Loyalty’s Betrayal

by Mari Carr

  It was time one of them took the first step in that direction.

  Mateo traversed two corridors before realizing where he was headed. The decision hadn’t been made consciously, but somewhere deep inside, he knew what he needed to do.

  He would be the first to open a door.

  God willing, they wouldn’t slam it in his face.

  * * *

  Eric turned sideways to slide behind the elegant love seat, then grabbed the edge of a wall-sized canvas painting, opening it like a door. It swung on silent, hidden hinges, revealing the entrance to the small hall beyond.

  He’d discovered this hidden tunnel on the first day at the castle, nearly had a fucking heart attack that it existed and didn’t have some sort of biometric scanner required to open it, and he’d questioned the Spartan Guard about it. Looking back on it, his questioning might have looked more like him yelling and asking if they were all imbecilic.

  Years ago, when the fleet admiral’s private quarters were upgraded to include electricity and modern plumbing, the remodeling had necessitated cutting off an old staircase. The result was a low-ceiling hallway above the Great Hall that would have, at one time, served as a servant’s hall. Now it was an access point for plumbing and electrical maintenance, and an emergency exit. For those reasons, it had been covered over with the painting, but not totally sealed off from the inside.

  He stepped over the two-foot lintel and into the dark hallway, pulling the painting back into place as he did. It was a shitty emergency exit because his predecessor had used it not only for tradesmen’s access, but storage.

  In near perfect darkness, Eric skirted around a chair and several small trunks. The wall was just under a meter wide, and crammed with items the previous fleet admiral and his wives had wanted out of the way, but close on hand. He’d been through every box, looking for anything the traitorous Manon might have left, but they were mostly linens, old clothing, holiday decorations and extra chairs that matched the dining room set.

  Eventually he’d get rid of it all, but for now he’d memorized exactly where to step so that he could navigate the hall in darkness.

  He told himself it was only because he didn’t have time, not because some part of him couldn’t bear the thought of throwing away the memorabilia of a marriage.

  Eric had a coil of rope over his shoulder. He held it close to his side as he stepped over and around the clutter so it wouldn’t catch on anything. At the far end of the hall was a heavy exterior door that let out onto the ramparts behind the low, sculpted upper edge of the outer walls. A long fire ladder was kept in a box just inside the exterior door. Clearly the plan was that if there was a fire, and for whatever reason no other exit was possible, the fleet admiral could escape through this hall, and use the fire ladder to scale the wall to safety.

  He hitched the rope higher on his shoulder. Whenever he went out this way, he brought his own rope and scaled down the wall. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the fire ladder…

  Actually, that was exactly it. He didn’t trust the fire ladder.

  Or the Spartan Guard.

  Eric skirted around yet another chair, took a sideways step—

  And plummeted through the floor.

  * * *

  Mateo walked through the castle, steps quickening. Dimitri and Cecilia had stolen his heart, and all he’d given them in return was deceit. He wanted to offer them something real.

  While their futures were so uncertain, Mateo wanted to share his past with them. It was all he had to offer. Something he’d always given parts of to those closest to him, while withholding other bits.

  He wanted to share it all with them, so he walked silently through the corridor, intent on heading to his bedchamber in the barracks to retrieve the photos of his family. They’d been tucked away in that medical journal for years, rarely looked at.

  Today, he would take them out…and leave them out. Maybe even frame them. It was something people did when they were in true families. They kept memories visible, present.

  He wasn’t sure what Dimitri and Cecilia would say when he told them about the brutal murders, but he could imagine—Dimitri’s quiet simmering anger that the murderer had never been brought to justice, Cecilia’s hand on his shoulder, offering comfort.

  Mateo had had more time to deal with the loss of his mama and papa. It was the more recent blow he hadn’t faced, hadn’t taken the time to even acknowledge. To do so would be to admit that he truly was alone in this world.

  Or…he had been.

  Until…

  * * *

  Eric began to drop through into the cavernous Great Hall below. It was nearly ten meters down to the unforgiving stone. The fall would probably kill him, certainly incapacitate him.

  Those thoughts flashed through his head dispassionately as his legs went through the floor. The small carpet that had covered the booby-trap hole fluttered into the darkness.

  He thrust his arms out, right arm slapping stone, elbow cracking as it hit, shoulder joint screaming in pain. His left hand grabbed at the air, and managed to catch hold of a dusty chair. It was enough to arrest his movement. He stopped falling, his entire body weight suspended on his right arm and left hand. He was chest-deep, his breathing hard from a combination of effort and shock. He stilled his instinctively kicking legs and slowed his breaths with the ease of long practice and many hours of training. There was a time for panic and a time for assessing.

  For a moment he thought he’d be okay. His right arm was flat on the floor, his armpit jabbed against the opening he’d fallen through. His left was stretched out and up, his fingers barely grasping a leg of the chair.

  In this position he didn’t have the leverage he needed to pull himself up with his right arm, he could put his left arm flat on the floor and haul himself up that way. That assumed his right shoulder didn’t fail him. His shoulder and elbow were screaming in pain, as if there were a hot poker stabbing into the joins.

  He wasn’t willing to bet his life that his right arm was strong enough to support him. But he knew he could do a one-armed pull-up. It was part of his regular workout. If he could hold himself up long enough to wedge the chair into place to then use it as a pull-up bar, he’d be fine.

  And he had the rope.

  As tempting as it was to swing his legs and use the momentum to make a desperate grab for the spindle or back of the chair, he’d done enough mountain climbing to know how foolish that was. Partitioning his panic into a dark back room in his mind, he tensed his right shoulder, fingers white as he tried to pretend the smooth edge of a well-worn stone was enough of a handhold to keep him from falling to his death. Then he took a deep breath and released the leg of the chair.

  The coil of rope slid down his shoulder into his left hand. His right elbow and shoulder screamed at him, and for a moment he felt like his arm was sliding across the floor.

  When he figured out who’d done this—because this was no accident—there was going to be hell to pay.

  Maybe he’d loosen his control. Maybe he’d let the berserker out.

  Eric flipped the coil of rope into the hall. Finding one end by touch, he looped it through the rung of the chair. In theory, he should be able to tie a one-handed surgical knot. In practice, the rope was too thick, and despite its name, it was a whole lot easier with two hands. Every time he reached out to work the rope, his lower body swung, pulling against his right arm and shoulder.

  Maybe he’d have Dimitri torture Mateo before killing him.

  His wife, Dahlia, would have been horrified that he’d even thought such a thing. She wouldn’t have loved the man he’d become after her death.

  Eric tugged on the rope, securing a single loose knot.

  Then his right arm slipped, he lost his tenuous hold, and the fleet admiral hurtled through the air toward the ground below.

  * * *

  Mateo was nearly at the stairs to the first floor that led to the side door and path that would take him to the barracks when he he
ard a faint shout. He stopped, listening. The shout came again—and then there was a crash.

  He turned in place, gauging where the sound had come from. He wished he had his radio on him but since he wasn’t on duty, he wasn’t carrying it.

  He did have his phone. Pulling it from his pocket, he speed-dialed Derrick.

  “Where are you?”

  “Mateo?”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m…why? What’s happened?”

  His tone must have given him away. “All guards to the castle. Low-profile search.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mateo heard Derrick start barking orders, probably into his radio, before he hung up.

  The second floor had the bedrooms, a sitting room more private than those on the first floor and, more importantly, one end of the second-floor hall had access to the small interior balcony that overlooked the Great Hall. That was where Mateo headed. He was fairly certain that was where the noise had come from, and even if it hadn’t, the balcony was a good vantage point to do a sweep of that room. He’d start there and move on.

  On the rare occasions the membership—or at least whatever portion of it they could fit in the Great Hall—gathered at Triskelion Castle, the balcony served as a stage for the fleet admiral to use to address the crowd.

  He opened the door and stepped out, looking over the railing to the floor of the Great Hall below. It was dim, but not so dark that he couldn’t see a huddled mass of what looked like broken furniture on the floor. That must have been the crashing sound.

  He looked up, spotting a darker hole in the ceiling of the Great Hall, near the edge wall, where the ceiling was flat rather than steepled.

  The mound on the floor moved. A bit of what looked to be a broken chair tumbled down, clacking on the floor to reveal a blond head.

  Mateo’s heart stopped. “Admiral!”

  The figure twitched. He was alive.

  Mateo turned and ran, racing for the main stairs. He would not let another fleet admiral die on his watch.

  * * *

  After all he’d been through, all he’d survived, this is how he was going to die?

  Fucking figures.

  Eric waited for the blackness to take him.

  Nope. He was conscious. And alive.

  Someone—who’d been torturing him at the time, so they were in a position to know—had said he was too stubborn to die.

  He was alive, which meant he had to deal with what just happened.

  Eric didn’t want to assess his injuries. With any kind of serious fall, the risk of life-altering injury was high. He’d definitely survived. He was in too much pain to be dead. Even hell couldn’t hurt this much. Eric gritted his teeth. Pain was probably a good thing. It meant he still had feeling in his limbs.

  “Admiral!”

  He recognized the voice. Mateo’s accent was thicker than normal.

  There was the hollow sound of the large doors to the Great Hall being unlocked, then opened. Damn it all, he was defenseless right now. He’d landed on his side, the chair falling on top of him. He grabbed with one hand for a bit of broken chair, holding it like a club. He hissed as his hand touched it.

  He’d grabbed the rope just before he fell, and the skin of both palms was burned from the friction with the rope. It was good nylon climbing rope, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

  His grip on the makeshift kludge lasted only a minute, then the bit of wood tumbled from his fingers.

  Helpless. He hated being helpless.

  “Fleet Admiral!”

  Eric sagged in relief. It wasn’t Mateo who’d opened the door, but Charlotta, the Spartan Guard from his home territory. It was foolish of him to trust her just because she sounded like home. Exceptionally foolish, but right now, he needed to trust someone.

  He didn’t have a choice. Her footsteps rushed toward him, and damn it but he hated to have his back to the door.

  “Gun,” he said in his native Dutch. When she didn’t respond, he repeated the command in Swedish.

  “Sir?” she replied in the same language.

  “Get me my gun. Back.”

  The bits of chair were shifted off of him. Charlotta was kneeling at his side. He blinked—there was either blood or sweat in his eyes—and tried to get a better look at her. Charlotta’s mouth was open, her face pinched with distress.

  She must have felt him looking because her expression closed down. “You need medical attention.”

  Behind him, he heard the door open, and footsteps he thought he recognized as Mateo’s.

  “Gun,” he snarled.

  Charlotta took the gun from the hidden holster at his back and passed it to him. He felt the cool air when she tugged his shirt up. Another good sign. Eric’s hand shook, but the metal felt strangely good against his burned skin. His fingers obeyed, and he was able to hold it.

  He’d be able to fire it, too, if needed.

  * * *

  Mateo raced into the Great Hall, his phone in one hand, ready to call the paramedics. For specialized medical care, they usually took the fleet admiral to London or Belfast, as they had with Kacper, but for emergencies, including the odd training injury among the Spartan Guard, they used the local emergency services.

  Charlotta had beaten him there. She was kneeling beside the fleet admiral, whose back was to Mateo.

  She surged to her feet and raised one hand. “Stop.”

  Mateo slowed to a fast walk, but skirted the fleet admiral so he wouldn’t risk touching him. “Get the backboard and the neck collar. We need to stabilize him until the paramedics get here.” He dropped to a squat near the fleet admiral’s head. “Fleet Admiral. Eric. Can you hear me? You need to remain still.”

  Charlotta hadn’t moved.

  Mateo twisted to glare up at her, putting steel in his words. “Go.”

  “I’m not leaving him with you,” Charlotta said quietly.

  Mateo blinked. She shifted her weight, and he noticed she’d swung her on-duty side arm around. Her hand was on it.

  Mateo pushed to his feet, angling his body to put himself between her and the fleet admiral.

  “What are you doing, Charlotta?”

  “Distracting you.” The fleet admiral’s words were weak, but when Mateo turned, Eric was looking up at him.

  And there was a gun pointed at Mateo’s chest.

  “Fleet Admiral?”

  “Stop right there, Mateo.”

  Mateo froze, partially in shock, partially in response to the gun.

  The door burst open, and Derrick, Nikolas and Marie pounded into the room.

  Mateo looked up. “Nikolas, get the backboard and C collar from the emergency kit. We need to stabilize him. Marie, call an ambulance, and call ahead to Noble. Then call in Dr. Chandler.”

  He was the head of the Spartan Guard. His job didn’t end just because the fleet admiral was planning to shoot him.

  Derrick ran up, started to kneel by Eric, then saw the gun pointed at Mateo. “Bloody hell. What—” He pushed to his feet, looking between Mateo, Charlotta and the fleet admiral.

  Charlotta took a half step closer to Eric.

  “Stop,” Mateo ordered.

  She bared her teeth. “I will not let you hurt him again.”

  “Again?” Derrick yelped. “Wait, what happened? How did he fall? Was it an accident?”

  “It wasn’t an accident.” Eric’s voice was stronger now than it had been, though he hadn’t moved, remaining on his side. “It was an attempted assassination.”

  The word made Mateo feel ill. Derrick and Charlotta both turned to stare at him. Charlotta looked at him with cold fury and accusation. And Derrick…

  Derrick looked shocked, and then suspicious.

  No. Not Derrick, too.

  “What happened, Admiral?” Charlotta asked.

  “I was leaving the castle via the back hall.”

  “What are you talking about?” Mateo asked. “What back hall?”

  Derrick’s sho
ulders slumped. “Fleet Admiral, it makes it hard to protect you if you keep sneaking out.”

  Eric only grunted.

  “Sneaking out?” Mateo turned to Derrick, focusing on something smaller than the suspicion directed his way. “What is he talking about?”

  “The fleet admiral has taken to leaving the castle via alternate routes,” Derrick said. “He’s been using the rear emergency hall to get out onto the ramparts.”

  “The one full of boxes? And you didn’t stop him?”

  “We tried, sir.”

  “Don’t call him that,” Charlotta snapped. “Mateo said he’s been looking for the traitor, but he hasn’t been here to do so. Now he comes back and there’s an attempt on the fleet admiral’s life.”

  Mateo’s anger overwhelmed his shock, and he faced Charlotta. “Do not accuse me, Charlotta. Not without proof.”

  “What more proof do I need?” She pointed to where Eric lay on the floor.

  “You said he used the back hall. That’s where he fell from?”

  “Yes.” Eric’s voice was softer than it had been, and Mateo’s stomach clenched.

  Ignoring Charlotta’s threatening body language, he dropped to one knee. “Fleet Admiral. If you fell through the roof, there’s a strong possibility you’re severely injured. You need to stay calm and hold very still.”

  “I was only in free fall the last ten feet or so. I managed to tie a rope to this chair.” He indicated the broken bits. Eric sounded worryingly dispassionate and calm. He met Mateo’s gaze. “I have no plans to move, unless I need to shoot you.”

  “Then I will give you no reason to shoot me.”

  Eric licked his lips. There was blood on his face from a cut to his cheek.

  “Did you hit your head?” Mateo asked.

  “Get away from him,” Charlotta snarled.

  Mateo’s fingers curled into fists. “You were a reserve guard last year. Remember your place. I am still in charge here. You will not speak to me that way.”

  “You tried to kill him! Pretending to care now won’t change that.”