“Yes, sir.” The other man began to flip switches and press buttons. Over the next twelve hours the little sub would rise to the surface ten feet at a time. This would ensure that the nitrogen the men had accumulated in their blood could out-gas safely. Fast ascent meant fast decompression, which was dangerous as it could lead to the bends or even death, as dissolved nitrogen formed bubbles in the veins.
Magnusson looked relieved. Lars vowed to buck up. If even the youthful Löjtnant had noticed his malaise, it was time he pulled himself together, before his grief got this promising kid killed. There would be time for indifference when this was over. Right now his objective was disabling the Russian sub so as to leave no trace. Lars folded his arms across his chest, reclined his seat, and willed himself to wake in seven hours.
At twenty-two hundred hours Lars and Magnusson disembarked at Holick’s weathered wooden docks. Magnusson was twitchy – the enormity of the task facing Lars had finally registered on the guy. “What if they’re not where we left them?” he suggested as they walked along the wooden dock towards the lights of the village.
Lars clapped a giant hand on Magnusson’s shoulder. “The odds are good,” he said feigning cheerfulness, “That those bastards will be exactly where we left them. The sorry buggers are probably scrambling to do repairs.”
They had left the Russian sub idling between the rocky shelf of the mainland and the small island of Fårö. It wasn’t dead in the water – yet. But Lars had been keeping an eye on it for six grueling months. This was not unusual behavior for this vessel. He suspected that whenever the Russians limped home for emergency repairs and to resupply, the poor devils were sent back without adequate amounts of either.
At zero two hundred hours Lars left Magnusson in their room above the local tavern where they had eaten and drunk under the eyes of the locals. He slipped down the backstairs and made his solitary way through the unlit streets to the dock. There he stripped to his skin aboard the sub. He was not going to use a dive suit or tanks, but he would use its dive chamber.
He was going to perform this entire operation in dragon and with only the air he could hold in lungs and bones. Leaving via the submersible’s hatch would conceal his change from any human eyes up before dawn. He had practiced this. The Russian sub was seventy-five feet down. Lars had more immunity to the bends than most, and more when he was in dragon. But still the dive was not without danger. He wished he gave a rat’s ass.
He accomplished his shift without haste or fuss. One moment he was a large, blond man swimming naked and shivering in the oily sea beneath the sub, the next he was a long blue-green dragon floating in the frigid water. He rose cautiously to the surface and began to swim to the location of the sub. He did not know why or how he knew where it was, but its location was as plain to him as the route from his home to work was when he was in human form.
It took only minutes for him to be hovering above the Russians. Even his dragon vision could not see their cream-colored vessel in the black water, but he knew it was there. He drew air deep into his lungs again and again, making sure his bones were also well-oxygenated. Like the birds from whom dragons descended, his race had hollow bones that could help him work longer. When he was ready, he used his enormous forepaws to thrust downward and counter his load of air. He forced his huge body down to the sea floor.
The Russian sub hadn’t moved much, if at all. It listed slightly to starboard. Maybe Lars need do nothing to ensure it never moved again? He could hear a dim metallic clanging, coming from the interior. Those bastards were doomed. But spying was inherently dangerous. He swam around the vessel assessing it at point blank range. He was not concerned that he would be seen. If he was, who would believe their eyes or the tales of their comrades?
As he and Magnusson had decided, the battered central hatch was the weakest point. But Command had ordered the magnetic compass and ballast tanks targeted. Not every dragon could breathe fire under water, but Lars could. He exhaled until the metal casing of the compass glowed red and sagged uselessly on its pole. The triple-layered hull of the ballast tanks was a more difficult proposition. But the metal rivets finally popped under the repeated onslaught of several focused blasts. He spent a few more precious breaths on warping the seals on the main hatch. His work here was done. The spies would be forced to return to the surface or die.
CHAPTER TWO
August, Santa Rosa del Pampas
By the time Nicole and Matteo had made their way home from the graveyard, the Bernals had already filled up the Villa Mendoza. As usual, Nicole and Matt entered through the courtyard. Dolores was busy in the kitchen. The housekeeper was still in her best clothes. She had merely taken off her black mantilla and added a spotless white apron to her black dress.
“They’re all here,” Dolores said disgustedly. “When la Señorita was alive, where were they, you tell me that, Chica?” Her sturdy form stomped across the kitchen with its old-fashioned units. She glared at the open shelves, her indignant back to Nicole. “Now she is dead, here they are – demanding food.” She selected a large silver tray and returned to the table.
“You anticipated that, Dolores,” Nicole said. “You’ve been baking for two days.”
“They could have waited for an invitation,” grumbled Dolores, as her gnarled hands laid out her pastries in tempting patterns.
“I told everyone at the graveside to come back to the house,” Nicole reminded her.
A short, slender young man dressed in a severe black suit and somber gray and black tie appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Forgive me, Señora Flores, Señora Estevan y Garcia,” he said politely, “Señor Rodrigo is ready to read the will. You both are needed.”
“There won’t be any food if I have to go,” Dolores announced. She turned to Matteo who was nibbling at the corner of a custard tart. “You go and play in the courtyard, Chico,” she commanded. To Nicole she whispered, “It’s best if he doesn’t hear.” She took off her apron.
Dolores’ stocky, familiar presence stiffened Nicole’s spine as she entered the packed dining room. Tia Evita’s nephew Alberto had claimed Tia’s place at the head of the dining room table. The solicitor Señor Rodrigo was sitting at the foot with a sheaf of papers in front of him. The rest of the family was crowded around the table. They had not saved a place for Nicole and Dolores.
Nicole kept her face impassive as she and Dolores stood against the sideboard behind Alberto Bernal. Alberto’s chair creaked as he swiveled to glare at them before returning his eyes to the lawyer at the other end of the table. “Go on. We haven’t got all day,” he sneered.
Señor Rodrigo was a gray-haired man of quiet and impervious dignity. His neat face with its small white mustache didn’t acknowledge the other man’s words. “Tullio, please fetch chairs for Señora Estevan and Señora Flores.” His assistant went wordlessly to obey.
When Nicole and Dolores were seated on either side of Señor Rodrigo, he cleared his throat. “Today, it is my sad duty to read the last will and testament of my client Evita Maria Christiana Bernal. May her soul rest with the saints.” He began to read. It took him a long time, and when he was done Nicole was not entirely sure she had fully understood his legal Spanish.
But apparently Alberto had. “In the name of God,” he swore. He banged his fist on the glossy table. “Tia must have been senile. How could she leave this house to that puta?” He spat the words in Nicole’s direction.
Nicole felt herself flush. Not because she thought it was wrong of Tia Evita to have left her the house. But because, even after eight years, being called a whore was hard to take. She pretended she had not heard Alberto’s slur. He had hated her for eight years. Nothing was going to alter that.
Señor Rodrigo tapped on the table with his fingertips and reestablished order. Slowly the angry muttering ceased. His cool gray eyes met the angry ones of the Bernals, before pronouncing judgment. “Señorita Bernal was more than competent to alter her will,” he said in measured tones. “I drew this will
for her eight years ago, after she had consulted her physician as I suggested. Señora Estevan is now the owner of this house and all its contents.”
The solicitor shuffled his papers together into a neat pile and restored them to his briefcase. When he stood up, the brawl began. Alberto, his sister, his three sons, and his wife all began to shout at once. Nicole stood up and walked with Señor Rodrigo to the front door. “Thank you for coming to the funeral, Señor,” she said struggling to conceal the tremor in her voice and hands. “May I resume running the boarding house?”
“I don’t see why not,” the lawyer said kindly. “The will must go through probate. But I don’t foresee any difficulties. It’s a very simple document.” He offered her his hand, murmured another few soft words of condolence, and he and Tullio departed.
Nicole drew a deep breath and shut the door. She braced herself to return to the shouting Bernals. Alberto was blocking her path back to the dining room. He pushed his face into hers. Nicole stood her ground. This was her house – her home.
“This is what you came here for,” Alberto sneered. “I will give you five thousand American dollars to sign this house back to me.” He tapped his chest with a thick, hairy forefinger. “It’s the best offer you’re likely to get, no one will buy this place from you.”
“I don’t want to sell the house,” Nicole replied quietly. “Tia Evita left it to me so Matteo and I would have a home.”
Afterwards, Alberto’s spiteful rant was a blur of insults and intimidation. The one good thing was that he and all of his family stormed out of the Villa Mendoza and left her and Matteo in peace. His parting shot however, gave her nightmares. “If you don’t take my offer, I’m going to contest the will. You will wind up with nothing.”
* * *
September
“That Alberto, he didn’t have time to come and see his aunt when she was old and ill. But he has plenty of time to be threatening me.” Dolores chopped the green leaves she was preparing for her stew with a ferociousness that suggested she wished it was Alberto on her cutting board.
“How do you mean he threatened you?” Nicole asked. She set the dishes she was drying back on their shelf with hands that shook.
Dolores stopped chopping. “He came to my house. Such an honor.” She twisted her lips scornfully. “He came to tell me that if I did not stop working here, he would see that I never saw the money that the Señorita Evita left me.” She gargled and mimed spitting.
“He wants me to sell him the house,” Nicole said sitting down at the table. “But you know I cannot. Although I don’t know how I would pay if I have to go to court. Señor Rodrigo says that if there is a challenge to the will, the estate bears the cost. But the estate is really only the house and your pension. There’s not much else in Tia’s bank account.”
Nicole sat down at the kitchen table and rested her pounding head in her hands. “I don’t want to see you lose your pension, Dolores. But five thousand dollars – even American dollars – wouldn’t go very far in the states. I can’t take Alberto’s offer.”
“Señor Rodrigo won’t let that happen, Chica,” insisted Dolores. “I remember when he came to the house when my ladies changed their wills. There was nothing wrong with their minds when they died, and they made those wills long ago, when you first came. That Alberto is un puerco. He was a piglet when he was a small boy, he was a bigger pig when he was a young man, and now he is twice a hog.” Dolores put an arm around Nicole’s shaking shoulders.
“He resents the fact that the house he thought he was going to own is now mine,” Nicole said ruefully. “Alberto has always thought I was some sort of impostor out to cheat the aunts. Now he believes I succeeded.” She threw up her hands. “I couldn’t convince him eight years ago that I was Teresa Bernal’s great-granddaughter. And I don’t know how I could begin to convince him now.”
“That one.” The words were a curse in Dolores’ mouth. “He is a greedy puerco. He and his father and his grandfather, they were all the same. They think because I am just the maid that I don’t know. But I do. I remember after Don Ricardo – that was your great-great-grandfather – died, when Señor Pablo stood in this house and told my ladies that they should go live in his house, so he could have this one because it was his father’s.”
“I take it that Tia Evita and Tia Luisa said no?” Nicole asked.
“They laughed in Pablo’s greedy face. And so they should have. Don Ricardo left the house to his daughters because they had no husbands. He left them all his money for the same reason. And a part of the cattle business too. He wanted to be sure that Las Señoritas would be able to live comfortably, even though they weren’t married. But that Pablo was a pig. He wanted all of the Hacienda and the cattle business for himself. And all of the money. And this house.” She turned around and waved her knife wildly. Nicole leaned back in her chair to avoid it.
“And if they had been so foolish as to go out to the Hacienda?” Dolores drew the back of her knife across her throat.
“Surely not,” gasped Nicole.
Dolores’ black eyes snapped. “You think that because he was their brother, that Señor Pablo was a good man? No. Don Ricardo, he knew very well what his son was like. That’s why he left his money the way he did. He tied it up, so my ladies couldn’t give it away. And he said they were to have a third of all the money the Hacienda made, for their lives.”
“Still,” Nicole said. “It must’ve been aggravating when Señor Pablo died and his sisters just kept on going. Alberto and his father can’t have thought they would have to share their income indefinitely.”
“It wasn’t their money, Nicole,” Dolores said flatly. “The Hacienda came from the Mendozas, same as this house. Don Ricardo he married Teresa Mendoza and this house was part of her dowry. Pablo was the son of his first wife. There were three daughters. My ladies and your great-grandmother. After Señorita Teresa went to America, Don Ricardo didn’t think about her anymore.”
“I never understood that part. Do you know why my great-grandmother emigrated to America?”
Dolores snorted. “She ran off with Señor Estevan. Don Ricardo did not like the match.”
“Oh.”
“Just like he did not like any of the men who wanted to marry my ladies.”
“Oh.”
“It would have been just as fair,” Dolores continued, “If Don Ricardo had left your great-grandmother a share of his estate. But Pablo was always greedy. He got his mother’s money, and he got the lion’s share of the cattle ranch. But he expected everything. He taught Alberto’s father to act like a pig. So now, when my ladies have given Teresa’s great-granddaughter, a small part of her inheritance, that hog Alberto is acting as though he has been cheated.”
“Do you know what this house is worth?” Nicole pressed her hands in between her knees to still their shaking.
Dolores shook her head. “Santa Rosa del Pampas is not a big city. And this street is no longer the best one in town. Not anymore. Look at those houses across the street. They are about to tumble down. No one will even rent them. I don’t even know why Alberto Bernal wants this villa. He wouldn’t like living so close to the market. He wouldn’t like having Señora Bramwell next door.” She sucked her teeth noisily. “He is just a hog like his father and his grandfather.”
Nicole had to agree that she did not like Alberto. But even though Dolores appeared to be her champion, she hesitated to tell her of Alberto’s other offer. It wasn’t the first time he had suggested that she might like to be his mistress. Like most of the Argentinian men that Nicole had met, he seemed to suffer from the delusion that because she was an unwed mother, she was promiscuous.
There was no point in trying to protest that she was in fact married. No point in saying anything at all other than ‘No’. And she had said it, loudly, fiercely, and repeatedly. She didn’t know why Alberto kept asking, unless it was just for the pleasure of insulting her. Because of course she was insulted. And not in the least bit tempted. It
was gross enough remembering Felipe thrusting into her body, without imagining sweaty Alberto doing the same.
“Do you think, that if he tries to prevent Señor Rodrigo from giving us our legacies, that we will be able to do anything?” Nicole asked instead.
“It’s not like the old days,” Dolores said after a moment’s contemplation. “Nowadays, our judges are not corrupt, old fascists. That Alberto he wants to scare us both.” Dolores scraped the chopped leaves into the stew pot with the back of her knife.
She set the cutting board and knife beside the sink, and returned to stir her stew. “He will make trouble anyway he can. But I’ll tell you one thing. Not everybody knows this, but Señor Rodrigo would be glad to do anything that would make Alberto unhappy.” She tapped the side of her nose.
“How do you mean?”
“Alberto has a foul name. He cheats people. He cheated Señor Rodrigo’s sister and her husband. They bought a factory or some such thing from Alberto, and when they went to take possession, he had taken all the insides. They had paid their money for four walls and a roof!”
“Señor Rodrigo is a lawyer. Surely if his sister was cheated, he would’ve been able to get her money back?” Nicole wrinkled her nose.
“No. That was in the bad days. The days of the Junta. In those days, justice was for sale.” She turned from her stew and looked fiercely at Nicole. “But only bad people bought the judges. Alberto was a very bad man. But those days are done.” She turned back to the stove.
“Should I say something to Señor Rodrigo?” Nicole asked.
Dolores laughed. “You should say nothing at all.” She wagged a finger. “Every time you speak to a lawyer,” she rubbed her fingers together to indicate money. “You can be sure that Señor Rodrigo has already heard everything that Alberto said. That fat fool shouted with all the windows standing wide open. Señora Bramwell will have spread that tale in the marketplace and at church.”
Dragon's Possession (BBW / Dragon Shifter Romance) (Lords of the Dragon Islands Book 4) Page 2