by Mari Carr
Leila reached out, touching the men on either side of her with her fingertips.
Though still hurting, Leila lay between them, alert and listening, protecting them.
The idea seemed absurd. Because, lying between them, she realized she’d never felt safer in her life.
Chapter Seven
He walked behind their beds, ignoring the way the nurses pushing Karl and Leila’s beds kept casting him nervous glances. Antonio had refused to let them be separated, even to be taken for X-rays.
The doctor who’d evaluated them was a member and aware of Antonio’s familial connections. Dr. Marta Mancini had been deferential to him, until Antonio had admitted that it had been nearly twelve hours since he’d rescued Karl and Leila and was only now bringing them for professional medical treatment. Then she’d cursed Antonio in the best tradition of old Italian grandmothers. All she needed was a rolling pin.
Antonio deserved that and more. He’d kept himself awake the remainder of last night, in part by worrying about them. He’d watched throughout the night making sure they kept breathing.
When Leila had scooted over to make room for him in the bed this morning, he should have refused. However, exhaustion and the unexpected desire to be near her had won out, and he’d accepted her offer. What he hadn’t expected was to actually fall asleep. He’d certainly gone longer without sleep, but there was something about her, something he had noticed right from the start, that said she understood his need to protect them. And that she felt that same driving need to keep them all safe.
He trusted her.
Putting that word to it was confusing. He’d worked closely with other security officers—sometimes for years—before he was able to let down his guard and trust them in the same way he did Leila. For just a couple hours, he’d placed his safety—and Karl’s—in her hands.
Karl was on his side, tightly rolled towels tucked along him like wedges under the wheels of a vehicle to keep it from rolling away. The black sores on his back, legs, and arms were pressure sores. The ones on his ass and legs were infected. They’d removed the necrotic skin, cleaned the wounds, and then covered them with state-of-the-art wound-care patches. The injection site on his chest was also infected, and the muscle was swollen from having fluid pumped into it rather than into a vein.
Ciril had the medical knowledge necessary to keep someone alive while dismembering them, but didn’t know how to put in an IV.
He knew Cohortes Praetorianae was more than just a private security firm, and had a threat delivered right to their door within hours of their escaping, yet had seemed more like a psychopathic madman than the cold, calculating genius Antonio had expected.
Antonio grudgingly stashed his gun outside the X-ray room and put on a heavy vest while his charges were X-rayed. Leila got on and off the table herself, while Karl was lifted. They were trying not to move him too much.
When they’d come in late this morning, his temperature had been dangerously high.
Antonio walked with them back to their room, watching Karl with worry.
If the medicine to stop the infection and bring the fever down didn’t work, Antonio’s decision might have killed the Dutchman. He’d chosen to take them to the safe house, to hold off on coming to the hospital until he had confirmation that several of Rome’s cavalieri and Milo, a fellow security officer, had swept and secured this facility.
Once back in their hospital room, Antonio hovered over the nurses as the IV tubes were once more attached to the ports in their hands. He checked every vial of medicine, carefully monitored as each was injected either directly into their IVs or into the bags of fluids. He had no medical knowledge, but knew enough about human nature to know that the fact he was watching would make everyone check and double-check what they were doing.
Karl was either asleep or groggy enough from the medicine that it made no difference. Leila was resting, and whatever they’d given her for the pain was strong enough to have her smiling faintly.
In the golden sunlight that streamed in the window, her bruises were a grim sight. There wasn’t an inch of her body that wasn’t discolored. In some places, the beating had been so bad veins had ruptured, resulting in patches of purple-black skin where the blood had pooled. Only time would heal those. Her lip was split, one eye swollen despite periodic icing.
The worst was her neck. In some spots, the pattern of links from the chain that had been used to strangle her was visible.
They were his responsibility now. Even if Lorenzo hadn’t assigned him to stay with them, he would have. He would have disobeyed a direct order if necessary.
It would probably come to that. Thanks to the threat, he was now known to Ciril, and a target. If Lorenzo didn’t replace him as their guard, his father would. Giovanni was still reeling from “losing” his daughter to the territory of England after she’d married the man who was now their admiral. His father had shown signs of becoming overprotective of Antonio. It was ludicrous, given Antonio’s position as a security officer, but Giovanni had mentioned more than once that Antonio would have to carry on the Starabba family line. That meant becoming admiral after his father died or stepped down.
Antonio didn’t want to be admiral.
Giovanni also dropped hints about Antonio’s marriage, even going so far as to ask if Antonio would prefer two wives, or a wife and a husband. Two husbands wouldn’t be an option, because Giovanni wanted biological grandchildren conceived in marriage. The admiral of Rome may distrust the church—there was plenty of bad blood between their secret society and the Catholic Church—but he was culturally Catholic enough to want his grandchildren conceived in marriage, even if that marriage was a ménage.
Antonio grimaced and leaned against the wall where he could see both the door and the window. Before arranging his marriage, Antonio’s father would probably check the medical records of his future wife to make sure she was healthy enough to bear children.
It was one of the reasons Antonio preferred to avoid his father whenever possible. He’d been avoiding calls and messages from him, instead routing all information through Lorenzo. Even his father couldn’t object to Antonio following the chain of command.
His father and his marriage were problems for another day; right now he had a trinity of sorts—two people to care for. Protect.
His phone pinged in his pocket, a special alert that meant the message came from another security officer.
Antonio jerked away from the wall, palmed his gun, leaving the safety on, and grabbed his phone with his non-dominant hand. He checked the message from Milo.
GA incoming.
He stiffened at the word “incoming.” The hospital door didn’t lock, but he shoved a chair against it to slow down whoever was coming, then quickly yanked on the curtains that would hide Leila and Karl from sight if the door opened.
GA?
The only thing he could think of was grande ammiraglio…but the fleet admiral couldn’t, wouldn’t be coming here.
Antonio flattened himself beside the door. Instead of standing on the side where he’d be hidden by the door, he stood on the latch side. It was more dangerous for him, but now the goal was to protect Karl and Leila, not himself.
The door opened, the chair scraping against the floor.
Antonio stepped into the narrow opening, his body a shield between whomever was coming and the room. His gun was up, raised slightly so it would be pointed at the head of an average-height man.
“You’re going to shoot me in the neck?” the giant asked.
Antonio twitched at the sound of the accent—Scandinavian.
That, combined with the man’s massive build, blond hair, and the fact that he’d been allowed to get this far, all pointed to one conclusion.
“State your name,” Antonio said in Italian.
“I’ve already been through this with a couple other Italians. Don’t piss me off.”
Antonio didn’t waver. “I will not ask again.”
The newcomer
grunted in apparent respect. “Eric Ericcson. The other officer vetted me.”
Antonio nodded respectfully, but didn’t move the gun. “Fleet Admiral.”
“Are you going to shoot me?”
“Why are you here?”
“Am I a suspect?”
Antonio knew it was foolish—more than that, disrespectful—to treat the fleet admiral this way, but his need to protect Karl and Leila overrode all his other instincts.
“Everyone is a suspect, Fleet Admiral.”
Eric nodded. “Good. You’re just the right amount of paranoid and trigger-happy to be a security officer.”
Antonio blinked in surprise. Eric was not exactly what he’d expected. He knew very little about the new leader of the Masters’ Admiralty, but he’d expected formality. Ceremony. Power in the form of an entourage.
“But…” The fleet admiral drew out the word. “I still need to talk to Karl and Leila. I’ve done my best to keep the admirals of Germany and Kalmar from sending people in to retrieve them. Karl’s brothers—not to mention his mother—can come up with some impressive threats when told they can’t do something.”
It wasn’t until that moment Antonio realized how odd it was that this hadn’t turned into a multi-territory frenzy. He’d asked Lorenzo to handle notifying the appropriate parties that they were safe. He had assumed his father would have reached out to Karl and Leila’s admirals, to let them know Karl and Leila had been found, but he hadn’t thought beyond that.
Antonio stepped back, keeping his gun trained on the big man. “Come in, and close the door.”
Eric shouldered his way in, then carefully closed the door. After a moment’s consideration, he pushed the chair back into place against the door and sat on it. “Anyone who comes in will have to go through me.”
At that, Antonio finally relaxed enough to lower the gun, though he didn’t put it away.
“Fleet Admiral, forgive my disrespect.”
“I don’t give a fuck about respect. I want my people safe.”
“I will keep them safe. They are mine.”
Eric’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead.
Antonio realized how that sounded and cleared his throat. “I mean that I have protected them and will continue to do so.”
“Since you’re the one who found them, when you weren’t even the person assigned to search for them, I’m inclined to believe you.”
There was a rebuke in there that Antonio ignored. Searching for them hadn’t been his job. “I was searching for the man who killed Christina, Nazario, and Lorena.”
“Again, not your job.”
“They were members of Rome. They were mine to protect.”
“No, Antonio. Maybe they were yours to avenge, but protecting them was someone else’s job.”
Antonio’s jaw tightened. He wanted to deny Eric’s words, but the other man was right. Antonio wasn’t the shield, he was the sword.
Unable to speak through his clenched teeth, Antonio could only nod.
“And you shouldn’t have been looking for the Domino alone.”
“I wasn’t looking for the Domino,” Antonio said coolly. “I was searching for a killer.”
Eric’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe my Italian isn’t good enough for this conversation. Switch to English.”
Antonio repeated his statement.
Eric pushed to his feet, and Antonio took a half step back, making sure he was out of grabbing range. Damn, the man was huge. Eric started to pace. “You don’t think the man who took Karl and Leila, who killed the others, is the Domino.”
Antonio shrugged.
Eric grunted. “Don’t do that Italian shit. Answer.”
“As you said, it is not my place to investigate.”
“I don’t want to kick your ass, but I will.”
Antonio adjusted his grip on the gun.
Eric didn’t miss the small motion. “Are you going to shoot me?”
“I have no interest in hand-to-hand combat with you. Let the knights fight fair. I will shoot you, if necessary.”
Eric faced him, hands on his hips. He was a huge target—broad chest and shoulders, long legs.
Antonio shifted his weight to his back foot, all his muscles tensed and ready.
Eric grinned. “Shoot first. That’s my kind of fight.” Eric relaxed and sank back into the chair. “I like you, Starabba.”
Antonio relaxed slightly, nodding to the other man.
“But next time you point a gun at me, pull the trigger. You get away with that shit once. Only once.”
Antonio put his fist on his chest in a half-mocking salute. Eric grunted. They understood one another. He holstered his gun, then said, “Fleet Admiral, why are you here?”
“I’m here because this situation is fucked, and I want answers.”
“You want to question Karl and Leila?”
“And you.”
“I will answer any questions you have, but Karl and Leila need to rest.”
“If it were an option, I’d send them each a sorry-you-were-tortured fruit basket and a balloon and leave them alone. That’s not an option.”
“They’re sleeping.”
“No, we’re not,” Karl called out.
Antonio’s eye started to twitch. He half turned, keeping Eric in his peripheral vision. The curtain rippled, and Leila appeared. The hospital gown hung loosely around her. Her bruised arms, legs, and neck were all visible.
Eric cursed quietly in a language Antonio didn’t know.
Leila pushed the curtains open all the way. Karl was propped up on one hand, still twisted with his weight on one side. His too-lean face had stubble on it, and his eyes didn’t seem to be totally focused.
“That fruit basket sounds good,” Karl joked.
Leila retreated to Karl’s bed, half-sitting on it. It was only when she moved that Antonio noticed she was holding a scalpel. Where and when had she grabbed that?
Antonio grinned, feeling a ridiculous amount of pride in her actions.
Eric rose, looking back and forth between them. “Karl. Leila. You should have been safe, and you weren’t.”
“Are you apologizing?” Karl asked.
“Our mutual friends were worried about you,” Eric said directly to the Dutchman.
“They’re safe? I wondered if that’s why—”
“They’re safe. And they’re being protected. Josephine will probably talk her guard to death.”
Karl laughed.
Leila said something in what Antonio thought was Swedish, and Eric responded in kind. They went back and forth for a few minutes before Eric switched back to English. “I need to know everything.” He looked from Leila to Karl and finally to Antonio.
Leila looked at Karl, and Antonio squashed the ridiculous feeling of being hurt that they weren’t consulting him.
Then they both looked at him. Antonio’s heart lurched.
He went to Karl’s bed and tugged Leila off it. “Karl, lie down. You will shift the bandages if you don’t.”
Once Karl lay down, Antonio angled the bed so Karl could see both Eric and the other bed. Leila raised the head of her bed before climbing on. Between the raised headboard and the pillows Antonio put behind her back, she was almost sitting upright. Her expression was alert and attentive, even with the bruises that discolored her face and neck.
Antonio took up a position standing between the beds.
Eric dragged his chair away from the door, placed it where he wanted, and then sat, elbows on his knees.
“How’d he take you?”
“I’m not sure,” Karl said.
“I know.” Antonio walked them through his investigation of the original murders, including the suspect list, and then the alert that had popped up with the image showing Ciril taking Karl off the train, and finally how he’d followed the trail to Croatia and found the drug in the fake ambulance. Leila and Karl listened with the same rapt attention as the fleet admiral.
When Antonio was done speaking, Eri
c turned to Leila. “And you?”
“I was meeting someone in Amsterdam.” She looked down at her hands. There was a bandage around one of her wrists where the cuff had bitten into her flesh. She’d told the doctor she’d been trying to get free. She seemed to gather herself, then looked up. “I was meeting someone I’d met online.”
“You were on a date.”
“Not a date. I was looking for a sexual companion.” Now her almost defensive posture made sense. “I do not believe it’s appropriate to date, not when I know I will marry someone else. So I seek out sexual companions only.”
“It’s a habit?” Eric asked.
“Do not judge her,” Antonio said.
Eric’s gaze snapped to him, and it was like facing down a wolf. “Don’t give me orders.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Karl said, sounding as defensive of her as Antonio felt.
Eric pantomimed banging his head against something. “I’m just asking so we can figure out if they were able to use a pattern of behavior to get to her. And to figure out why you two were the ones taken.”
“Oh,” Karl said.
“That makes sense,” Antonio admitted.
“Yes,” Leila said. “I need some good rough sex at least twice a month.”
Antonio and Karl both stared at her. That was…not what he’d expected her to say. She was fierce, but so delicate-looking, especially sitting there in the too-large gown.
Eric nodded. “Of course. And do you always use the same service?”
“Three different ones, but I’ve used each more than once.”
“And sex club memberships?”
“The one I liked shut down.”
“Hate it when that happens.” Eric rubbed his chin. “But there was a pattern there. Someone could have picked up on that. So your date was the guy who grabbed you?”
“Six…Ciril…isn’t the man I spoke with. I run background checks. I ask for doctors’ records. I am careful.”
“Smart,” Antonio said, though it sounded strangled. He was trying very hard not to think about her statement that she needed sex. Trying not to imagine touching her.
