Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It was cold and bright. The kind of morning that made it clear even the sun wasn’t enough to stave off the deepest cold.
Eric leaned back against the sand-colored brick of his hotel. The small iron balcony wasn’t deep enough for a chair, but he didn’t want to sit anyway.
The brick scratched and scraped his bare shoulders. He should probably put on a shirt.
There were a lot of things he should do.
Put on a shirt
Take a shower
Eat something
Not be such an asshole that he broke the heart of the woman he loved
Eric scrubbed his face with his hands before raking them back through his hair.
Nearly thirty-six hours since he last saw his Nikki.
Maybe it was more accurate to say thirty-six hours since he saw her for the last time.
When in the deepest part of his grief for what he’d lost, he mentioned seeing her for the last time, and Regina had pragmatically pointed out that he would most likely see her again at meetings and Masters’ Admiralty functions.
But that would be the fleet admiral and admiral of Hungary, not Eric and Nikolett. One thing he vowed to never do again was tangle the personal with the professional.
Too late.
Yesterday, he’d wallowed, sitting on the edge of the bed in the elegant hotel, elbows braced on his knees, head in his hands, for hours. At one point, Regina thrust a phone at him and he talked to Elijah for over an hour.
One of the many things that came out of that phone-therapy conversation was Elijah made it clear Eric should NOT race back to Nikolett’s hotel, kidnap her, take her back to Triskelion, and lock her in the castle dungeon until he could convince her to give him another chance.
Elijah had thrown around terms like “violating boundaries,” “coercion,” and “Stockholm Syndrome.”
He hadn’t realized that he hadn’t really accepted her “no” until Elijah told him not to go back.
He’d staved off the worst of his regret and heartbreak with the secret relief that he could salvage this.
Flowers—that he hadn’t actually brought—and a dinner invite hadn’t worked, and he’d secretly been blaming her rejection on the way he’d asked. Flowers and dinner weren’t Nikolett.
Not that she didn’t deserve flowers and fancy dinners. She did. But he knew her.
He knew her.
She needed something else. Something more.
Instead of their past and every shitty thing he’d done being the reason she said no, he secretly believed the real issue was he’d been soft and romantic. The next time he wouldn’t be. He’d tie her to a chair and gag her so she couldn’t run away and had to listen to him.
That vague plan had carried him through the remainder of that first night and into the next day.
Until Elijah pointed out just how utterly wrong that was. Unfair to himself. Unfair to her.
He’d wanted to protest, to say that yes, maybe for normal people kidnapping and threats were wrong, but this was him and Nikolett.
Elijah had reminded him that love that wasn’t freely given, wasn’t really love.
Eric had swallowed his protests and justifications and silently abandoned his half-baked kidnapping plan.
Along with it, he abandoned any hope for a relationship with the woman he loved.
He didn’t know why he was still in Paris. They could have left last night after his call with Elijah. He could just have easily lain awake not sleeping at home instead of in Paris.
Feeling the sun on his face for the first time in days was step one toward gathering himself enough to go home.
He was just about to call Regina and ask her to make arrangements when the back of his neck prickled.
Danger.
He’d known a mercenary who called that instinctive awareness of danger “scope sense” because that feeling meant someone was staring at you through the scope of a rifle—either literally, or a more metaphoric danger.
He was experiencing scope sense right now.
Slowly, Eric pushed away from the wall, scanning the quiet side street where the boutique hotel was located. The street was already narrow, and cars parked on one side made it barely passable for one vehicle.
Short trees grew from tree wells in the sidewalk. Given his room was on the top floor, he was actually looking down at the tops of the trees, which meant much of his view of the street was obstructed.
The sense of being in danger, of being watched, increased.
Fuck.
Eric reached for his pocket…except he didn’t have pockets in his loose pajama pants, which meant no phone.
He took a slow step to his right, scanning the street below and the buildings across from him for danger. One more step, and he’d be able to back into the room through the narrow balcony doors.
He looked down, across, left, and right.
He forgot to look up.
He’d just reached back for the door handle when movement above caught his eye.
Eric jerked his head up just as something sharp bit into the meat of his shoulder. He yanked the dart out with one hand, as a man dropped down from the roof.
Booted feet hit the iron balcony, which sang and vibrated from the force.
The assailant wore urban camo, the blotchy grays and buff color designed to blend in with the rubble of a destroyed city.
Currently it was doing a pretty good job of making him blend in with the sandstone-colored brick of the hotel.
He wore a balaclava in the same print, his eyes hard and flat.
Snarling, Eric reached for the man. A balcony in Paris wasn’t as good as a seaside cliff, but he was finally going to get to throw someone off a high place.
Hands grabbed him from behind, yanking him into the hotel room. His shoulder hit the doorframe as his heel caught on the doorjamb. He stumbled, off-balance.
Expecting it to be Regina, he turned to tell her to please for the love of God let me kill him. I need the emotional outlet.
But it wasn’t Regina behind him.
A second man in urban camo punched him in the stomach. Eric saw it coming and tensed his abs. The blow was probably meant to double him over, but all he did was grunt.
The man’s eyes widened a little, and Eric grinned, pulling back his own fist.
The man retreated, Eric took a step…and wobbled.
The fucking tranq dart.
He wasn’t going to be able to fight them off because he wasn’t going to be conscious much longer.
Eric spun, planning to pound on a wall to alert the Spartan Guard. The second assailant was between him and the door, so it wasn’t worth trying to get out of the room, especially as things were starting to fade in and out of focus.
Someone kicked the back of his knee. Not hard but enough to fold his left leg. Off-balance, he dropped, landing on one knee and one hand.
Get up.
The abrupt change in elevation made the effect of the drug worse. He shook his head. Tried, and failed, to rise.
His hands were yanked behind his back, cuffs clicking on. He wobbled and would have face-planted if they hadn’t held him up. Feeling stupid, he prepared to yell for help, but a gag was shoved into his mouth.
And then a black bag was yanked down over his head just before the drugs took him down.
Two hours earlier on the other side of Paris
Nikolett sat cross-legged on the bed in her pajamas.
Pajamas she had no memory of putting on.
Bright morning light sliced across the bedroom, thanks to a crack in the curtains. She’d slept in far later than she normally did and woken up disoriented.
What had happened last night?
Nikolett eyed the pile of discarded clothes she’d stepped over when she went to the bathroom earlier.
You know exactly what happened.
She’d gotten drunk. A few glasses of wine over the course of hours shouldn’t have done it, except due to the pain medication she’d been taking for her leg, she hadn’t been drinking for a month, except that time with Nyx.
They’d started kissing, Gus had felt bad when he saw her leg, and the mood died.
At least until he carried her to the couch, and then into bed.
Things were fuzzy post-couch, but she was fairly sure he’d tried to put her into bed and in turn, she’d tried to reignite the spark.
She had a distinct memory of him lying on the bed beside her, lips brushing her forehead, her cheek. His hand on her bare thigh.
And then she’d said Eric’s name.
She had a vague memory of Gus recoiling. Remembered trying to correct it, saying Gus’ name, but the damage had clearly been done.
She didn’t know if her clothes came off in the heat of passion while they were kissing on the bed, or if Gus had helped her strip and put on pajamas because she was too drunk to do it herself.
Both options were bad, and she was fighting a sick sense of humiliation and unease that he’d seen her naked and she didn’t remember it.
But that feeling was muted by a growing rage. She’d woken up thirsty and with a headache. She’d taken meds and crawled back into bed but hadn’t been able to go back to sleep, and not just because it was late morning, long past her normal wake-up time.
Instead, she’d lain there piecing together the end of the evening with Gus and screaming into a pillow when the memory of saying Eric’s name surfaced.
Eric.
He’d been in her head last night. She looked into Gus’ eyes and seen Eric’s. She touched Gus’ dark hair and wished it was Eric’s blond.
Eric was so deeply rooted in her mind and soul that he’d ruined something that could have been.
Nikolett had been awake for hours, and had finally cycled through all the feelings from confusion to denial, unease to embarrassment. She’d considered, but ultimately rejected, playing dumb about what happened and leaning into the fact that her memory was fuzzy.
Nikolett was seething, and when a hesitant knock sounded on the bedroom door, the anger turned cold and calculating.
The door opened and Grigoris’ arm thrust through the opening, Nyx’s face on his phone screen.
“Well?” Nyx demanded. “What happened? Iacob said he left in the middle of the night, and when they checked on you, you were asleep.”
Nikolett jumped off the bed, anger keeping her warm despite the chill in the room.
She grabbed Grigoris’ phone from his hand and yanked the door open.
Grigoris squeezed his eyes shut the instant she opened the door.
“I’m not naked,” she snapped.
Grigoris opened one eye, took in her PJs, and relaxed.
“We kissed,” she declared, speaking to both Nyx and Grigoris. “He accidentally pressed on my bad leg and then got weirded out when he realized how badly I’d been hurt.”
“You didn’t tell him about the bear—”
“Of course not. I’m not stupid,” Nikolett snapped, Grigoris hastily getting out of her way as she stalked through the living room.
“Then what happened?” Nyx demanded.
“He carried me to bed.”
“Sexy.”
“I tried to make out with him some more.”
“Well done.”
“And I called him Eric.”
Nyx’s mouth dropped open, and Grigoris winced.
“Get Iacob, Maxim, and Zoran in here,” she ordered.
Grigoris glanced at his phone, probably hoping to confer with Nyx, but Nikolett didn’t hand it over.
“Did you fuck him?” Nyx asked.
“No.” Nikolett paused. “I don’t think so?”
“You don’t remember?”
Nyx’s voice went flat, and beside her Grigoris stiffened.
“I got drunk. Passed out. If I’d been sober, I wouldn’t have called him Eric.”
Nyx’s brows rose. “You, the ultimate control freak, got drunk?”
“Shut up.” Nikolett shrugged off the sudden uneasy feeling.
There was a brief knock on the connecting door, which Grigoris had left partially open.
“Come in,” she called out.
Four men gathered around her in a semicircle. Maxim and Iacob both looked gently concerned, while Zoran’s expression was curious. Grigoris was the only one who knew enough to look wary.
One by one, she looked at them, held their gaze.
Whatever they saw in her face caused them to transform—from concerned and curious to deadly.
Maxim straightened, head cocking to the size like a predatory bird.
Iacob shifted his weight to his back foot, sliding a knife from some hidden sheath and twirling it between his fingers.
Zoran took his phone from his back pocket, tapped the screen a few times, and the light over the dining table, which was on despite the daylight, flickered once.
He’d just seized control of the hotel’s electrical system.
She ended with Grigoris, who hadn’t visibly reacted to her mood or expression. That was what made him deadly—he never looked dangerous.
“What do you need, Admiral?” Grigoris asked.
Nikolett took a deep breath, counted to three as a double check that yes, she really was about to do this, then exhaled.
“Bring me Eric.”