Secret Scandal (Trinity Masters Book 7)
Page 25
“He’s alive?” Franco asked.
Sebastian grabbed the computer, muttering as he tried to trace the sender.
Devon scrubbed his hands over his face. “What the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know.” And Juliette really hated not knowing. “I’m going to send someone to the Maldives to check. If Bryan Cobb is still alive, that means…”
There was silence. No one knew exactly what that meant, except that maybe fifteen people hadn’t died because Juliette sent a trinity to look for some art.
Franco hauled a box onto the table and started unloading it. He had a personal stake in taking down the purists, since they’d tried to keep his family from continuing their membership. He’d decided to pull any and all records he could find around WWII, figuring he might find a record of someone expressing sympathies with the Nazi party, especially in the early years of the war. Franco had also been talking to Devon’s mother, who always seemed to know everything—if she weren’t an Asher of the New York Ashers, she would be called a busybody, but rich women weren’t nosy, they were well informed. She’d been the one to first tell them about the purists, but assumed, as everyone else had, that after WWII, they’d disbanded or changed their politics.
Franco pulled out a battered box full of pictures and newspaper clippings that had been on a bookshelf here in the office, squished behind some books. It was mostly full of newspaper clippings about the war.
Juliette had no idea who’d put together the sad little collection—it could have been her father, her grandfather, or one of their counselors. She didn’t know if it had been hidden or if it had been forgotten at the back of the shelf, but Franco was working his way through each piece of paper with a patience Juliette admired even if she couldn’t emulate it.
He laid the articles in neat rows. The headlines screamed German Army Attacks Poland. U.S. Declares War. Pacific Battle Widens. USS Bluebird Sinks Spanish Ship. Restitution Begins. Hidden Art Found in Salt Mine.
Franco had carefully recorded what Eli, Irina, and Jasper had said—their theory that the art was being kept hidden because it could link the purists to something bigger. They’d talked it through, and concluded that this morning’s attack was about retrieving the map, but Mr. Cobb’s orders to deploy an HRD team must have been about keeping the Rodin a secret. Layers on top of layers. Every time they found an answer or solved a mystery, ten more sprung up in its place.
“We need someone to parse the new map, and we need someone to secure this place. We’re too vulnerable right now,” Seb said. “And we have to investigate Caden.”
“Agreed on securing this place.” Devon grabbed a copy of the roster—there was only a single handwritten copy of their membership list, plus the individual member folders. “I know we have a couple people from the Army Corp of Engineers.”
“Find an architect too.” Sebastian scooted over to look at the list. “And someone close to the Andersons.”
“Seb, we don’t need to investigate Caden Anderson,” Juliette said. They’d already had this argument once. It had ended, as most of their arguments did, with exaggerated threats of death and violence. That had actually helped dispel some of Juliette’s earlier tension.
“We do,” Sebastian insisted. “That’s a coincidence I don’t like. The Andersons are an old family. They might be purists.”
“They’re West Coast liberals. I seriously doubt they’re secret Nazi sympathizers.”
“Juliette, I need you to trust me on this.”
“Well, you are an expert on being a sneaky asshole,” Juliette said sweetly.
Devon, standing beside Sebastian, hunched his shoulders a little bit, as if he were making himself smaller so he wouldn’t get in trouble for the lies he’d told Juliette in the past.
“You’re right, I am. And I don’t trust the coincidence of Caden being at the same hotel as them.”
“It’s that weird fetish hotel in Oklahoma. Plenty of our members have gone there.”
“And who is this Darling? We don’t have anyone with the first name Darling.”
“This needs to be investigated, but not now.”
Sebastian looked up, and his eyes were serious. “Jules. Please. Let me play this hunch.”
She stopped to consider Sebastian’s words. “Seb, we’re talking about setting up a trinity. Putting people together for the rest of their lives. Is it important enough for that?”
“Yes, Jules, it is.”
She nodded once.
Sebastian flashed her a grin, then turned back to the list. The minutes ticked by. Franco, Sebastian, and Devon were all working, but she couldn’t settle on anything. Sebastian stepped out to get on his phone, then came back. Franco rose and went to check the shelves. Juliette sat, unable to get a handle on her emotions. She had this itchy, nervous feeling she couldn’t shake.
Devon and Sebastian conferred quietly for a few minutes before they finally set down the list.
“Grand Master, we have a proposal for the next trinity,” Devon said formally.
“Christian.” Sebastian pulled Christian Stewart Rogers’ membership file from the pile and pushed it across the table. “He’ll make sure we get what we need.”
Juliette sucked in a breath. “You’re willing to put Christian, your own brother, into a trinity right now? Gamble his whole future?”
“Christian can handle it,” Sebastian said, a bit of familial pride in his voice. “And we need him. We can tell him more about what’s really going on than we can tell the others.”
Juliette shook her head. “I don’t want to send him in as some sort of double agent.”
“Uh, that’s exactly what you did to me.”
“Well, that’s because you’re a jerk.”
Devon raised his voice to be heard over their bickering. “Charlotte Mead. She’s the best option for dealing with that map, and helping us secure this place.” Devon slid a second file across the table.
Sebastian picked up the final file. “Irina said that Caden was in the fetish hotel with a submissive, right? Well, I called Grant. He suggested that if we wanted to get close to the Trinity Masters’ members who are also into BDSM, we should talk to Vincent Clayton. He’s not in a trinity yet.” Sebastian slid the third and final file across the table.
Juliette flipped open the files, reading through the information they had about the members. She wasn’t just reading to see if together these three could handle the task she needed to give them. She was reading to see if she thought they could fall in love. Could form a lasting trinity.
Irina, Jasper, and Eli were the second trinity she’d called to the altar—the first had been Sebastian’s, and that one hadn’t been meant to last. She’d done it mostly to fuck with Seb and to help him get close to Grant, whose family history included known purists.
This most recent trinity was the first one she’d really called to the altar. It had been based on need, on a task, but she’d tried to think about the personal aspect of it. It had worked; they were clearly on their way to being in love, even after only a week. But was that the result of her good decisions, or dumb luck?
But she was at war, and doubts were a luxury she didn’t have time for.
Juliette closed the files, one by one. “I’ll call them to the altar, immediately.”
The clock was ticking.
Epilogue
He tossed a few pain pills into his mouth, washed them down with whiskey, and examined his newest art acquisitions. One was an abstract painting of warring colors. Beautiful and disconcerting. The second was a tongue-in-cheek representation of a trinity—the cardboard cutout of the happy couple a shield between a dull and mundane world and the glowing golden fire of a triquetra.
Lowering himself into the chair hurt. He’d either bruised or cracked a rib in the fight to wrestle the portfolios away from Eli and Jasper. He’d wanted to take back the map, but these were interesting consolation prizes, and all in all, the Grand Master having the map wasn’t the worst th
ing that could have happened.
Until a few days ago, he’d been one of a select few who knew that there were two different maps showing all the tunnels and secret rooms that connected the Boston Public Library and Trinity Church—one drawn by each of the architects responsible for the tunnels.
His partner in crime had the other original map. She stored it in a waterproof sleeve in a hidden compartment in her bathroom. She’d done her best to keep the other purists—God, he hated that name—in the dark about the existence of all but a few tunnels by altering any copies she was forced to make.
The second map should have been safe in art storage. If it were up to him, the art would never have left storage, but that hadn’t been his decision. He might be arrogant, but not so arrogant as the man who’d volunteered a volatile art collection for some fundraiser.
It was sheer dumb luck that the map had been stolen along with the Rodin. And even more random luck—or maybe the hand of fate—that they’d spotted the map in the possession of three other members of the Trinity Masters.
He winced as he remembered her fury when she realized that there was another, even more detailed map, and that he’d known about it and hadn’t told her.
How sad it was that, though he loved her more than life itself, and trusted her more than any other person, he hadn’t told her about it.
When you were raised to keep secrets, the truth felt dangerous.
On the plus side, they’d had some extremely enjoyable angry sex after she’d seen the second map. He had the scratches on his back to prove it.
His phone beeped, and he winced as he leaned over to pick it up.
Got Cobb family settled. Coming home. Anyone suspect?
That was followed immediately by, When will I see you again?
He smiled the stupid, sappy smile of a man in love. He wished he was the kind of man who could respond with one of those kissy faces, or X’s and O’s. Or the kind of man who could show her how he really felt—to kiss the ground each place her foot trod, curl up with her on a Sunday afternoon and spend the day lazing away while making easy, gentle love.
It was only in the privacy of his own thoughts that he indulged such ridiculous fantasies. He simply wasn’t that kind of man. He couldn’t afford to be. Too much depended on his ability to remain in control. To keep secrets.
Before he could respond to the text, his phone rang. The screen showed the smiling face of the only other person he loved.
“Hello, beautiful,” he said as he answered.
“Hello, han-handsome.” Her words were labored, but she got them out.
“How are you feeling?”
“Not t-too bad. Where are you?”
“Someplace hot,” he lied.
“It’s cold here,” she reported. “And raining.”
“It’s always raining.”
“Rain makes rainbows,” she told him.
The phone groaned in his hand, and he forced himself to relax his fingers. Hearing her voice, and the soft, happy optimism that enlivened it, terrified him. She had no idea how much danger she was in.
She had no idea the lengths he’d gone to, the lengths he planned to go to, to protect her.
There were still so many pieces that needed to fall into place before he could put his plan in motion. He lived for the day that happened, the day he could scoop up both of the women he loved and escape.
If they left now, they’d be hunted down and killed in a matter of days. There was nothing the purists—his “family”—wouldn’t do to protect their secrets. He’d seen that firsthand.
There wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t mourn his brother.
In order to be safe, he needed secrets. Secrets would be his weapons. And there was one particular secret he wanted, one that he’d been slowly piecing together all his life.
He just had to hope that the combined skills and attention of the Trinity Masters didn’t beat him to it, didn’t discover the secret and thereby rob him of his best weapon.
Without the ERR album, the Rodin was beautiful but not significant. But together, the sculpture and book, both of which the Grand Master possessed, were a frayed thread. A thread that if Juliette Adams pulled on long enough, or hard enough, would unravel and reveal truths that should never see the light of day.
There were plenty of mysteries hidden in those tunnels. Enough to keep every member of the Trinity Masters busy for a lifetime. The trick was to make sure no one looked into anything that would bring them too close to the purists’ secrets. If they did, he’d do what he had to do to protect the purists.
Not because he believed in their cause. No, his loyalty was a ruse and a defense—and he was no more or less loyal to the Trinity Masters themselves than to the purists. All he wanted to do was to escape with the people he loved. He’d play all the sides, every side, to make that happen.
“Brother. Are you-ou-ou listening?” His sister finished her sentence with a coughing fit.
“Sorry, Tabby-cat,” he said. “I’m listening.”
He sipped Scotch with his eyes closed, focusing all his attention on his sister. When they finished their call a few minutes later, he finally returned to his lover’s text.
Next Thursday. The cabin in Utah.
Her reply came almost immediately.
Yes, Master.
His jaw clenched. He’d ordered her, instead of asking. Goddamn it, no matter how many times he told himself not to, he did it. He would give anything, anything, to be normal with her. To love her the way she deserved to be loved.
He flung his glass across the room, watching with pleasure as the crystal shattered.
When they were free, he’d make it up to her. He’d learn how to love her without being her master. Together they’d shower his sister with the kind of love she deserved. The kind of love she didn’t get at the expensive but cold institution his parents had stuck her in. She was the reason they hadn’t already run.
Wishing he were different, and hoping it was enough, he texted back, I love you.
The Trinity Masters will return in 2017 in Delicate Ties.
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About the Authors
Lila Dubois is a technical writer by day and an erotic romance writer by night. She’s living her own version of a romance novel with her Irish Farm Boy, whom she imported to Los Angeles. Having spent extensive time in France, Egypt, Turkey, Ireland and England, Lila speaks five languages, none of them—including English—fluently.
Visit Lila online:
Website: www.liladubois.net
Twitter: @CrzyButCuteLila
Facebook: www.facebook.com/AuthorLilaDubois
Blog: International Heat (www.intlheat.com) and liladubois.wordpress.com
Writing a book was number one on Mari Carr’s bucket list and on her thirty-fourth birthday, she set out to see that goal achieved. Too many years later, her computer is jammed full of stories — novels, novellas, short stories and dead-ends and she has nearly eighty published works.
Virginia native, Mari Carr’s is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestseller of contemporary erotic romance novels. With over one million of her books sold, Mari was winner of the Romance Writer's of America Passionate Plume award for her novella Erotic Research.
Visit Mari online:
Website: www.maricarr.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/MariCarrWriter
Twitter: @MariCarr
Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/author/show/1365301.Mari_Carr
Additional Titles by Lila Dubois
The Trinity Masters, Erotic Ménage Romance written with New York Times bestselling author Mari Carr
Elemental Pleasure
Primal Passion
Scorching Desire
After Burn (free short story)
Forbidden Legacy
Hidden Devotion
Elegant Seduction
Secret Scandal (coming soon)
BDSM Checklist, BDSM Erotic Romance
A is for…
B is for…
C is for…
D is for…
Standalone BDSM Erotic Romance
Betrayed by Love
Red Ribbon
New Adult BDSM Romance
Dangerous Lust
Undone Lovers, BDSM Erotic Romance
Undone Rebel
Undone Dom
Undone Diva
Glenncailty Castle, Contemporary Romance
The Harp and the Fiddle
The Irish Lover (short story)
The Fire and the Earth
The Shadow and the Night
Monsters in Hollywood, Paranormal Romance
Lights, Camera… Monsters
My Fair Monster
Gone with the Monster
Have Monster, Will Travel
A Monster and a Gentleman
The Last of the Monsters
The Wraith Accords, Paranormal Romance
Carnal Magic
Zinahs, Fantasy Romance
Forbidden
Savage
Bound
Standalone Paranormal Romance
Calling the Wild
Kitsune
Savage Satisfaction
Sealed with a Kiss
Additional Titles by Mari Carr
The Trinity Masters, Erotic Ménage Romance written with Lila Dubois
Elemental Pleasure
Primal Passion
Scorching Desire
After Burn (free short story)
Forbidden Legacy
Hidden Devotion
Elegant Seduction
Secret Scandal (coming soon)
Wild Irish
Come Monday
Ruby Tuesday
Waiting for Wednesday
Sweet Thursday
Friday I’m in Love