Chapter 4 #2
Nikolett slumped against the arm of the couch. “I don’t know.”
Nyx made an annoyed sound. “Yes, you do.”
Yes. She did.
Nikolett took a breath, at first trying to find a way to explain that sounded humble and reasonable.
“Just say it,” Nyx demanded when the silence stretched on.
“He thinks I’m as smart, capable, and powerful as I pretend to be.”
She felt lighter once she’d spoken, as if this previously unspoken truth were a weight she’d finally dropped.
“He appointed me admiral. The territory was a disaster, everything was falling apart, and Eric looked at me and said, ‘There’s someone who can handle this. Who can fix it.’”
“You weren’t unknown. You were a capable politician.”
“Capable? Yes. But I was ‘unlikeable’ and ‘aggressive.’”
“Because you’re a woman. If you were a man, those qualities wouldn’t have been seen as negative.”
“I know, but I’d been fighting to be seen, to make my opinions heard. And here came this intense, powerful, dangerous man who looked at me and saw the version of me I want to be. Saw what I was capable of, and then let me do it.”
“Being made admiral was validating. That’s understandable.”
“Validating, yes.”
“But…” Nyx drew out the word. “That’s not why you love him. At least I hope that’s not why.”
Nikolett took a sip of wine, sorting through the muddle of her emotions. “He sees me,” she said eventually. “In so many ways, I feel like he knows me better than anyone.”
“I find that hard to believe, given how little you tell him.”
“Not about what’s happening in my life but me.” She pressed a fist to the center of her torso. “When I’m with him, I’m…raw. There’s no artifice or games. He sees me. My messy, ugly truth. And still wants me.” Nikolett looked at her friend. “And I see him the same way.”
Nyx nodded slowly. “It’s both terrifying and freeing to be that vulnerable with someone.”
“And not just anyone. With a, a…” Nikolett winced but then said the words that had popped into her head. “With a worthy adversary.”
Instead of laughing or scoffing, Nyx pointed at her with the wineglass. “Exactly. You are a powerful personality. So is he.”
Nikolett sat up, excited that Nyx understood. “Yes! It’s almost addicting to have someone like him see me as equally powerful. Without that, I don’t think I would be as…bold…as I am.”
“I think you would be, but maybe not this fast. Where would Superman be without Lex Luthor?”
“Which one of us is the evil genius in this analogy?”
Nyx just stared at her.
“Right. It’s me.” Nikolett pondered that. “I’m honestly not mad about that. Luthor had some good points.”
“You have to stop saying stuff like that if you want to be Superman.”
They both snickered for a moment.
“You love Eric because he treats you like you’re powerful and dangerous. Both of which you are, but before him, people, especially men, were dismissive of you because you’re pretty and blonde.”
“Also opinionated and disrespectful.” Those were both terms that had been used to describe and discredit her.
“All this explains why you, the admiral of Hungary, are the one who stands up to the fleet admiral. The fleet admiral saw that you could be a worthy opponent—to use your words—and treated you accordingly. That doesn’t really explain why Nikolett has no sense of self-preservation when she’s with Eric. ”
“It sort of explains it. I mean because he makes me feel seen.”
“You and the Ottoman admiral are fighting, but you aren’t currently fucking Hande.”
Nikolett grunted. “I mean…I would. I think we’d have excellent hate sex.”
“True, but don’t change the subject. Is that what you and Eric do? Have hate sex?”
“No.”
Nyx threw several cashews at her in rapid succession. “Give. Me. Details.”
Nikolett picked a cashew out of her hair and ate it. “It’s not hate sex.”
“Sexy battles? Two titans clashing in the bedroom? Or is it quiet, pretending the rest of the world doesn’t exist?”
Nikolett was sick of sitting and got up. Ignoring her crutches, she hopped around the couch until she could perch on the back, head turned so she could stare out the window. Her bad leg was dangling. She couldn’t sit like this for long but it felt good to be up.
Plus, this put her back to Nyx, and that made it easier to speak.
“Neither.” Nikolett hugged herself. “When we’re together, it’s raw, like I said. And I mean truly raw. Yes, Eric is dangerous, we all acknowledge that. We’ve seen it.”
“Like that time he was planning to slowly torture-kill someone downstairs, and once you calmed him down, he instead broke her neck. Demonstrating that in his mind, the alternative to slow, painful death wasn’t not killing the person but killing them fast.”
“Yes. That.”
“Or when he ripped Petro’s head off with his bare hands.”
“Another good example. But how is he most of the time?”
Nyx paused for long enough that Nikolett almost turned around.
“Charming,” Nyx said. “Self-deprecating. He will give orders, but he doesn’t expect everyone in the room to treat him like the fleet admiral, even though he is.”
Nikolett waved a hand through the air. “Members respect the office. Respect his authority, and yes, respect him. But he doesn’t try to assert his authority.”
“He doesn’t need to. He has that air of…” Nyx hummed as she decided on the right words. “He’s someone you’d follow into battle. Even if he weren’t the man in charge, in a crisis you’d turn to him.”
“When we’re together, he lets that part of himself out,” Nikolett said softly. “I think, deep down, he wants to give commands. He wants to be a feudal lord, not leader of a republic. But he suppresses it. He’s actively trying not to become a dictator.”
“And even when he’s not trying, he still commands a huge amount of respect.”
“Imagine if he was trying?” Nikolett looked over her shoulder at Nyx.
Nyx winced, but the expression faded to calculating. “You’re saying that when he’s with you in private, he drops that mask.”
“Yes.”
“Orders you around, takes control during sex?”
Nikolett swallowed. “Yep.”
“That’s…incredibly sexy.”
“Oh yeah.”
“And you’re okay with it?”
“Okay with it?” Nikolett’s foot was starting to hurt. She rolled over the back of the couch, landing on the cushions with an “oof.”
Nyx snickered, but much to Nikolett’s pleasure didn’t rush over to check on her the way anyone but Nyx probably would have.
“I’m more than okay with it.” Nikolett kept her voice low, fairly certain she was blushing. “Giving up control to him is…” Nikolett closed her eyes, remembered pleasure washing down her. “I crave it. I trust him in a way I shouldn’t.”
“Trust him with your body. But do you trust him with your heart?”
Nikolett pressed hand to her mouth, using the pressure to stop the quivering in the muscles at the corners of her mouth. “No,” she whispered. “I can’t trust him with my heart.”
“First, there needs to be a primer that explains your relationship, because you and Eric have too much history.”
“True.”
“Second, this means we know what we’re looking for in your spouses.”
“It…does?”
“Yes. You need a new, worthy opponent.” Nyx grinned. “It’s your turn to be Superman. We need to find you a Lex Luthor.”
The Spaniard read through the letter he’d been working on one more time.
Satisfied that the threat and the blackmail were clear despite the pleasant, flowery language that would make the authorities think the letter writer was female, he printed it out on expensive linen paper made by a company in Denmark, and which he’d bought along with a large box of other stationary at an estate sale in America.
If his target opted to turn the letter over to authorities, they’d waste a good amount of time looking for a woman who’d purchased this paper from that particular shop.
He picked up the stack of glossy photos, printed at a generic photo kiosk, and slid them into a plain envelope. Even if the target opted to turn the letter over, he doubted they’d hand over these pictures—taken from the target’s own secret hard drive—to the authorities.
Slipping the letter in on top of the photos, he sealed the envelope, slipped that into a large cardboard sleeve, and scheduled a courier pickup. The envelope would bounce around Europe from courier company to solicitor to national mail and finally back to a courier who would deliver it.
With that done, he wrote a quick message to his broker in his home country of Spain and closed out that project’s digital file.
Now that the work was done, he could reward himself.
The Spaniard pulled up a folder of still images and videos his people had pulled from various airport security systems.
Nikolett Varda.
Her hair shone gold in the afternoon light in the still image of her walking across the tarmac at a small airport on the Isle of Man. Her head was down, her shoulders hunched over the crutches tucked under her arms. She looked…weary.
The Spaniard frowned. Her people weren’t taking good care of her.
She deserved to have someone take care of her. Someone to make her laugh and smile. Someone to carry her or push a wheelchair rather than making her use the crutches.
The next page in the file was a short text report. Since she’d returned from the Isle of Man, she hadn’t been outside her fortress-like home.
Each time he attacked, they countered with upgraded security. He was perversely satisfied that now, finally, her home really was a fortress.
Not that he couldn’t get in if he wanted to. He could. But it would be drastic and decisive action rather than the teasing tactics he’d been using until now.
He had other photos, ones he’d looked at far too much.
Nikolett in front of glass balcony doors at a resort in Amalfi, a large shadowy figure looming behind her.
Another shot taken only moments later of Nikolett on her knees before the man, his hands tangled in her hair, his upper body and face in shadow.
He went back to the image of her at the airport, and guilt tightened his stomach.
He wasn’t incapable of emotion. Sadly he didn’t have that excuse for his actions.
He was the one who’d caused most of her recent pain—including the broken leg, thanks to a bear trap he’d dropped into her yard back when she still took walks through her garden.
He’d adjusted the strength of the trap, thinking it would cause a wound but not a break. Clearly he’d overestimated the force, or underestimated how delicate she was. Still, it hadn’t severed her leg, which it would have if he hadn’t adjusted it.
Picking up his phone, he looked at his most recent, though weeks old, texts with Nikolett. The last time she texted him, she’d been on the Isle of Man, though of course she hadn’t been the one to tell him that.
Gus Alias +44 Number
Unless you have a fun reason for being there. Or someone fun to do.
I mean something fun to do! How do I edit a text…
N. Varda - Operation B Target 2
You weren’t wrong. Hotels are fun when you have something, or someone, fun.
Gus Alias +44 Number
When your cast comes off, maybe we could be fun, in a hotel, together.
She hadn’t replied, but he wasn’t worried. She would. Right now, he was an escape, a safe haven, in Nikolett’s life. All he had to do was wait for something to push her over the edge, and she’d come to him.