Chapter 30 #2
“How do you know this?” Eleni, the Ottoman vice admiral asked.
“I haven’t yet had a chance to talk to anyone about…about what he told me before he escaped from the plane.”
“You’ve been withholding information,” Cezary, the Bohemia admiral scolded.
She was not in the mood to be scolded by a man who thought his age gave him the right to talk to her like that. “No,” she said in an icy voice. “I’ve been busy with the authorities investigating the crash and making sure my man who is currently in a coma received the best care.”
“Did he tell you who he is? How he is tied to the Masters’ Admiralty?” Sophia asked before Cezary could say something else.
“No,” Nikolett answered truthfully. “He didn’t tell me what his ties are to the society, or who he is.”
But she knew. She knew.
Nikolett looked at Regina who nodded and said, “Same type. The other test takes longer,” in Hungarian.
Nikolett hadn’t been sure Regina would remember what she’d asked her to look into just before the plane crash. Apparently, she’d remembered and had run the tests.
“What did the Spaniard say to you?” Sophia asked.
Nikolett took a step away from the table. She was going to say this and then she was going to run. She didn’t care how it looked. Didn’t care what they’d say about her.
She’d run, he’d come after her, and that would mean they’d have privacy for what came next. She’d rather look like a coward than once again have an audience for getting her heart broken.
Eric was watching her, tense and ready. She could feel his focus like heat on her skin.
“He said that it was never about me. It was always about Eric.”
The air seemed to freeze at her words.
“He confirmed that he’s the one who’s been attacking me. He put the snakes in my bed, shot me, poisoned me, nearly ran me over, and dropped a bear trap in my yard.” She’d forgotten a few assassination attempts, but Grigoris could give them the full list once she left.
“He said he hurt me…” Nikolett’s throat closed with tears. She swallowed hard several times. Everyone was looking at her with soft pity, and she desperately wanted them to stop. Wasn’t it enough that she was about to lose the man she loved? The pity of her peers was salt in all her many wounds.
She got herself under control, speaking in the cold silence. Her voice was strained but the words echoed off the walls.
“He said he hurt me because Eric loved me. It was never about me. It was always about Eric.”
With the last bit of control she had, she turned and slowly walked out of the Great Hall.
Once she hit the stairs, she started to run.
Eric stared at the door Nikolett had disappeared through. There was a buzzing white noise in his brain.
Holding tight to the last shreds of his control, he looked around the table.
“Find him.” Eric’s voice came out as a low, terrifying snarl. He couldn’t have changed that even if he wanted to. “He’s still on this island. Find him and bring him to me.”
Everyone was staring at him except Grigoris, who glanced down at something on his lap.
“I don’t care who he is or what I did to him.
He hurt Nikolett. He probably crashed that plane.
” The official reason for the crash hadn’t yet been determined, and given Gus had been both on the plane and chained up, it was hard to imagine how he could be responsible.
He couldn’t have contacted any of his people, let alone done something himself. And yet…
Despite monumental amounts of searching for the Spaniard and background checking Angus McAngus, they knew basically nothing about him. Because of that, no one was willing to definitively say he wasn’t to blame.
“You think you’re smarter than him?” Eric looked around. Every person at this table was brilliant. “You’re not. He’s smarter than any one of us. Nikolett and I were ready to make him a member and then make him our third.”
Surprise rippled around the table.
“I may be stupid but she’s not.” He pointed to Nikolett’s empty chair. “Assume he’s the smartest, most dangerous enemy we’ve ever gone up against, because he is, and act accordingly.”
Eric looked around one last time. “Find him. Now.”
Then he left, a quiet rage boiling in him as he followed Nikolett.
Not at Gus—though he would kill the man when they eventually got him.
No, he was pissed at Nikolett.
He stalked up the stairs, steps slow and measured. He didn’t even question where she’d gone. She’d gone to his apartment. Their apartment. The place that might have been, might still be, their home.
She was exactly where he’d expected her to be—in his bedroom.
And she was packing.
She’d refused to keep wearing the brace now that she had both glue and stitches holding the wound closed. Stretching that arm and twisting made her wince, so her packing was slow and careful, mostly one-handed.
She didn’t look up, though he knew she’d heard him approach.
Eric folded his arms and leaned against the door.
“I’ll move to one of the guest rooms,” she said as she packed the last item into her bag.
“The fuck you will.”
Nikolett jerked, finally raising her head and looking at him. “Excuse me?”
“Who’s the coward now, Nikolett?”
She blinked.
“You think you get to drop that bomb and then walk away?” He pointed down toward the Great Hall a floor below.
The first sparks of anger flashed in her eyes. “Just do it already.”
“Do what?”
“Walk away.”
“You’re the one who walked away. Literally. We all watched you.”
She slapped her suitcase closed. “Stop pretending you aren’t getting ready to break my heart again.”
“Why would I—”
“Because it’s your fault.” Her voice turned vicious. “The thing you feared, the thing that made you abandon me again and again… It’s real. It’s happening.”
Something icy settled in his stomach because she was right.
My love will be the reason she dies.
“He tortured me. Turned me into a prisoner in my own home. All because of you. Because you loved me.” Nikolett let out a bitter laugh. “You wouldn’t admit you loved me, but he knew. He saw it. And he decided to use me against you.”
Nikolett stalked toward him, merciless and powerful. The ruthless goddess once more. “Your wives’ deaths, Josephine’s death, those weren’t your fault. But this? What happened to me? The ways I’ve suffered? Your fault. He hurt me because of you.”
Each word was a spike being driven into him, a flash of panic accompanying each stab of pain.
Nikolett got close enough, she had to tip her head back to meet his gaze.
“And now you’re going to leave me because this, I, am your greatest fear. Your nightmare. Except you aren’t sleeping.”
This close, he saw what was behind the anger. He saw the anguish in her eyes.
She was mourning him, despite the fact that he was standing right in front of her.
This. This was his fault. He’d taught her that when love was difficult or scary, he’d run and leave her alone.
Eric leaned down, nose to nose with her. “I’m not going anywhere.”
That made her breath catch, her voice quaver. “You will. Maybe not right now, but in a week, a month, it will be too much, and—”
“And if I start to feel like that, I’ll go back to therapy.”
Nikolett blinked, and a tear slid down her cheek. She swiped it away. “I’m not going to wait around for that to happen. I’m leaving.”
Eric smiled. “No, you’re not.”
“Not the island. Not right now.”
No, she’d wait until tonight. He was sure that was what Grigoris had been looking at—she’d texted him to ask him to get her out of here.
“But I’m not staying here with you.”
“You are.”
“Eric, don’t. Don’t pretend like you aren’t starting to drown in fear and guilt. I’ve known since the moment he said those words to me that I’d lost you. The last two days have been borrowed time.”
She retreated, her shoulders slumping. With a few quick jerks, she zipped her suitcase. “There’s no way our love survives this.”
Her final watery words almost broke him. He wondered if she was right. If he would start waking from nightmares. New, more vivid, horrors.
She started to lift her suitcase off the bed, but he stepped forward, taking it for her.
“I’ll never stop loving you,” he said softly.
“I know,” she whispered back, voice heavy with defeat. “And if I thought love was enough…”
“It’s not,” he said in soft agreement. “You have to be willing to fight.”
Eric turned and walked out of his bedroom, her suitcase in hand. He passed the door to the apartment and kept going.
There was a pregnant silence before her rushing footsteps sounded behind him.
“Eric…” Her tone was wary. “What are you doing?”
“Fighting. For us.”
“Eric, don’t make this harder than it— Where are you going?”
Eric opened the glass door onto his large stone balcony and strode out into the afternoon sun. The air smelled like sea and salt.
“You’re not going anywhere.” He hefted her suitcase. “Because what happened to you isn’t my fault.”
Nikolett’s gaze flicked from his face to her suitcase, then back.
“It’s his fault. He’s the one who hurt you. Maybe I did something shitty to him—it’s entirely possible. But that doesn’t give him the right to hurt the people I love. Do I feel bad? Yes. But you’re not going anywhere.”
Eric spun, then hurled her suitcase discus-style off the side of the castle.
Side by side, they leaned over the rail to look at the result. Her suitcase had exploded on impact. Clothes everywhere.
“I… I don’t need my suitcase to leave.” There was a note of hope in her voice, woven with the defiant annoyance.
“True.” Eric grabbed her by the shoulders, turning her to face him. “Do you love me?”
“Inexplicably, yes.” Her aggrieved tone made him weak with relief.
He smirked. “Do you want to marry me?”
“Against my better judgment.”
“Will you stay with me? Trust me to be a better man, a better partner, now than I was a year ago?”
Her gaze slid down, her shoulders slumping. “Eric, I can’t do it. I can’t survive you going cold on me again.”
“Right. That’s fair.” He straightened, dropping his hands from her arms. “There’s one thing I keep thinking will fix our issues.”
“Couples therapy? I considered it, but—”
“Nope.” Eric bent, planted his shoulder in her stomach, then gently stood, ignoring the way she smacked him and tried to wiggle free. “Careful of your shoulder.”
“Put me down.”
“No.”
He got a good grip on her thighs and started walking.
Nikolett’s hand dug into the small of his back as she braced herself and made a pissed-off noise.
“Careful, don’t hurt yourself,” he said.
“Put me down.”
“No.”
“Eric, throwing me on the bed isn’t going to fix this.”
“That wasn’t my plan.”
He carried her—very carefully—down the spiral stone staircase.
Due to the odd layout of the castle, he had to pass the Great Hall. Several people leaned to the side to watch him pass through the open door.
“Admiral?” Grigoris called out. “Do you want me to dart him again?”
“Bring me the gun,” she snapped, though her voice was breathy. “I want to shoot him this time.”
“I can’t tell if you’re joking,” Grigoris called out.
Eric paused, just a brief moment, because despite the caveman routine, he wasn’t going to force her to stay. To listen. She had a thousand reasons not to trust him with her heart.
“I’ll handle this myself,” Nikolett said after pregnant silence.
Eric grinned and started walking, waiting until they were out of sight to slap her ass.
“Where are we going?” she snapped.
“I told you. I finally get to use what I think is the perfect solution to all our problems.”
Down another narrow stone hall, through a door, down more well-worn steps, he finally reached Triskelion Castle’s dungeon.
He flung open an ancient wooden door with a barred window and carried her into the stone cell.
Setting Nikolett on her feet near the back wall, he took only a moment to grin at her wide-eyed shock before he grabbed one of the dangling chains and fastened the attached cuff around her wrist, making sure the chain was long enough she didn’t have to raise her arm and stress the cut.
She gaped at him, then bent her arm at the elbow to raise her wrist and shook her arm, making the chain clank.
“Your solution is…locking me in the dungeon?”
He tried to grab her other wrist but she slapped at him.
“Yes. And I’m going to keep you here until you realize that I’m serious.”
He sidestepped and reached for her other arm. Nikolett twisted to evade him. Elbowed him in the gut.
He didn’t want her to accidentally hurt herself, so he stopped trying to grab her and instead ducked down and kissed her.
He wasn’t touching her anywhere but her lips and yet he caught her, more surely than he would have any other way.
He felt her relief through the kiss. Realized that maybe he should’ve started by kissing her.
After a long time, they came up for air and he rested his forehead on hers.
“I know I hurt you,” he whispered. “I let my past, my fear, come between us. I won’t do that again. I’ll spend the rest of my life proving to you that for as long as you want me, I’m yours.”
She slid her cheek against his, and he felt the dampness of her tears. “And I’m yours. I think I have been from the moment we met.”
“I’m sorry, Nikki. I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry you couldn’t trust me not to do it again.”
“It might just be because I’m tired and emotionally worn out, but last night, I was lying beside you, dreading the way you’d look at me when I finally told you what he said, and some stupid part of me thought that I’d have rather died beside you in that plane than live without you.”
“When I thought Gus had cut your throat, I was considering throwing myself off the balcony.”
Nikolett laughed. “You know Romeo and Juliet were only teenagers. We’re adults.”
“We’ve been through a lot. We’re allowed to have dramatic moments.”
She leaned into him, resting her cheek on his chest. He rested his on her hair.
“Eric?”
“Yes?”
“He asked me to go with him.”
“Yep, I’m pretty sure he’s in love with you.”
“That’s…I’m not sure what to do about that,” she said.
“Don’t love him back because I’m going to kill him for hurting you.”
“You mean for attacking the Masters’ Admiralty.”
“Sure, if that reason makes you feel better, go with that.”
“Eric?”
“Yes?”
“I think Gus is your brother.”