They’d traveled on a highway before turning onto a smaller road, and finally this dirt track that took them deep into the woods, where he’d stopped in a large clearing. The sun beat down, warm and happy, but all around them the shadows in the forest were dark. Drifts of snow in those shaded spaces were a stark reminder that it was winter.

  That she was alone in the forest with this man.

  A caravan, on the other side of the clearing, was hooked to a black compact that looked as new as the shiny silver caravan.

  When her kidnapper opened the driver’s door, Annalise took a deep breath and threw her own door open. She’d been quietly plotting and planning during the drive, focusing on that to hold back her panic.

  And yet, when he got out, all her careful, calm, rational planning evaporated as her fight-or-flight response clicked firmly into “flight.” It didn’t matter how remote and secluded this place seemed. Didn’t matter that there was still snow on the ground and she didn’t have a coat. They weren’t that far from the highway. All she had to do was make it there and flag down a car.

  Her escape attempt was over before it started.

  She barely had one foot out the hastily thrown-open door when he was there, looming over her, his brow furrowed. “I would have opened your door for you.”

  Annalise nodded slowly, her heart hammering so hard, she felt slightly light-headed. She needed to calm down and remain in control.

  His hands were in his pockets. The knife was probably in one pocket, the lancing device in the other. He’d used the knife to get her into the car—there was a hole in her shirt and possibly a small cut to go with it.

  Once in the car, he’d showed her the lancing device and told her exactly what was on it. No larger than a thumb, it looked like it had been taken from a diabetes testing kit. The tip of the small lancet retracted inside the plastic casing would shoot out with the press of a button. It was coated in the same venom he’d used on Jakob.

  Jakob.

  Thinking about him—about the lines of pain that creased his face and the way he’d collapsed—would cause her to panic, and she was not going to panic.

  She’d bottled up her fear, stuffed it deep down, and remained calm and quiet the whole way here.

  She couldn’t, wouldn’t, take any kind of decisive action, until she knew exactly who she was dealing with.

  Was this man a serial killer…or her stalker?

  She had her susp
icions, based on his behavior so far, but if she was wrong…

  He took one hand from his pocket and started to reach out toward her, his hand not grabbing, but palm up, offering.

  Stalker.

  She was about to bet her life on that.

  Annalise put her hand in his, climbing out of the car. The man’s eyes widened for a moment, and he squeezed her fingers painfully. Annalise kept her expression neutral, but the fear she’d just managed to suppress started to leak through her mental barriers.

  The man looked down at their hands, at her fingers squashed in his, and his breathing sped up. Annalise’s stomach knotted.

  She didn’t pull away, and after a moment, he turned and started walking, pulling her along with him, the bones of her fingers still grinding against one another in his too-tight grip.

  He hauled her across the clearing to the caravan, releasing her hand so he could pull out a key and unlock the door. While he wasn’t looking, she flexed her aching fingers.

  He put the caravan keys back into his pocket, then pulled out a small black cell phone. It was an older style, with actual buttons for the numbers rather than a touchscreen. He frowned down at it, then tapped the keys. He didn’t dial enough numbers to be a phone number, but after hitting a few buttons, he stuffed it back in the same pocket as the keys. Finally, he opened the caravan door and gestured, gallantly, for her to precede him into the dark interior.

  Her courage, the shell of calm she’d pulled around herself, cracked. Silence and compliance were no longer her best bet.

  Annalise shook her head slowly. “I don’t like caravans.”

  The man frowned, the first hints of anger touching his face. “You used to go camping in caravans all the time when you were younger.”

  Before now, he’d mostly been silent, uttering only a few terse warnings and commands, then the apology as they arrived. This sounded more like his normal speaking voice.

  If she hadn’t already figured this was her stalker, that comment would have sealed it. It also meant that if she got into the caravan, she was likely facing a long imprisonment punctuated by rape. Which, admittedly, was far better than her fate of being raped, then murdered and decapitated if he were the serial killer.