by Lila Dubois
Tristan pressed two fingers against the fleet admiral’s neck, up under his jawbone. He waited, hoping, hoping. When he didn’t find a pulse, he moved his fingers to a different spot. Maybe blood loss meant his pulse would be hard to find.
There was nothing.
He wasn’t breathing.
“Ma’am, I’m so sorry. He’s gone,” Tristan confirmed.
“The dart must have had poison in it.” Sophia’s voice was low. It probably didn’t matter. Greta was lost in grief.
Tristan tried to ease her away from Kacper’s body, but she shoved at him, snarling, “Nein!”
Tristan held up both hands and pushed to his feet. Sophia grabbed him by the elbow and started hauling him away. Her fingers were digging into him and she looked frantic.
“What’s wrong? Where’s my sword?”
“Blood. You have his blood on your hands. He was poisoned. Poison. Move!”
It took him a second to realize what she was saying. “Fuck,” he hissed, and picked up his pace.
Sophia dragged him into the kitchen, slammed on the water, and shoved him toward the sink. He thrust his bloodied hand under the water. She started opening and closing drawers frantically until she found a tea towel. She thrust it under the water, then ran back to Greta.
James had followed them to the kitchen. He flicked on the kitchen lights and set Tristan’s sword carefully on the counter.
They stared at one another. If not for the cold water running over his hands, Tristan might have thought this was all some sort of nightmare.
“The fleet admiral, the emperor, is dead.” James’s words weren’t exactly a question or a statement. They were something in between.
“The fleet admiral is dead.” Tristan made sure it was a statement.
He grabbed some soap and scrubbed his hand free of the blood then turned the water off. He looked toward the couch. The sound of Greta’s sobs made Tristan wince.
He looked back at James, and then remembered the other shocking thing that had just happened.
“So, we’re married, eh?” James said.
They glanced awkwardly at one another, then away.
“Apparently.”
“And the fleet admiral is dead.”
“Yes.”
“And we were right about the Domino.”
“But we weren’t able to stop him from killing the fleet admiral.”
“What do we do now?” James asked.
Sophia reappeared, holding the bloody towel carefully. She tossed it into the garbage, then washed her hands.
“I can’t get her to stop touching him.” There were tears on her cheeks. “He was her husband.”
The last word fell like a weight, the silence after it deafening.
Footsteps thumped against the stone steps, and they turned as one toward the mouth of the stairs. Tristan moved to where his sword lay, right hand wrapped around the handle.
A Spartan guard appeared. “Come with me.”
Tristan tensed. “Where?”
“We can’t leave her here with his dead body.” Sophia’s voice was thick with outrage.
The guard winced. “I will stay with the mistress.”
“Where do you want us to go?” Tristan asked.
“To the first floor. We caught him.”
“The Domino?” James asked.
“Yes. Mateo wants you to look on his face.” The guard had a heavy Eastern European accent that came out the more he spoke, as if he could hide it for a few words but not more than that.
Tristan picked up his sword. “I’ll go first.”
Sophia marched up to the guard. “Give me your gun.”
He rocked back on his heels in surprise, then frowned at her and shook his head. “No, ma’am.”
“Not the big one. Your other gun. I know how to use a firearm.”
The guard’s eyes slid to Tristan’s sword. He braced his foot on the edge of the counter and pulled up his pant leg, revealing an ankle holster. He pulled the small gun and handed it to her.
Sophia checked the safety and the small clip with precise movements, then nodded. “Grazie.”
James crossed his arms. “Why don’t I get a gun?”
“You don’t know how to handle it.” Tristan headed for the stairs.
“How do you know?” James demanded.
“Because you’re English, so you didn’t grow up with them. The Kiwis don’t like them, and you’ve never served in the military,” Tristan summarized as he started down the stairs.
James followed him, Sophia and her gun in the rear.
“You two have weapons.”
“You are a weapon,” Sophia pointed out.
“I have a bad leg.”
“And enough muscles that you could probably pick a man up and break him over your bad knee.” Tristan didn’t bother to hide his smile, and it was present in his voice.
“You two are hilarious.” James probably meant the words to be dry, but they came out tinged with humor.
After the horror of the past twenty minutes, he—they—needed a moment of levity.
Tristan led them across the balcony overlooking the great hall, into the main part of the second floor, and finally to the steps leading down to the first floor.
They were silent once they hit the first-floor staircase, by mutual, unspoken agreement. Tristan heard voices and stopped, trying to make sure they wouldn’t interrupt a critical moment.
“…you socialist scum will never know the power we hold. Your time has come to an end. You will burn as the witches did.”
“Enough,” Mateo snapped.
Tristan motioned them to follow and took the final few steps down.
The foyer was just as lovely as it had been when they’d come in—had that been only an hour or two ago it felt like barely thirty minutes had passed though she knew it had been longer?—but instead of seeming spacious, it felt cramped.
Fifteen black-clad Spartan Guardsmen stood in the hall. Five of them made a circle around a kneeling figure and Mateo. The remaining nine were spaced along the walls.
Tristan stepped up between two of the guards, looking down at the man, the Domino.
He had dark skin and dark hair, which Tristan had expected, based on his Middle-Eastern accent. Tristan knew better than to expect a villain to look like a villain, yet he was oddly disappointed by the man’s plain appearance. He wore khaki slacks and a polo shirt. He looked like any other tourist come to the Isle of Man to take in the history and scenery.
Sophia joined him, nudging a guard to take a step to the side so she could stand beside Tristan. James loomed behind them, tall enough to see over Sophia’s head.
There was a black ski mask on the ground beside the Domino, who knelt with his hands cuffed behind his back, the muzzle of Mateo’s gun pressed to his skull just behind his ear.
He raised his head, looking first at Tristan and then at Sophia. His eyes glittered with madness, or maybe it was religious fervor. “Ah, the woman. You were meant to die, too.”
Chapter Twelve
Sophia tried, and failed, not to react to the words. She’d already acted like a silly damsel in distress when the fleet admiral was first shot. She’d hidden behind Tristan like a coward.
She would not let this murderer’s word affect her.
She shrugged lightly, looking down her nose at him. “I am not dead.”
“You will be, Princess.”
Her breath caught for a moment at that. He recognized her. Knew her.
“Is he a member?” she asked Mateo.
“No, ma’am.”
“Are you certain?”
“Scared you, didn’t I? I know all about you. All of you.” The Domino’s crazed gaze transferred to Tristan. “You, the knight who shouldn’t be. You’re only a knight out of pity. You’re not worthy.”
Sophia reached out to take Tristan’s hand, wanting to reassure him. He didn’t return the gesture, and she dropped her fingers back to rest against her leg.
>
The Domino’s gaze flicked to James. “You’re the shame of your family. A savage pretending to be a man.”
“An insult based on my ethnicity, how original,” James drawled.
The Domino blinked in surprise. Whatever cruel spell he’d been weaving with his words disappeared under James’s utter lack of concern.
Tristan snorted out a laugh. Sophia forced herself to laugh lightly and shake her head, her hair falling around her shoulders. It was a lighthearted gesture, and she hoped it would make him think she was utterly unconcerned about him.
“What is his name?” Sophia asked Mateo.
“I am the one you call Domino. I am the one who—”
Mateo cut him off. “We’re running facial recognition now.”
Again, the Domino looked peeved.
Sophia noticed that his gaze kept returning to her. She carefully didn’t look at him. “Did you tell him that he failed?”
Mateo raised one brow in question. Then his gaze hardened and he gave her a slight nod, before saying, “No, ma’am.”
“He is dying if he is not already dead.”
“Didn’t you tell him that our leader was wearing body armor?” Sophia asked.
“Lies. Lies!” The Domino was practically frothing at the mouth.
“No, I was enjoying his rant about how we are going to burn at the stake like witches. Or something.”
“He will die. He’s been dying for a year.” Now the Domino’s voice was full of menace, and spit flicked from his lips as he spoke. “The poison eating away at his body. If even a drop of the toxin touched his skin, there will be no saving him. No way to stop the reaction of the poison already in him.”
Sophia couldn’t stop herself from reacting to that. She sucked in air.
The Domino threw his head back, careless of the gun pressed into his skull, and laughed like the madman he was.
Mateo pointed at two men with his free hand. They started up the stairs.
“How were you poisoning him?” Mateo snapped.
The Domino only grinned, and kept on grinning when Mateo slammed the butt of his gun against the Domino’s shoulder.
“I will break your collarbone if I have to. And then I’ll break every other bone in your body.”
“I will never tell you.”
“Do you all drink the same water?” Sophia asked. “You all might be in danger.”
The Domino grinned, but there was no sparkle of happy malice in his eyes.
“Food?” she asked again, watching the Domino out of the corner of her eye. No reaction.
“Is he taking anything for his arthritis?” James asked.
The Domino’s smile wavered for a moment, and then he chortled, “You’ll never find the poison. You are socialist fools who will not be allowed to—”
“It’s the medicine,” Sophia said.
Two more guards ran up the stairs.
“It’s too late!” the Domino snarled. “Too late!”
Mateo reached down and hauled him up by one arm. “You will tell me everything I want to know, in time.”
“He will die. He will die!”
He’s already dead, and the repercussions will last a lifetime.
Mateo started hauling the Domino toward the doors into the great hall, when he suddenly threw his head back, his teeth clenched.
A second later he started gagging and drooling.
Mateo snarled, “Cyanide capsule!”
Three guards rushed forward.
Sophia swallowed hard. Reminded herself that she was a member of Italy’s military. That she was an officer of the law.
And she dealt with art crimes, not blood and death. She wasn’t ready to watch another person die, even if it was their enemy.
“Tristan, James,” she whispered. “I think I’m going to faint. Don’t let me faint.”
James wrapped one huge arm around her waist as Tristan sheathed his sword. James started hauling her toward the front door.
“In here,” Tristan said. “There’s a waiting area.” They ducked into a small alcove off the foyer, and Tristan opened the narrow door there. It was so small that James had to turn sideways and duck to get in.
They found themselves in a small, comfortable room that looked almost like the waiting room in a very expensive doctor’s office. There were narrow couches on facing walls, a coffee table with artfully displayed books about the history of the Isle of Man, and a small table bearing a kettle, selection of tea bags, and a single-serve coffee maker.
She stared at the single-serve coffee maker. Why would anyone do that to coffee?
“Sophia?”
Who would want to drink terrible coffee from a plastic machine? She’d tried it once. It had tasted like stagnant, lukewarm water.
“Sophia.”
Her right hand was enveloped by James’s and he rubbed the back of her hand briskly with two fingers. The unexpected motion startled her out of her fixation on the coffee machine.
“Sophia?”
“Yes, yes, yes. Thank you. I’m…I’m better now.”
Tristan headed for the coffee machine. “I’ll make you some coffee.”
“No!” she practically shouted. “Tea, please.”
He nodded and kept going.
“Are you okay?” James asked. He was sitting beside her on one of the couches, his big body beside her both crowding and protecting.
“Yes. I am… I am not used to seeing death.” She shook her head. “I am a Carabinieri, I should have…”
“Aren’t you an art cop?” James asked.
She deflated a little. “Yes.”
“Then you shouldn’t be used to seeing death.”
“You are a curator of coins. You did not faint.”
“First of all, neither did you. Second of all, I played pro rugby. The inside of a scrum is like the bowels of hell, and I saw plenty of blood.”
Tristan returned with a white ceramic cup of tea. “I’m sorry. All they have is bagged.”
“Philistines,” James said with a smile.
Instead of lightening her mood, the comments only made her more anxious. “Tea. You drink tea. I drink coffee.”
Tristan and James exchanged a look.
“We’re married. I don’t know how to make tea without a tea bag. You—you were willing to give me instant coffee.”
Tristan took a seat on the coffee table, facing her and James. “Yes. We’re married.”
“Is it just me or did anyone else really not see that coming?” James mused.
Sophia started to laugh. Then she could not stop laughing. She leaned into James, the cup of tea vibrating in her hand. Tristan took it from her, removed the tea bag, and started drinking.
When Sophia finally calmed, she started to sit up, but James wrapped an arm firmly around her, keeping her in place.
Sophia’s blood heated, remembering the look she’d shared with James the night before. What she’d thought was just flirtation for the sake of flirtation would turn into something more. She guessed James would be a thorough, inventive lover. Tristan, in all his stalwart nobility, could be either precise and slow, or maybe he would loosen the reins of control in the privacy of the bedroom.
Her nipples pebbled inside her bra, and she remembered reading somewhere that death could be an aphrodisiac. After seeing death, the natural human need was to be reminded you were alive.
“We’re married,” she said again.
Tristan looked at them and raised a brow. “We have to tell our admirals. Do you think we should tell them before or after we tell them we were in the room when the fleet admiral was murdered?”
Sophia sat up. “Cazzo.”
“Bloody fucking hell,” James muttered.
Tristan sipped tea.
Chapter Thirteen
They had been on the Isle of Man for less than eight hours, and yet everything had changed. How could it be that he would leave the island a different person than he’d been when he arrived?
Sophia
fastened her seat belt and pulled a blanket up over her shoulders. It wasn’t particularly cold on the plane. “When was the last time a fleet admiral was murdered?”
James closed the sunshade on his window. He was hoping to sleep on the flight back to Rome. The nearly sleepless night was catching up with him. Combined with the post-adrenaline fatigue, he was exhausted to the point of starting to feel sick.
Tristan walked down the aisle from the cockpit, his mouth set in a grim line. “We can’t change the flight to land in London.”
There was a beat of silence before Sophia asked, her voice silky, “Were we going to?”
“I should be in England,” Tristan said, as if it were obvious.
He wished he could close his eyes and ignore Sophia and Tristan, but that was no longer an option. They were his triad. The fact that Tristan was probably about to say and do something asinine was, in fact, his problem.
Sophia stared at Tristan.
“I am a knight of England.” His voice was solemn.
Abort, mate. Abort!
“And I should be in Rome.” Sophia’s voice was silky smooth.
Tristan’s jaw firmed. “I’m a knight. You will have to—”
“Of course you couldn’t change the flight,” James practically shouted. He had a terrible feeling Tristan had been about to say that Sophia would have to move to England.
Apparently, his new husband was a bloody moron.
The flight attendant came to check their seat belts and take their dinner orders. James ended up ordering for everyone, since both Tristan and Sophia said they weren’t hungry.
Lack of food never put anyone in a good mood.
They sat in awkward silence as the plane taxied and took off. Dinner was a quiet affair as a result. James wasn’t particularly worried about that. After what they’d all just been through, he figured they needed time to process, to come to grips with it—not only the fleet admiral’s death, but the fact they were now married.
Sophia yawned. “I might take a little nap,” she said, nestling under her blanket once more. Her eyes closed and James took a moment to study her face, to appreciate the fact that this beautiful, powerful, strong woman was his wife.
Glancing toward Tristan, James noticed his new husband was also taking advantage of the opportunity, his eyes softer now as he watched her sleep.
