Fiery Surrender

by Mari Carr

  “X-rays?” Langston asked. He wished he’d brought his brother’s prototype backpack X-ray machine, even though that was calibrated for humans.

  “Here.” Luca turned and flipped on a light box, illuminating a low-grade X-ray.

  Langston stepped closer, examining it. “Minimal exposure?” he asked.

  “Yes.” Luca’s accent was thick with irritation.

  “You haven’t opened it.”

  “They wouldn’t let me.” He shot a look at Milo. “I do not enjoy having an armed bomb in my lab.”

  Langston frowned at Milo. “You should have let him disarm it.”

  “We wanted you to see it.”

  “Gimme the robot,” Langston said.

  “No, it is my robot.” Luca looked affronted.

  “Mr. Campisi,” Milo snapped.

  Langston was feeling that familiar mix of excitement and twitchy fear that came from having an armed explosive so close by. He was fairly certain from the X-ray that the explosive inside the box was C4, which was what Petro had used in Guam, but the ignition device there had been a timer. The X-ray only showed a series of wires and rectangles that were probably computer chips or the guts of a phone.

  “Also, do you have a signal dampener active?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’d like to see it, too,” Langston said.

  “I must object—” Luca started.

  Langston was done arguing. He walked over to the workshop area and crouched by the robot he’d noticed when they’d first walked in. Unlike the bomb-disposal robots used by police departments—he’d built a few and rehabbed a few others—this unit was small, without the all-terrain capability that allowed robots to go up stairs and over thresholds.

  “You build this yourself?” he asked as he picked it up and put it on the workbench.

  “No. Please be careful with that, it—”

  Langston flipped the robot onto its side and examined the underside of one of the mechanized arms.

  Luca turned to Milo and started speaking in rapid-fire Italian.

  Langston grabbed his laptop and one of the cables and plugged into the robot. He wasn’t a computer expert like Oscar, but he knew enough about coding. Luca made pained noises as he remapped some of the commands and then set the robot on the ground. Holding his laptop, he clicked a few keys. The robot rolled forward.

  Milo and a distressed-looking Luca shifted the blast shields out of the way so the robot could approach the box.

  “Is this safe?” Mina called out from the control booth.

  “Not even a little bit,” Langston called back cheerfully.

  “Langston,” Rich said, evoking a warning that was hard to miss.

  Langston shot Mina an apologetic grin over his shoulder. “Just kidding,” he lied when he noticed her suddenly wan complexion.

  Milo was starting to look a little pale as well. “Do not die, please. My admiral will not be pleased.”

  “Now the military is involved?” Luca asked, clearly confused.

  Milo winced, and Langston glanced at Luca, realizing that the other man probably knew nothing about the Masters’ Admiralty. He was a civilian. Out of the corner of his eye, Langston saw Rich looking at Luca, too.

  Langston tucked himself behind a room divider of bulletproof glass. That put two blast shields and the bulletproof glass between him and the package, but if there was enough C4 in there, it wouldn’t matter. He glanced over his shoulder, making sure Mina and Rich were safe.

  Shit. They were a distraction he couldn’t afford. He wasn’t used to having his attention divided between the job and the people surrounding him.

  While Rich and Mina were essentially strangers, the more time they were together, the more he considered the future he’d signed on for when he joined the Trinity Masters, the more they began to feel like his. His to protect.

  It was insanity, but he couldn’t ignore the sudden clench in his gut that said…this was dangerous.

  He shut down all emotion and channeled his brother, Oscar.

  Do the job. Do the job.

  Taking a deep breath, he focused solely on the task at hand.

  He alternated between watching the robot’s camera feed on his laptop and looking at the robot through the clear barriers. With a few clicks, he extended a scalpel from one of the articulated arms. The robot was jerky, and he growled in frustration that he didn’t have his own equipment. It took several tries, but he was able to slice through the tape that held the box closed.

  Retracting the scalpel, he used the end of one arm to flip a flap open, then adjusted the robot’s “head,” which had the camera, to peer down into the box.

  “Oscar, listen up,” he called out.

  “Who is he talking to?” Milo asked, though the other man’s voice was muffled, as he’d also gone into the control booth.

  “My tablet. That’s the record command.” Langston adjusted the angle of the camera. “Oscar, listen up,” he called out again. “Two blocks of C4 or PE4. Blasting caps are inserted. Detonation device looks like a modified cell phone or pager.”

  He carefully maneuvered the other part of the box open and used the robot to inspect as much of the bomb as he could, calling out notes and trusting that his tablet, still across the room on the desk, would pick up what he was saying.

  Behind him, everyone was silent while he worked.

  “I’m cutting the wires,” he said in warning.

  “Langston, you’re too close,” Rich called out.

  “Back up!” Mina demanded.

  “It’s fine. Plastic explosives are inert. Cutting the wires shouldn’t trigger the blasting caps.”

  “What do you mean ‘shouldn’t’?” Rich demanded. “Get back here.”

  “Didn’t know you cared, big guy.” Langston looked over his shoulder, smiled, then turned back to his computer.

  He extended the wire cutters, his heart beating so hard that he could hear the rush of blood in his ears. Did he know what he was doing?

  Yes.

  Was it possible he was about to be blown up?

  Also yes.

  The thick blades hovered on either side of a simple black wire. He held his breath and hit the enter key.

  Snip.

  The wire parted, and Langston let out a happy sigh. Another snip and the other blasting cap circuit was disrupted. Even if the jammer wasn’t active, the bomb now couldn’t go off, even if the starter/ignition was called.

  He rose and stretched. He’d been sitting on the floor for nearly an hour.

  After rolling his neck to loosen it, he slid between the blast screens and picked up the box with one hand, giving the robot a pat. “That’ll do, you bastard.”

  “Don’t pick up the bomb!” Mina yelped.

  “It’s fine.” He brought the box over to a table. Luca came out and ran over to join him, peering down into the box. Langston took out one of the blocks of explosives, pulled the blasting cap out, and passed it to Luca. “You can play with that one.”

  Luca started to mutter in Italian. Langston took the second block out, pulled the blasting cap free, and examined it. There was no way to tell just by looking if it was C4 or PE4. That would take a brave chemist.

  “Milo, do you have someone who can test the chemical composition of this?”

  Milo joined him and Luca, and after a moment, Mina and Rich did, too. The color had returned to Mina’s cheeks, and he took a second to acknowledge how truly beautiful she was.

  Then he realized his admiration of her wasn’t based merely on looks or anything as superficial as what she’d accused him of on the plane. She was intelligent, brave and…well, fucking awesome.

  His spouses—God, he needed to stop thinking of them as that if he still intended to talk to Juliette—listened as he and Milo discussed whether it was worth it to determine which kind of plastic explosive this was, before Langston turned back to the electronics in the box.

  He removed the circuitry and spread it out. Electronics w
ere logic puzzles. One thing always affected something else, and if he could follow the clues, he could unlock the mystery.

  “The bomb on Guam had a remote detonation timer that used a radio signal,” he said aloud. “Petro activated it once he was away from the house. That started a two-minute timer. This one would have used a phone call to activate it. Here’s the antenna.” He pointed. “It means that it could have been detonated from anywhere in the world. The person just had to know what number to call. This is much more sophisticated than what we had in Guam, but also not guaranteed to work.”

  “What do you mean?” Rich asked.

  “There are a lot of things that can interfere with cell phone reception. No reception? Bomb doesn’t go off. With a short-range radio signal, you don’t have that problem.”

  “But you must be closer,” Luca said quietly.

  “True.”

  “Then this isn’t the Bel—” Milo frowned. “Then this isn’t from the serial bomber who’s been targeting our businesses.”

  Rich and Mina glanced at Milo, then at him. Again Langston felt like a part of something bigger than himself. In the past, the only people he’d ever truly felt close to, the ones he would give his life for without a second thought, were his family.

  The way Rich and Mina were looking at him now—for the first time, as if he wasn’t just the asshole who’d destroyed their binding ceremony, but like he was brave, important…God…it sank all the way to his soul. A soul he hadn’t thought lonely until that moment.

  No. He hadn’t gotten it, hadn’t understood what it meant to be a part of a trinity marriage. But, by God, he was starting to figure it out.

  “There aren’t many similarities,” Langston said, swallowing deeply to dislodge the lump in his throat. He was afraid he was suddenly wearing his heart on his sleeve. Time to attend to the task at hand. “At first.”

  Milo stiffened, and Luca looked up, his eyes hard and shrewd behind his glasses. “What do you mean?”

  “The detonation mechanism is different, but the way it’s connected to the blasting cap is exactly the same.”

  “It’s simple,” Luca said.

  “Yes and no. If you pulled both wires, there’s a battery,” he pointed at the small square battery, “that has enough power to detonate at least one of the blasting caps.”

  “So if you had cut the wires wrong…” Mina said tentatively.

  Langston wanted to give her the truth. Always. “Boom.”

  “But before this, before Guam, they used a car bomb. A suicide bomb,” Milo said.

  Mina and Rich both glanced at him, horror stamped on Mina’s face, Rich’s expression hard.

  “This is what you do when you don’t want to blow up the person delivering the package. It’s safer,” Langston said.

  “The car bomber was coerced,” Milo said quietly.

  Luca made a pained noise and looked away, swallowing hard, as if the idea made him feel ill.

  “But on Guam, Petro didn’t want to blow himself up,” Langston said. “And whoever did this didn’t want to risk it going off when they delivered it. They wanted to be far enough away to be safe.”

  “Or to have an alibi,” Mina said.

  Milo looked at her, eyebrows rising.

  “I’m a lawyer,” she said with a shrug.

  “Are you sure the car bomb is connected?” Langston asked.

  “Yes,” Milo said.

  “I didn’t consult on a car bomb,” Luca added in a shaky voice.

  “This was before we hired you,” Milo said. He looked down at the bomb pieces spread across the table. “Petro trained someone before he died.”

  “Who is Petro?” Luca asked.

  “Or Petro was taught by this person,” Langston added. “Bomb-making is a dangerous hobby. Those who aren’t good at it take themselves out early on.”

  “Possible. And this person, they are not a martyr. They are a leader.” Milo closed his eyes, his expression grim, his face drawn. Then he shook his head, and when he looked up, he was smiling, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Thank you, Langston. It is not good news, but it is better to know than to be ignorant.” Milo took his phone from his pocket and started walking toward the door. “Hurry. We need to go. If our enemy is able to mail a bomb and detonate it from anywhere…every one of our people is in danger and needs to be on alert.”

  “Wait.” Langston ran and snatched his computer off the floor. “I need to walk back the programming changes to the robot and—”

  “I’m sorry. There is no time.” Milo was almost to the door. “I need to call my admiral, and I can’t from here.”

  Langston had forgotten there was a signal dampener that would stop him from calling and warning anyone. He cursed and frantically tapped keys on his laptop. Milo’s sudden urgency was understandable, but if he could just have five minutes…

  Mina ran over, grabbing his tablet off the desk, stuffing it into his backpack before rushing over to him.

  “Let’s go.” Rich grabbed Langston’s shoulders and forced him to walk, even as he tapped on the keyboard with one hand. It was clear Mina and Rich were more than anxious to leave, Milo’s anxiety feeding theirs. They wouldn’t feel safe until they were miles away from the explosives. Though these unarmed, inert explosives were far less dangerous than, say, riding in a car. He probably shouldn’t point that out.

  Luca was frantically peppering him with questions that he didn’t have a chance to answer. As they reached the open door, Milo exited out of the robot’s programming command terminal and unplugged the cord, tossing it back inside as Rich hustled him out.

  Once outside, they rushed to the car, which was already on. Milo was inside, speaking in rapid-fire Italian. They all jumped in, Langston shoving his laptop into the backpack.

  “Why are we running?” Mina asked.

  Langston glanced at Milo, and then to the backseat. “Because the Masters’ Admiralty just found out that they have another bad guy running around. And this one is gonna start blowing shit up.”

  Chapter Eight

  None of them spoke after leaving the lab. Milo spent a great deal of time on the phone, speaking to someone—he’d said admiral before, so maybe it was Eric, the man Langston had described as the equivalent of the Grand Master—in Italian. Langston stared out the passenger-side window, but Rich was fairly certain the other man wasn’t enjoying the scenery. He appeared lost in thought.

  After their rocky start, it was difficult for Rich to admit—even to himself—how impressed he’d been by Langston’s abilities, his steady hands, his unshakable focus, his undeniable talent when it came to defusing and analyzing that bomb.

  Rich spent most of his life sitting behind a desk, running his family’s oil company, as well as diversifying the portfolio by acquiring new businesses and green-lighting R&D. Despite Langston’s snide comments, he knew there was no real future in fossil fuels, both practically and ethically, but he hadn’t yet fully replaced the revenue stream from oil with profits in other energies. The margins were still too slim on solar and wind power, and nuclear made him twitchy.

  He’d never, not once, felt the sheer rush of adrenaline that still coursed through his veins even now, nearly an hour since they’d run out of the lab.

  He shifted in the seat. The entire experience had left him both exhausted and restless. He wanted to do…something. Just sitting in the car felt like torture.

  Shifting his attention to his left, he noticed Mina’s feelings seemed to mirror his. She seemed edgy, fidgety, a slight flush on her cheeks.

  He reached over and took her hand in his, giving it a squeeze. The moment he touched her, that unsettled feeling morphed into something else.

  Desire.

  He turned her hand up on her thigh and ran a single finger across her palm. Her fingers curled in reflex and her breath caught.

  She looked at him, her eyes widening. Whatever she’d been feeling a moment ago, now she was aroused.

  He was an idiot. Gettin
g them both hot and bothered was a terrible idea.

  Wasn’t it?

  Under normal circumstances, there would have been no question that once they had some privacy, they’d be having sex. They were, after all, married, their fates sealed, their lives intertwined forever.

  But this union wouldn’t last. Langston felt rushed into the trinity, felt it was some sort of punishment or sign of distrust by the Grand Master.

  Either way, it was clear Langston was determined to see the union put aside, and given his rather unorthodox relationship with the Grand Master and her advisors, as well as his connection to this second secret society, Rich was sure Langston would succeed. Especially if Rich helped by telling him how and when to go about invoking the Bloody Binding objection.

  Which left them all in this state of limbo.

  And Rich fighting some powerful needs.

  His gaze shifted back to Langston, and he recalled the discussion—okay, argument—they’d had on the plane. The man’s knowledge of the society he’d pledged his life to was painfully limited. Rich was actually beginning to agree with Langston’s assertion that rushing him to the altar hadn’t been a wise decision. Franco had done a piss-poor job inducting Langston into the society. Before seeing Langston work today, Rich might have said he was a bad student, but the man wasn’t dumb.

  The Grand Master very well might have made a mistake when she’d thrust him into a trinity so soon after joining. Not that Rich would ever be so bold as to tell Juliette that. He’d been raised in the society, and the result of that upbringing was a deeply ingrained acceptance that the Grand Master always be treated with the utmost respect.

  The leader of the Trinity Masters’ word was law.

  But…

  Rich recalled the sympathy he felt for Langston when it became apparent how woefully unprepared he was when it came to a trinity marriage. Rich would bet every last penny he had that the man had never engaged in threesome sex, never been in a relationship that included more than just him and a girlfriend.