Loyalty’s Betrayal

by Mari Carr

  A smile crept onto Arthur’s face, and he was glad the fleet admiral was still on the Isle of Man and this conversation was happening through speakerphone.

  Regardless…he gave credit where credit was due.

  “Touché,” Arthur muttered.

  “I’m not placing Mateo in this alliance to punish the man.”

  “Alliance? Is that what we’re calling this? I thought it was a marriage.”

  “Unless I get to start watching the new trinities have sex as a perk of this fucking job, they’re alliances first, marriages second.”

  Arthur tried to hide his laugh, turning it into a cough.

  Eric’s sigh was audible. “We’re part of the Masters’ Admiralty. Trust me, for us, marriages and alliances are the same.”

  “Have you told the three admirals of the territories where these members live?”

  Arthur was fairly certain he wasn’t imagining the humor in Eric’s voice when he said, “I told the admirals of Castile and Ukraine that I’m calling people from their territories into a trinity. I thought I’d leave the other one to you. After all, you have a family tie to the admiral of Rome.”

  Yep, Arthur thought with a sigh. He was definitely being punished. Giovanni Starabba, the admiral of Rome, was his new father-in-law and that “family tie” was so loose, it wouldn’t bind a kitten to a feather.

  “Thank you, I’ll do that.” Arthur made sure his tone was polite.

  Eric laughed. “I love you English. You’re good at saying ‘fuck you’ while sounding polite.”

  Arthur winced, feeling guilty that he hadn’t had better control of his tone. “My apologies, Fleet Admiral.”

  “Don’t apologize. And don’t be so…British. I don’t trust many people right now, Arthur. You, James and Sophia are at the top of a short list.”

  Arthur felt for Eric. They’d both been thrust into jobs they weren’t prepared for, despite the fact that they were technically qualified. Eric needed…not a friend, exactly, but a comrade in arms. Someone who understood him.

  “I’ll contact my father-in-law, but I’m not happy about it,” Arthur said begrudgingly.

  Eric laughed, and Arthur smiled.

  Then his smile turned to a grimace. He was not looking forward to that phone call. Giovanni took his job as admiral very seriously, and he definitely created alliances when forming trinities in his territory. It was the primary reason they’d gotten off to such a bad start.

  Arthur had been bound in marriage to Giovanni’s daughter by the previous fleet admiral. His relationship with Giovanni was still strained due to his sudden, unexpected, and unapproved marriage to Sophia. She was referred to as the Princess in the Roman territory, and Giovanni had intended to form a powerhouse alliance with his daughter’s trinity.

  Kacper had taken that privilege away when—with his dying breath—he’d bound Arthur to Sophia and James.

  Arthur smiled when he thought of Sophia. He adored his beautiful, opinionated, headstrong wife. She was everything he would have chosen in a bride had the decision rested on his shoulders rather than with his admiral.

  Rising from his desk, Arthur moved to the window of his office on Threadneedle Street, looking down at the street below. He’d only just recently returned to this office from his home one, as England’s Admiralty headquarters had suffered a great deal of damage, thanks to the barrage of bullets that had pierced through the roof, destroying it and the large conference room on the floor above.

  The sky was gray, spraying down the cold mist that seemed to hover over the city constantly lately. London needed more sunshine. The weather was affecting his mood, making him question every move, every decision.

  Although that shouldn’t be surprising to him, considering the last few months. Within the blink of an eye, the fleet admiral—as well as England’s admiral, one of the knights, and the admiral of Castile—had been killed, the latter three shot right here in this building. The Masters’ Admiralty had been thrust into outright chaos for a brief time.

  Arthur had been promoted—if he could call it that—from his role as a knight and took over as the admiral of England. And to make matters worse, the Masters’ Admiralty was fighting a foe as old as the organization itself.

  The Domino was back. And the villain was hell-bent on bringing down everything Arthur had spent his life fighting to protect.

  Aware that he was losing the fight on Mateo’s behalf, he changed course. “Sir, perhaps we should discuss the other, much more pertinent matter at hand,” Arthur suggested.

  “The Domino.”

  “Yes. There’s been no further information discovered about the dead American sniper. Perhaps it would be easier to uncover more about the man if we contacted the Trinity Masters. However, given our recent…” Arthur paused, trying to find the right word for their troubles with the Trinity Masters.

  “Altercation? Disagreement? Go on, say something British.”

  What the hell did that even mean? Say something British? “We forged an unsteady peace. But I’m not certain they’d be willing to help us.”

  “There it is.” Eric sounded satisfied, then started to chuckle.

  Arthur stared at the phone, unsure how to respond. He reached for his cup of tea with his right hand, then stopped. He swallowed hard and sat back in his chair.

  The fleet admiral’s laughter faded. When he spoke next, his tone was cool, his voice low and serious. “You have friends who are members of the Trinity Masters. You know their Grand Master.”

  “I do.” Arthur truly liked Juliette Adams, the Grand Master of the Trinity Masters. However, there had been some strong words, as well as some not-so-veiled threats leveled from the Masters’ Admiralty in their last meeting. He couldn’t imagine Juliette would be too keen to hear from him so soon.

  Eric took that concern off his shoulders. “If it becomes necessary, I’ll contact the Grand Master.”

  Now, instead of worrying about how he’d talk to Juliette Adams after what had happened in their last conversation, he could worry about just how badly a conversation between Juliette and Eric would go. Brilliant.

  “However,” the fleet admiral continued. “I will need actionable intelligence, something useful, before pursuing that course. For now, we keep our interaction with that other society as limited as possible.”

  “Of course.” He hoped Eric couldn’t hear his relief. “But that leaves us with precious few leads.”

  “I can think of several.”

  Arthur paused, waiting for Eric to illuminate him. It became clear he didn’t intend to.

  Mysterious silence.

  Of course.

  Eric played his cards very close to his chest. Which reminded Arthur of this unorthodox trinity the man wanted forged.

  Eric had left Mateo in England, cooling his heels, ever since the American sniper had shot Manon, the former fleet admiral’s wife, and then taken his own life. A man of action himself, Arthur understood that Mateo had felt like a caged animal, forced to remain in London rather than return to his proper place on the Isle of Man.

  The knight in him—the man he’d become after joining the Masters’ Admiralty—wanted to obey the fleet admiral without question.

  The young man he’d been—a man who’d struggled for years to prove himself worthy of both being a member of the Masters’ Admiralty, and of being a knight of England—felt for Mateo. Understood how he was feeling.

  “Sir, I really think Mateo should be given a chance to prove his worth.”

  There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

  Great, Arthur thought. A few months in and he’d already pissed off his new boss.

  Eric grunted. “Fine. Contact Mateo privately, before calling in the other two members of the trinity. Tell him he has one chance to redeem himself.”

  “What do you want him to do?”

  “Find the traitor.”

  “Traitor.” It was a heavy word.

  “There’s a traitor amongst the Spartan
Guard. It’s making living here, surrounded by all of them, very exciting.”

  That startled a laugh out of Arthur, but he smothered it. “I’m sorry, Fleet Admiral, I assure you that I do not think your safety is a laughing matter.”

  “And I like breathing. But I’m going to stick my finger in the soil before I do anything.”

  He was going to what? Arthur made a mental note to ask someone if that was a Scandinavian idiom, or if the fleet admiral was actually going to do some sort of soil testing.

  “Someone made sure Kacper received tainted medication,” Eric continued. “Someone knew he was on the balcony that day.”

  Arthur remembered the feel of the sea breeze, the tension and fear in the moments following Kacper being shot. A drone had shot the fleet admiral with a dart full of an otherwise non-fatal chemical. The deadly reaction had come when the compound in the dart entered the fleet admiral’s system, interacting with the chemical agent already in his body from the tainted medicine.

  Eric was right. There was no way all that happened without help from someone inside the stronghold of the Masters’ Admiralty.

  “Tell Mateo I want a name.” The fleet admiral’s voice was hard. This was an order, and from his tone, if Arthur objected again, Eric would not take it well. “If he is able to expose the traitor, I’ll dissolve the trinity. He has a week.”

  “Very well, sir.” Arthur was torn, trying to decide if he’d done Mateo a favor or not. Discovering the identity of the traitor in the Spartan Guard wouldn’t be easy, and the fleet admiral hadn’t given Mateo much time.

  “I’ll share that same information with—”

  “No one except Mateo is to know the trinity may be dissolved.”

  Bloody fuck. This was bad. Members of the Masters’ Admiralty agreed to an arranged ménage marriage when they joined. It was the price of membership to a secret society that offered members security, wealth, and power. Because of that, when members were placed in a trinity, they worked hard to begin forming emotional ties as soon as they met their spouses.

  Having a trinity dissolved, even if it was only a week later, would mean that people might end up emotionally wounded.

  A week after he’d been married to Sophia and James, he’d been in love with them. If someone had tried to take them away, to dissolve the trinity…

  Arthur opened his mouth to say he’d changed his mind, that this was a bad idea, but Eric started speaking once more.

  “The other two should help him in his search. I want the three of them to remain together until they report to the Isle of Man. Under no circumstances is Mateo allowed to investigate alone.”

  Arthur didn’t like misleading people. He was still, at heart, a knight of England, beholden to ideals of truth and justice.

  Too bad that those ideals had no place in the real world, or in his role as admiral.

  “Do you understand me, Admiral?” Eric’s voice was hard and formal, his Scandinavian accent adding a crisp formality to the words.

  “Yes, sir. Is there any—”

  Before Arthur could finish his question, the door to his office flew open and his husband, James Rathmann entered the room, limping quickly. Typically, the mountain of a man strolled with an easier, slower gait, as a way to offset his size.

  Arthur reached for a sword that wasn’t there, with a hand that also wasn’t there.

  Another casualty of the attack on the admirals.

  “James,” Arthur barked, heart in his throat. “What’s happened? Where is the attack coming from?” He yanked open a drawer in his desk with his left hand, pulling out a gun. He’d been practicing with it. “Is Sophia safe?”

  “What? Of course she is. She’s at home, fine and dandy. I’ve got an idea I want you to run by the fleet admiral,” James said excitedly.

  Arthur dropped the gun on his desk so he could raise his hand and wave it in a desperate signal for James to shut up. After all, the fleet admiral, unbeknownst to his husband, was on the other side of the speakerphone. “James, wait—”

  “I’ve been thinking about the Domino.”

  In all fairness, that was all he, James and Sophia seemed to think about…when they weren’t wrapped around each other in bed. They were still newlyweds, after all.

  Regardless, Arthur didn’t want Eric to know how much he shared with his spouses. The admirals were supposed to be masters of keeping secrets. Now if he could just get his very excitable spouse to not out him…

  Arthur started making a slashing motion across his throat, while keeping his voice level. “Why don’t we discuss—”

  “It was Cecilia who actually came up with the idea,” James forged on.

  Arthur dropped his chin to his chest. Great. And now the fleet admiral would know that James was discussing the Domino with other people. It was not exactly a sterling example of secrecy and security. “James, please—”

  “It’s a brilliant idea, Arthur. That cousin of mine is a clever one.”

  Arthur wasn’t sure he’d ever seen James so excited about something that wasn’t a coin. Or sex. Newly united in their trinity, it had taken Arthur some time to get used to James’ love of old, rusty, decrepit pieces of metal. He and Sophia preferred to spend their evenings together listening as James regaled them with stories about his glory days as a tighthead prop with the New Zealand All Blacks, both of them enthralled by rugby stories over dry tidbits about numismatics. Unfortunately, the coins usually won out as James’ topic of choice.

  “She’s in England?”

  James nodded. “She’s in the Lake District, helping our family with a few things. She called me this morning after you left the house.”

  Cecilia St. John, James’ cousin, was a member of the territory of Rome. Due to some inter-territory marriages a generation or two ago, James’ family tree had roots and branches all over Europe.

  The fleet admiral hadn’t said anything. Maybe he’d hung up. No, the light was on. Maybe he could get James out of the room before this hole got any deeper. “James, listen—”

  James had a full head of steam, and it was clear he wasn’t going to stop talking until he’d said what he’d come to say. James had once complained that he didn’t have a weapon, to which Arthur had reminded him that he was a weapon. Once James got going, either physically or intellectually, stopping him was like stepping in front of a train.

  “You remember how I went to Cecilia for help when we were still chasing down the person who killed those three people in Rome?”

  Arthur didn’t reply, wondering if it would be bad form to disconnect the phone call. He could lie and claim the call dropped. Instead, he started jabbing his finger at the phone, hoping James would see the light indicating a call was active.

  Despite Arthur’s lack of verbal response, James continued, “As you know, I called Cecilia because of her knowledge of the Masters’ Admiralty. That woman’s mind is a history book when it comes to the society. Not a rule she can’t quote verbatim.”

  “I really think we should—” Arthur tried once more.

  “Well, Cecilia thought as long as the Domino and—let’s face it—probably even the apprentice, are still out there, we should form a group of thinkers, of historians and experts in their fields to study the clues to try to capture them once and for all. If we don’t outthink him, then the body count will only continue to rise.”

  Arthur couldn’t argue with that assessment. Too many people had already lost their lives to this Domino.

  Arthur asked, “What are you talking about? A brain trust?”

  James nodded enthusiastically. “Cecilia and I have already come up with the list. Five of us. We think it’s important the group remain small. Each name on the list is a foremost scholar, the top of their field, and a member of the Masters’ Admiralty.”

  “Who is on the list?” Eric asked, causing James to jerk back in alarm.

  “Bloody hell!” James looked at the phone, and then at Arthur.

  Arthur sighed. “The fleet admiral
and I were in the middle of a call when you stormed in. Without knocking.” He added the last because it had become James’ habit of late and something they’d discussed several times before.

  “Who is on your list?” Eric repeated his question.

  “Well, uh, it would be Cecilia and me. Oh, and hello, Fleet Admiral.”

  “That’s two, who else?”

  “Then we wanted to invite Karl Klimek, the anthropologist, Hugo Marchand, who happens to be one of the leading minds of the day in the field of political science, and Nyx Kata, the religious scholar.”

  James, a renowned numismatist, had a vast knowledge of ancient coinage and modern-day currency. Cecilia St. John was a financial analyst by day, currently living in Singapore, but her knowledge of the history of the Masters’ Admiralty was undisputed. It was her information that helped them discover the former fleet admiral was in danger. Unfortunately, it hadn’t changed the outcome, as Kacper was killed anyway.

  Eric was silent for a moment. “I see. I’d like you to include Josephine O’Connor. She’s an accomplished linguist, and I think she’d be a valuable addition to your collective. When and where would you meet?”

  “Cecilia thought, given the danger involved, that we should start with monthly meetings. She proposed meeting somewhere in Rome.”

  “No,” Eric said. “You’ll meet in the Long Room at Trinity College. After hours.”

  “Uh, sure. I mean, yes, Fleet Admiral. I’ll see if Cecilia knows someone who can get us in there.”

  “Very good. Arthur, I want you to give James all the information we’ve gathered on the Domino thus far. And, James, I need you to impress upon your think tank that secrecy is of the utmost importance. Nothing they learn in those meetings can be shared with others outside the group.”

  James realized he’d perhaps said a bit too much in front of the fleet admiral and made an apologetic face at Arthur before speaking to the phone. “Absolutely, sir. That was one of our first considerations in making the list. None of these people—except for me—are in trinities, so that removes the temptation to share with spouses. Plus, these people can be trusted. I will personally vouch for them. Besides Josephine.”