Loyalty’s Betrayal

by Mari Carr

  Dimitri took Cecilia’s threat in stride, dismissing it without concern as he stood, picked up his duffel, and gestured toward the door. “Shall we, wife?”

  Cecilia rose as well, rolling her eyes. “That’s even worse.”

  Mateo followed the two of them to the door, but all three stopped when Arthur called out to them. “Remember. You are to remain together for the next week. I suggest you use that time wisely to…” Arthur paused. Obviously, the admiral had his own strong reservations about the three of them succeeding at anything together. In truth, they’d probably kill each other before they made it to the sidewalk. Finally, he said, “Get to know one another.”

  Dimitri turned toward Cecilia, intent on placing his hand on her lower back to guide her out of the office. She shrugged off his touch, walking ahead of them quickly.

  Dimitri followed with an amused snicker. “She’s quite a woman.”

  Mateo didn’t reply as he followed him down the corridor, the three of them walking single file until they reached the street.

  Once there, Mateo glanced both ways, then at Dimitri and Cecilia, both of whom were looking at him.

  Now what?

  4

  Cecilia glanced around the busy street, not really seeing anything. She was shell-shocked by what had just happened. She wasn’t the type of person who could accept anything at face value. Her mother swore her first word wasn’t mama or dada, but “why?”

  There were reasons for trinities created across territories. Always.

  And so there had to be a reason here.

  But Cecilia would be damned if she could figure it out.

  Mateo was the head of the Spartan Guard, a job he would lose the moment they were bound in marriage. Given the fact the previous fleet admiral was murdered by a traitor in Mateo’s guard, it seemed to indicate this marriage was a way to relieve him of his duties. Which meant she was here as part of his punishment.

  I’m part of his punishment.

  She dismissed that as a reason. The new fleet admiral didn’t strike her as the type of man to be that petty. From all the stories she’d heard, Eric Ericsson was a shrewd, calculating, clever man, the type to always see the big picture.

  His was an unusual story. Sixteen years earlier, he had been a knight, and in a trinity, when one of his wives was appointed admiral of Kalmar. She served for one year before she was assassinated, and he was forced to become admiral. Not long after, his second wife, a prominent politician, was also murdered. After that, he asked to be excused from the role of admiral after serving one year. Typically, admirals served in their position until death or until they were no longer mentally or physically able to do so. No one was allowed to simply walk away.

  Until Eric.

  After the brutal murders of his wives, it seemed only fair that he, of anyone, be allowed to step down. However, Masters’ Admiralty tradition stated that only an admiral could rise to become fleet admiral. With two territories in chaos after the murders of their admirals, it was decided that to pull one of the admirals who’d survived the attack from their post to be fleet admiral would cause too much upheaval. Which left just one man for the job.

  Eric.

  She knew that much about him—it wasn’t exactly public knowledge, but she collected information like this about their membership. A strange hobby perhaps, but after a day spent looking at numbers and finance, she enjoyed history and human-interest stories.

  What she didn’t know was where Eric had been, or what he’d been doing, in the fifteen years since his wives’ deaths.

  “Should we book a room somewhere around here?” Dimitri asked. “I came to the meeting straight from the airport and didn’t have time to find a hotel.”

  Mateo shook his head. “No. We don’t have time for that. We need to start searching for the traitor.”

  Dimitri scowled. “I caught the red-eye to get here. The only place I’m going is to bed. We can start tomorrow.”

  Mateo’s hands clenched into fists and Cecilia decided this continual animosity was going to have to stop. The three of them had been thrown for a loop with the announcement on their trinity and then the assignment of a seemingly impossible task, given the short time frame. She understood Mateo’s impatience to begin. He, as head of the guard, would obviously feel guilty for his failure to protect Kacper.

  “Where do you want to start, Mateo?” she asked.

  “Stranraer.”

  She tilted her head. “Scotland?”

  “Yes.”

  Dimitri scowled. “Seems to me you’d want to root your traitor out where he lives, on the Isle of Man. Unless, of course, there’s a reason you’re avoiding the place. Not ready to face the new boss to answer for your actions? Or lack thereof?”

  Mateo took a step closer to Dimitri. “If you have a prob—”

  Cecilia cut him off before this turned into a proper brawl in the middle of a public street. “Isn’t Stranraer where the Spartan Guard’s training facility is?”

  Mateo nodded, shooting Dimitri a smirk. “Not many people know that.”

  “The Masters’ Admiralty is very good at hiding their secrets in plain sight.” Cecilia was still smarting over the news there was an archive in Dublin she’d known nothing about, even though the place wasn’t exactly a secret.

  “I agree.” Mateo went on to explain his reasoning. “Records regarding the guard are stored there in the off-site backup servers. Background information, work details, castle assignments. I need to see who had access to the fleet admiral’s medicine. Who was standing guard at the gates the day the man entered the grounds to fly the drone that fired the dart.”

  “Shouldn’t you also ask who on the guard had access to the fleet admiral’s daily schedule?” Dimitri asked.

  Cecilia was pleased by his astute question and sudden interest in helping. Maybe now he’d stop leveling accusations at Mateo.

  Her first impression of Dimitri wasn’t good. His arrogance and disinterest in basically everything turned her off. Given his paper-pusher job description, she could only assume he was content to follow the status quo without question or comment—he’s certainly taken Arthur’s announcement about their trinity in stride—but that was something unusual to find in a member of the Masters’ Admiralty. Which meant there had to be something more there. There was nothing worse, in Cecilia’s opinion, than a mindless drone, and that felt like the impression Dimitri was trying to project.

  “I already know the answer to that. His wife, Greta.” Mateo paused. “And me.”

  “No one else?” Dimitri asked.

  Mateo shook his head. “Someone could have hacked into my personal account. Or Greta’s.”

  “They could have.” There was no denying Dimitri’s tone indicated he didn’t believe that.

  “That’s it.” Mateo clenched his fists and took an intimidating step closer to Dimitri—who changed into someone else entirely, right before her eyes.

  Dimitri didn’t back down. Instead, his casual, almost slouching stance stiffened and he grew broader, stronger, more threatening as he dropped his duffel to the ground. His T-shirt tightened as previously unnoticed muscles bunched.

  “Come at me. I dare you.” Dimitri had done an excellent job concealing his true strength. The man worked out. Hard.

  She glanced at Mateo, who wasn’t backing down either and was a mirror image for Dimitri in beefy biceps. In certain places—namely, her bed—that would be hot. Right now, it was fucking terrifying.

  Both men looked intent on doing the other serious bodily harm and they were completely capable of it.

  What a wonderful way to start their lives together. With suspicion and bloodshed.

  She stepped between them. Accustomed to typically being one of the tallest people in the room at five foot eleven, she was surprised to find herself looking up at both her future husbands. Regardless, she wasn’t about to let their sizes intimidate her.

  After a lifetime spent in the presence of Italian men, Cecilia should
have a higher tolerance for this sort of alpha male chest beating. She didn’t. It was one of the reasons she’d jumped at the career opportunity in Singapore. She’d been with them a total of twenty minutes and she’d already had enough of their macho posturing to last her a lifetime.

  “We’re not doing this here,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “Doing what, sweet Cece?”

  “Get out of the way, Cecilia,” Mateo said. “I’m not going to stand here and be accused of being a traitor.”

  Cecilia stood her ground. “I’ve rented a car.” She pointed to a silver Renault Kadjar parked several cars away on the other side of the street. “We’re going to get into it, grab your suitcase from wherever it is, Mateo, then stop by my hotel to gather my things. Then we’re driving to the Lake District.”

  “No. I told you—”

  “You want to go to Stranraer. I know.” She pulled her cell out and opened her GPS map. Just as she suspected…Stranraer was a fair distance. “My family owns a B and B in the Lake District, which is about five hours from here. You can sleep in the back of the car, Dimitri, while we drive there. Tomorrow morning,” she consulted the map on her phone once more, “we get up early and travel the rest of the way to Stranraer. Should only take us another couple of hours and we’ll all be well rested and refreshed.”

  Mateo looked as if he wanted to finish what Dimitri had started, but Dimitri backed off, bending over to retrieve his duffel. “As you wish, wife.”

  He walked toward the car, not bothering to see if she and Mateo followed.

  “We don’t have a lot of time,” Mateo stressed. Then he looked over his shoulder at Dimitri. “And that man…”

  She nodded. “I understand. Truly. We’ll find the traitor who betrayed the fleet admiral and the guard. But you heard the English admiral. We have to do it as a team. There’s a lovely little private kitchen in the B and B. We’ll grab some bread and cheese and a bottle of wine for dinner. It’ll give us tonight to talk and get to know each other. We’re about to embark on a lifetime together. This is no way to start.”

  Mateo studied her face for a moment, and she got a sense there was something else he wanted to say. Whatever it was, he must’ve reconsidered because, like Dimitri, he too started walking toward the car.

  They stopped at Mateo’s and Cecilia’s hotels to grab their bags and then they were on their way.

  Dimitri had remarked he was tired, and while he’d claimed the backseat as she suggested, he didn’t close his eyes to rest.

  “You’re from the Castile territory?” Cecilia asked Mateo, fighting like crazy to figure out how three people living on separate corners of Europe—and Asia, in her case—could make a marriage.

  “I have not been home in many years. The Isle of Man is my home now.”

  “Was,” Dimitri murmured.

  Mateo shot him a dirty look over his shoulder. It was clear Mateo was unhappy about giving up his position with the Spartan Guard.

  “Have you considered what you will do after you leave the guard?” she asked, thinking perhaps he had skills that would allow him to live somewhere closer to her. She didn’t relish the idea of a long-distance marriage.

  “No. I have not,” Mateo confessed. “I’m only thirty-two. I expected to have another eight years with the guard.”

  Dimitri leaned forward. “How old are you, Cece?”

  She sighed, annoyed by his insistence on using that silly nickname. “Thirty-six, Dim.”

  Mateo snickered at her appropriately shortened version of his name.

  “How about you?” she asked, looking over her shoulder. Dimitri was grinning at her joke. He winked at her as he said, “I’m thirty-eight.”

  “What do you do in the Ukrainian government?”

  He shrugged off her question. “Told you. Logistics.”

  She waited for him to follow up with more details. He didn’t.

  Cecilia let her eyes drift to the scenery while seeing nothing, her mind racing over everything. This trinity felt like a mistake. The three of them were a complete mismatch, none of the pieces connecting.

  Then Dimitri decided to take the lead on twenty questions. “What do you do for a living, Cece?”

  “I work for a multinational import/export company in Singapore.”

  Dimitri leaned back, trying to stretch his long legs—an impossible feat, given the size of her rental car. “Sounds boring.”

  “Stronzo,” she said, miffed about the way he’d evaded her question. “I thought it sounded like a real answer, no?”

  Mateo glanced at her, drawing her attention to his kind smile. She’d just given him a lecture about the three of them trying to overcome this…God, this constant antagonistic way of communicating they’d formed. Now she had fallen into the same bad habit.

  She decided once more to offer an olive branch. “It’s probably not the most fascinating job on the planet, which is why I tend to focus on my hobbies more.”

  “What hobbies?” Mateo asked.

  She started to answer, then threw Dimitri a grin over her shoulder. “He’ll no doubt think this is boring as well. I’m a historian. Spend a lot of time reading and researching the Masters’ Admiralty.”

  Dimitri ran his hand over the stubble on his jaw. He was an attractive man—both of them were—though not in the traditional way. She noticed Dimitri’s hands were rough, covered with calluses and scars that didn’t indicate he spent much time behind a desk. There was a long, thin white scar just below his right ear that she’d only noticed a few moments ago when he turned to look out the window. She was dying to ask him how he got it, but knew he’d merely give her another nonanswer.

  “So impress us,” Dimitri dared her. “Tell us something interesting about the society.”

  At least fifty things popped into her head at once—she really did find the history of the Masters’ Admiralty fascinating—but she decided to feel out her future husbands about their knowledge of Domino lore. After all, Arthur had looked at her point-blank in his office earlier and told her to use everything at her disposal to help Mateo. He’d invited her to pull the librarians in to help find this traitor.

  “The most interesting—as well as horrifying—is the history of the Domino.”

  She paused, wanting to catch their reactions.

  “That is who killed the fleet admiral,” Mateo said. “I was there when we captured her.”

  “Her?” Dimitri asked with more interest than he’d revealed at the announcement of his future trinity. “The Domino is a her and she’s been captured?”

  “Manon. The former fleet admiral’s wife. And she’s dead. Shot by her lover.”

  “Didn’t she have access to her husband’s daily schedule?” Dimitri leaned forward once more.

  Mateo shook his head. “She hadn’t lived at Triskelion Castle for quite some time. She was…unhappy there.”

  “What do you mean she was shot by her lover?”

  “An American sniper, who killed himself after Manon. She was trying to bring the Masters’ Admiralty down. She very nearly succeeded.”

  “And we’re searching for this traitor to tie up loose ends?” Dimitri asked.

  Mateo nodded, clearly convinced that was his mission. After the meeting in Dublin, Cecilia was sure that Manon had not been the Domino, but she was sworn to secrecy about the details surrounding the villain through her involvement with the librarians.

  So…in addition to animosity, her trinity was also standing on a foundation built on deceit.

  Lovely.

  Cecilia turned her attention back to the passing hillsides, suddenly sorry she’d mentioned the Domino.

  “I’m an inspector for the water reclamation department.” Dimitri’s comment seemed to come out of the blue, drawing their attention to him. “That’s what I do for the government.”

  It wasn’t a lot, but it felt like he was finally opening the door—just a crack—to let them in.

  She smiled at him as she said, “Sounds bo
ring.”

  He chuckled and the car fell silent, each of them lost in their private thoughts.

  It took them nearly six hours to get to the Lake District from London. Mateo drove, since, of the three of them, he had the most experience with driving on the left-hand side of the road. The plan had been to take the M1 as far north as Standford Hill, then cut across on the M6 and head north through Liverpool, following the western coast. An accident near Birmingham had traffic backed up, so they took the slightly longer route, staying on the M1 and heading straight through the midlands, passing Leeds, curving west through the Dales.

  Her family’s property included a beautiful country house on the banks of Ullswater Lake. Once they crossed into Lake District National Park, their speed slowed considerably in concession to the narrow, twisting roads and the tourists clogging the roadways—hikers with walking sticks, families laden down with beach chairs, and other motorists driving slowly so they could enjoy the views.

  It was impossible not to notice the natural beauty, and every time life got too stressful, she recalled this place and longed to give it all up and live a simple life here. The Lake District was a soft, rolling landscape of hills and long, narrow lakes. Some of the hillsides were covered by thick forest, others were rocky, the terrain unmarred except for well-worn walking trails.

  Ullswater House was perched on the hillside, and the two-story country home was a bright, cheery white against the deep green around it. A sloped, manicured drive spread out in front of it, giving way to wild brush and small trees fifty feet from the edge of the terrace. There was another twenty feet between the edge of the lawn and the shore of the lake. There was a short dock with two kayaks dry-docked in a covered shed near the water.

  They glimpsed all that as they drove along the small, winding lane that paralleled the long edge of the lake.