Chapter 25 #3
She considered it, but slowly shook her head. “It would be too obvious that it’s just performative.”
“Why?”
“An unmarried member that we’ve never met dies and we magically say they were our third? It will be apparent that we’re callously using someone’s tragic death to avoid the trinity marriage. The thing our society is founded on.
“Let me put it this way. As an admiral I’d object, strongly, to this flagrant disregard for our rules and traditions as well as the blatant abuse of power.”
Eric thunked his head against the wall. “Fuck.” He thunked it again and she reached up, putting her hand behind his head so he wouldn’t hurt himself.
“Protecting me?” he said with a smile.
“Trying to.”
“Okay.” He exhaled as he crossed his arms. “No dead person third. Tell me more about Angus McAngus.”
“Scottish. Thirty-seven. A UX engineer specialist.”
“What the hell is that?”
“It involves computers.” Feeling relatively certain that Eric was not going to keep whacking his own head against the wall, she dropped her hand into her lap and leaned against Eric’s arm. “We’ve run extensive background checks, financial records… Zoran has the reports.”
Eric shook his head. “Later. I want you to tell me about him.”
“He’s…kind. Empathetic. Easy to talk to. Mindful of his size.”
“What do you mean?”
“He kept kneeling down rather than sitting or standing. When I mentioned it, he said something like ‘I do it on purpose so I don’t intimidate people.’”
Eric grunted, staring into the middle distance. “Or he does it so people will underestimate him.”
She hummed her agreement. “He also said that he kneels unless he wants to scare people, but that might have been a joke.”
Eric looked over. “Why, exactly, was he kneeling?”
“At one point, he said it looked like I was going to cry so he knelt next to my chair.”
“He made you cry?” Eric’s voice was so low and dangerous, she felt it more than she heard it.
“I didn’t actually cry, though it was close. I was telling him about my past. My father.” Eric’s arm was rock-hard against her. Nikolett shifted, molding herself to his side. “He got the facts-only version.”
Eric softened, just a little, so she kept going. “He speaks English, French, Hungarian, Spanish, and Mandarin, though he’s not fluent in all of them. He has a thick Scottish accent when he speaks Hungarian.”
Eric was still tense.
“He mispronounced charcuterie. He calls me ‘lass.’ Brought me flowers. Didn’t run screaming out of the hotel when Iacob and Maxim gave him a pat-down and poison-tested the flowers.”
Nikolett frowned for a moment, a thought there and gone again before it could grab hold.
She forced herself not to get distracted. “And when he helped me take my cast off, he accidentally pressed on my leg. It hurt and I made a noise. The mood died.”
Eric let out a bark of laughter. “What?”
“He squeezed my leg and he pressed on the exact wrong spots. He apologized and after that, he was so worried about hurting me, unlike some people…”
Eric snorted and wrapped an arm around her. “First of all, you’re tougher than you look. If you’re alluding to your ass, I was a perfect gentleman and used plugs to make sure you were ready.”
Nikolett squeezed her legs together, remembering the feeling of his hot, hard cock inside her there. Stretching. Filling.
She sighed. “This may be pointless, as he seemed disgusted by the idea of arranged marriage.”
“Did it come up when you were talking about your father trying to marry you to a pedophile?”
“I tried to point out that wasn’t really an arranged marriage but child abuse, and that arranged marriages are not always a bad thing. There’s cultural precedent.”
“Are you sure he didn’t just find the idea of marriage between a child and a pedophile disgusting and get stuck on that point?”
“Maybe,” she conceded.
“Arthur and Sophia will have to figure out if he’ll accept the trinity marriage. What else should I know about Gus?”
“He doesn’t like his name. Said it’s embarrassing to have a name that translates to name son of same name.”
Eric jolted in surprise. “Embarrassing?”
She laughed at his outraged expression. “He said his father gave him a fake name or a joke name, though I still don’t fully understand why he thinks that. He said he was raised by a single mother, so the father wasn’t really part of his life.”
“Angus McAngus is a good name,” Eric said staunchly.
“If you say so, Eric Ericsson.”
Eric sighed. “And you felt something for him?”
“Yes. I…I love you. I’m sorry I feel like I shouldn’t…”
“Nikki, you didn’t do anything wrong.”
She closed her eyes and nodded.
“If we do this,” Eric said, “we have to tell him. Warn him.”
“About?”
Eric just stared at her.
“Right. Us. We’re…”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to love anyone as much as I love you,” she acknowledged. “He has a right to know that. After he’s a member but before we form the trinity.”
“He definitely deserves to know the backstory.” Eric sighed. “And if our third is going to be sweet and romantic, I better actually give you the flowers—”
Nikolett sat up. “Flowers.”
“Er… Do you want me to get you some right now?”
She tuned Eric out, closing her eyes to make it easier to think.
A second later, she was on her feet and racing though the door into Grigoris’ suite, Eric right behind her.
Iacob was standing by a large monitor, studying blueprints. Maxim sat at the table going over a stack of papers while Zoran was on his computer. Grigoris was out on the balcony, phone to his ear.
When she burst in, they all turned to look at her, even Grigoris.
Nikolett swallowed down the sickening panic trying to rise up her throat.
“Iacob, when Gus came, you checked the flowers for poison.”
“Yes. Why? What’s happened?” Iacob’s knife appeared out of nowhere and he twirled it between his fingers, not in an idle way but as if refamiliarizing himself with it before getting stabby.
“What language were we speaking?”
“You and I?”
“Yes.”
Iacob thought for only a moment before answering. “Romanian.”
Nikolett closed her eyes as a sickening realization slid through her, the world tilting and turning on its axis. “Gus doesn’t speak Romanian.”