Fiery Surrender

by Mari Carr

  “We’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “Do you think the Grand Master will see it that way? We aren’t making a good-faith effort to make this marriage work.”

  “I’m not going to let him anywhere near you, darlin’,” Rich said again.

  “We need to follow the letter if not the spirit of the law,” Mina declared. “We should go to the hotel suite, since that’s where new trinities are supposed to spend their honeymoon.”

  “Did they finish repairing it after the explosion and fire?”

  “They did. We go there, we wait until the end of the mandated week together.” Binding ceremony, week in Boston in the suite at the Boston Park Plaza hotel, then three more weeks to get to know one another, usually involving travel to one another’s homes, before returning for the marriage.”

  “And if he’s there?” Rich asked.

  Mina didn’t have an answer to that. She didn’t want to see Langston again. “I don’t think he’ll show up there. He didn’t want us.” That hurt to say. “Whoever Langston is, he’s made it clear he doesn’t know much about, or respect, the Trinity Masters.”

  “We’re not going to the hotel, Mina. He attacked me. It’s reasonable I don’t want be near him, right?”

  “Yes,” she said, considering. “It meets the Reasonable Man standard.”

  “You think I’m reasonable?” Rich grinned.

  Mina cleared her throat. “The Reasonable and Prudent Man standard is a legal theory that assesses liability for negligence under the standard of whether the behavior is reasonable and prudent when assessing potential harm.”

  “A reasonable and prudent man, which I am, wouldn’t go share a hotel suite with a man who took a swing at him.”

  She nodded. “Yes, but again, Trinity Masters laws and rules aren’t the same…”

  “It’s a risk I’m willing to take to keep you away from him.”

  “He didn’t try to punch me.”

  “Well, then you should want to stay here to protect me from him.” Rich crossed his arms, looking anything but in need of protection.

  Mina’s lips twitched. “Want me to protect you, big guy?”

  “We’re staying here.”

  He was bossy. Mmmm. She was staying here, with Rich…

  Mina examined his handsome face, letting her gaze drift down over his shoulders and arms. Her body started to heat again. “If we’re thinking this marriage isn’t going to last, we shouldn’t have sex.”

  “Dammit. Don’t say that.”

  “I hate it, too, but it’s true. Having sex without our third would be irresponsible enough, and given that we’re operating under the assumption that the union will be dissolved…”

  “Alright, counselor.” Rich took a sip. “Shit.”

  Mina finished her whiskey in one gulp. “Yep.”

  Chapter Three

  “I want to thank all of you for coming today.” Juliette, at the head of the small conference table in her subterranean office, gestured to Carly Kenan, Alexis Jenner, and Rose Hancock to take their seats. Sebastian and Franco were already at the table, one on either side of her. Sebastian was her friend and counselor, Franco one of her husbands and also her counselor. Devon, Juliette’s other spouse, was at work. As much as he would have preferred to be here with her, the Trinity Masters needed him to keep his position within the CIA, which meant he was in Langley more than he was here.

  She noticed the women she’d summoned subtly eyeing each other, clearly curious what was so important that the Grand Master had brought each of them to Boston.

  While Alexis, a pediatric oncologist at Boston General and Juliette’s sister-in-law, lived locally, Carly and Rose had flown in from the West Coast at the Grand Master’s request.

  Juliette was certain that while the women might not know each other personally, they knew of each other through reputation and past attendance at society gatherings. Well, maybe not Rose, as she hadn’t exactly been a model member until very recently.

  “I realize it took some effort for you to meet with me, and I do appreciate it. And, by the way, congratulations, Carly. When is the baby due?”

  Carly rubbed her swollen belly. “Not for another three months. I’m not sure I’ll survive until then. Lance and Preston have lost their minds. First-time fathers are the worst. If they aren’t hovering and stressing out over every little change in my body, they’re running out to buy more stuff for the nursery. I think I officially own everything Buy Buy Baby sells.”

  Juliette laughed, then dismissed the tiny jealous pang inside that reminded her she wanted a child of her own. She purposely did not look in Franco’s direction for fear her astute husband would see something she didn’t want him to see.

  “Harrison and Michael were the same when I had our first. Just a warning,” Alexis added, “they don’t get any better when the second comes along.”

  “Good to know. Looks like I’m having an only child,” Carly joked.

  Rose, as always, got straight to the point. “Childbirth is horrifying. Juliette, why are we here?”

  Juliette hoped her eye wasn’t twitching. Carly gave Rose a sideways glance. Obviously, Carly was unaware of Juliette and Rose’s long, tumultuous relationship. She’d probably be shocked to realize the two of them had once gotten into a hell of a cat fight on a private plane. Juliette had lost a fairly large hunk of hair, but she’d given as good as she’d gotten. Chances were good Rose had a few thin scars, remnants of Juliette’s scratches.

  Most of her life, Juliette had been betrothed to Rose. She and the dark-haired woman were, along with Devon, meant to be in a trinity together. When she’d unexpectedly become Grand Master, Juliette had changed that, keeping Devon, but marrying Franco instead of Rose. That had started a chain reaction, which led to uncovering a scandal that nearly destroyed the very organization she was tasked with both leading and protecting.

  Her relationship with Rose had run the gamut from jealousy—at least on her part, when they were younger—to enemies after the broken betrothal, to what Juliette could only describe now as something equivalent to sisters who fought all the time. They had each other’s backs when it came to the rest of the world, but God help them if the disagreement was ever between themselves. In a dangerous emergency, Rose would be one of her first calls. In an emotional emergency, Rose would be way down that list.

  “The epitome of social niceties, as always,” Juliette said to Rose, smiling wide enough to show all her teeth.

  “But of course, Grand Master.” Rose waved her hand in a courtly manner.

  Sebastian pinched the bridge of his nose.

  It was time to get to the matter at hand. Juliette looked around the small conference table. “I’ve called you here because I need your help with recruiting.”

  “You want…me…to help recruit?” Rose looked at her, then glanced at Sebastian and Franco, as if checking to see if they thought Juliette had lost her mind.

  Juliette was an Adams, dammit, and she would not be distracted from her goal. She cleared her throat and raised her chin. “We have some potential new members. Well, two potential and one new member. The Hayden triplets—Oscar, Walt, and Langston—from Charleston, have been invited to join, but we’re having trouble…” Juliette paused, searching for the right words. Finally, she settled on, “Sealing the deal.”

  “They aren’t interested in joining?” Carly looked genuinely surprised by that.

  Alexis, on the other hand, merely smirked. Juliette’s sister-in-law had turned down her invitation to join the Trinity Masters for years, only accepting her membership when true love won out.

  Of course, Alexis’s last-minute membership and subsequent marriage to Juliette’s brother, Harrison, along with a bunch of other drama, had resulted in him having to step down from his role as Grand Master.

  Hence the reason Juliette was now the leader of their secret society. Juliette didn’t hold that fact against her sister-in-law. Not much, anyway.

  “One of the Hayden
brothers, Oscar, has turned down my invitation multiple times. He’s actually the reason I invited you here, Carly. He’s a computer person. From what I understand, he’s developed ground-breaking programming technology that could revolutionize battlefield medicine. This is state-of-the-art, change-the-world tech. On top of that, he’s also developed a very impressive data mining program.”

  Carly’s eyebrows rose. “Is he doing the programming or the physical tech development? And data mining? Really? Why haven’t I heard of him?”

  Juliette’s lips quirked. She’d known exactly which part of Oscar’s skills the expert game creator and successful businesswoman would be interested in. “Oscar maintains his anonymity.”

  “So what you’re saying is, he’s a hacker?” Carly asked.

  Juliette knew Carly was fairly adept at sneaking into virtual places herself. So she let her silence answer that question.

  Carly laughed softly. “I like him already.”

  “Why is it so important you recruit him? I know it’s unusual for someone to turn down an invitation to join, but it’s not unheard of.” Rose glanced in Alexis’s direction, and Juliette’s sister-in-law grinned.

  Juliette should have known Rose would question this meeting, would want to know why Juliette was so interested in acquiring the Hayden triplets. Franco had urged her to come clean with the women seated in front of her, but that was typical of her husband.

  Subterfuge was not his strong point.

  Devon, whose life was subterfuge, had argued the other side of the coin, insisting she could simply request, even demand their help without giving them a lot of background information.

  The truth was, given the Masters’ Admiralty’s interest in the Hayden brothers, Juliette was quite determined to see them all join the Trinity Masters. All three of the men were already rising to the tops of their respective fields, and they would be genuine assets to the society. They possessed the brilliance, creativity, and drive that the Trinity Masters sought. Their names had been on the recruitment list for years, but Juliette had lost the first two years of her role as Grand Master seeking out evil within the society, focusing solely on weeding out the purists.

  As such, recruitment had fallen to the wayside. Something she, Franco, and Sebastian had been trying to make up for of late. She was trying to find and bring in lost legacies, develop a Boston-based, on-call security force with Harrison’s reluctant help, get Franco the manpower he needed to finish cataloging, and then return things the purists had stolen…

  Juliette yanked her thoughts away from her never-ending to-do list and back to the issue at hand. If she was being perfectly honest with herself, she refused to lose the Hayden triplets to Eric Ericsson, the fleet admiral. She’d already lost Sylvia to the Masters’ Admiralty, something that should never have happened.

  Juliette kept her answer vague. “The work he’s doing is extremely valuable and could save countless lives. The Trinity Masters have the resources to ensure that his technology gets into the right hands, and quickly.”

  “It sounds like amazing work,” Alexis said. “You mentioned battlefield medicine. Do you want me to talk to him about the medicine part?”

  Juliette shook her head. “I have something else I need your help with. But first let me finish with Oscar.” She turned her attention back to Carly. “I was hoping you could tell him about your experiences with the Trinity Masters, the way being a member has helped advance your ideas and afforded you opportunities. How you, Preston, and Lance created TideForm.”

  TideForm had taken the tech infrastructure of Carly’s gaming company and combined it with her husband Preston’s chemistry knowledge and Lance’s military contacts to develop small satellite-connected bots, which were dropped off U.S. military ships. Once dropped, the bots sank slowly, testing seawater at various depths along the way and reporting the findings back to the company via satellite. The data they collected was turning into one of the most important resources for oceanographers and planetary scientists.

  “I think if he hears your story, and can see how that might translate into him being able to bring his skills and knowledge to bear on a vastly wider array of areas and platforms…”

  Carly smiled. “I’d be happy to help. I love to talk shop, and I’m extremely interested in learning more about his data mining program.”

  “Thank you. I’ll forward you his contact information.” Juliette then turned her attention to Alexis. “Dr. Walt Hayden is the other brother who has yet to join. He’s less reticent than Oscar. In truth, I believe the reason he hasn’t joined has to do with his work. He’s currently overseas with Doctors Without Borders.”

  “Oh!” Alexis brightened, just as Juliette knew she would. Her sister-in-law was top in her field, treating children with cancer, saving countless young lives. Alexis, like Walt, sought to save others, dedicating her life to it.

  “He’s already doing some of what we would encourage—working with others outside his field to innovate. The battlefield tech that I mentioned Oscar had developed? That was a joint effort with Walt. They created a backpack-size portable X-ray machine and are developing a new, more advanced hemostatic dressing.”

  “Really? You know, that’s not just battlefield tech. That should be in every paramedic’s bag.”

  “Walt said roughly the same thing. He also had some strongly worded thoughts on how battlefield ERs are staffed. I believe it’s currently general practitioners from base hospitals, not those in emergency medicine…”

  Alexis was nodding. “I just read a paper about this. The current system is a remnant from the Cold War. Ridiculous that they don’t have the most qualified people on the front lines. They used to do that in ERs—send doctors just out of medical school who didn’t know or care about emergency medicine to the ER—before they realized EM should be its own specific field.”

  “And that is why I want you to talk to him. You, and perhaps Michael, could speak to him together, since Michael is familiar with the bureaucracy of medicine.” Michael was Alexis’s other husband and the chief administrator at Boston General Hospital. “If he joins, we can help put his ideas for changing the personnel structure in front of the right people at the Pentagon.”

  Alexis smiled. “Dr. Hayden sounds incredible. I’d love to meet him, speak with him.”

  “Good. You have a lot in common. The medical backgrounds, the,” Juliette paused, “the hesitance to join.”

  Alexis had the good grace to look sheepish, as Juliette kept her expression cool. She wasn’t quite done making her brother and his spouses feel bad for sticking her with this job.

  After all, what was family for if not to hold a long grudge?

  Alexis sighed, but her lips twitched.

  “This means you’re giving me the brother who already joined?” Rose asked. “Given that these two have already gotten their assignments, I assume he’s mine. What’s his specialty? Evil mastermind, double agent, sexual submissive?”

  Juliette covered her mouth with her hand, not wanting Rose to see her grin. It wouldn’t do to encourage the woman. “Langston is a munitions and explosives expert, and—”

  “Excellent,” Rose interjected. “Always handy to have a bomb expert in your arsenal, pardon the pun.” She narrowed her eyes. “For the record, I primarily set things on fire, not blow them up. Well, a small explosion to start the fire.”

  “Ohhh, you’re the one who destroyed the hotel.” Alexis eyed Rose a little warily.

  “The drapes were ugly. They needed to die by fire.”

  Franco snorted out a laugh, and Sebastian glared at him.

  Juliette ignored the interruption. “He’s been a member for a few months and his binding ceremony was held this week.”

  Rose’s expression turned serious. “You already called him to the altar?” Rose’s reaction mirrored Langston’s. It was obvious she, like Langston, thought that the ceremony had happened too soon.

  Juliette hadn’t expected Langston to respond as he had. In truth, sh
e’d thought him the brother most looking forward to a trinity marriage.

  She’d miscalculated. Badly.

  She also may have miscalculated when she’d put Franco in charge of Langston’s orientation. Clearly Franco hadn’t impressed upon Langston how to behave, or the fact that when she said something, it was an order, not the start of a negotiation. From now on, she was going to put Sebastian in charge of new-member orientation.

  “I placed him in a trinity with two legacies—brilliant people—and I still believe they’ll form a strong triad.”

  “I hear a ‘but,’” Rose said with a slight smirk. Of course she’d picked up on that.

  “He…wasn’t happy at the binding ceremony.”

  Rose didn’t bother to hide her grin. Hell, at this point, it was a full-fledged smile. “Define ‘not happy.’”

  “He…” Juliette didn’t know how to describe the scene.

  Unfortunately, Franco did. “Afraid that may have been my fault. I didn’t really explain the whole marriage process, or how to be appropriately dramatic.”

  “Appropriately dramatic?” Alexis looked back and forth between Juliette and Franco. “But, I mean, surely you explained the rules? The traditions which, yes, can be a little dramatic. The expectations…”

  “I did.” Franco looked both irritated and guilty. “I told him about the arranged marriage, about having to follow the Grand Master’s orders. He agreed with everything I said, had no questions or concerns. Then we had a really good talk about the historical precedent for patronage. I forgot about some of the smaller dramatic bits like the secret boxes upstairs to get dressing room keys.” Franco shook his head, seeming disappointed...in himself, Langston? “I’m sure I covered the we’ll-ruin-your-life-if-you-don’t-obey bit.”

  “Oh, this is going to be good,” Rose said with glee. “So you dramatically summon him here, make him put on a robe, he had no idea what was going on, and…?”

  “Langston freaked out,” Franco admitted. “Kept trying to talk to Juliette throughout the ceremony. Then he threw a punch at the other groom and all hell broke loose.”