Page 14 of Power's Fall

This time, Dahlia cut Vadisk off.

“I booked a massive villa at the resort where the blackmail took place. It sleeps eight and has two wings. It makes perfect sense for you to stay with us. If anyone questions that, I can honestly say I’ve done it before. Occasionally, I’ll bring a guide or translator with me rather than hiring someone local, and in those instances, my guide and I stay together, especially if I’ve rented a house or we’re staying at a hostel.”

“You two will attract attention,” Vadisk all but growled. “Two Americans in Crimea…”

“We’re not tourists,” Montana insisted. “I’m going in on a research visa.”

“Technically, I probably count as a tourist,” Dahlia said with a smile. “But I have filming and work permits attached to my visa.”

Logically, what they said made sense, but Vadisk knew better. Everyone they encountered would be watching them. Assessing. Judging. Any and all interpersonal relationships would be noted. But he didn’t know how to put that into words in a way that wouldn’t make him sound paranoid. Hewasparanoid, but he didn’t want to admit that publicly.

Vadisk laced his fingers to make one big fist. “The three of us, staying in the same villa, at the same resort where people like us were blackmailed… It’s stupid.”

“We’re not staying in the same room. There are four bedrooms, three of them on the complete opposite wing of the house.” Dahlia was still calm and collected, but there was a faint thread of frustration lacing through her voice. “The villa has a private pool, several balconies, two kitchens, and its own golf cart you drive to get around the resort property. No one is going to assume that we’re sleeping together.”

“Especially if you keep being an asshole to us,” Montana added.

Vadisk jerked in surprise, then winced. He wasn’t this person. Dangerous, yes, and mean when he needed to be, but not an asshole.

He needed to talk to them, maybe explain what he was feeling. Vadisk owed them at least that much. “I didn’t expect that getting married would mean leaving everything behind and moving half a world away.”

Dahlia’s brows rose in clear surprise. Montana’s expression didn’t change.

“This isn’t what I agreed to,” Vadisk said, realizing too late the words came out harsher than he’d intended.

“Maybe things are different in the Masters’ Admiralty,” Dahlia said. “I’ll admit I didn’t know anything about your society until my Grand Master called to tell me I was getting married. I’m assuming that, like us, the marriages are arranged without input from those being placed together.”

Vadisk nodded his head. “It is the same.”

“Yet you want…a choice?”

“There’s a big difference between our arrangement and others in our societies.” Vadisk’s jaw muscles hurt from clenching his teeth.

“I agree,” Dahlia said softly. “There is. How do things typically proceed in the Masters’ Admiralty once you are called to the altar?”

Vadisk puzzled over the wordaltarbriefly. “We’re called together, bound in a ceremony.” He wasn’t even sure which ceremony they’d do. The Trinity Masters’ marriage was probably slightly different than a Masters’ Admiralty ceremony and definitely wouldn’t involve going to the Isle of Man to sign the book and get the fleet admiral’s blessing.

“We haven’t had the ceremony yet,” Dahlia pointed out.

“No, but we’re married,” Vadisk concluded, each word heavy.

Dahlia nodded but looked to Montana, who put his hand atop hers and squeezed.

The action made Vadisk feel even more disconnected from the other two. The Americans fit together and seemed, if not pleased, satisfied with the union. Annoyed again, Vadisk jumped out of his seat—nearly cracking his head open—and resumed his seat on the other side of the aisle, leaving Montana and Dahlia together.

Dahlia leanedback in her seat, stared out the van window, and took measured breaths to help calm her heart rate. Her body was having a very normal physiological response to stress and danger, but she knew how to manage it. How to deal with the fact that this had been one of the more harrowing passport controls she’d been through in the past few years.

The officer had taken one look at her and Montana’s blue passports and called in additional guards.

Vadisk had already peeled off to use the other passport lane, leaving her and Montana together.

It seemed like that was how it was going to be. Her and Montana together with Vadisk holding himself apart.

Meeting her second husband hadn’t gone the way she’d imagined. Nothing about her marriage was the way she imagined. On that point, she and Vadisk were in agreement.

As a legacy, she knew more than most about how things happened. Once she’d joined the Trinity Masters, her parents had told her about the binding ceremony, the marriage ceremony. When she was called to the altar, she’d expected to be summoned to the Boston Public Library. To take the secret elevator down to the underground headquarters—which she personally likened to a temple, thanks to the columns that lined the long main hallway—where she would slip on a robe before stepping out into the dramatically lit medallion room to meet her spouses and pledge herself.

Instead, she’d gotten a much less-formal letter, followed by a phone call that explained both the existence of the Masters’ Admiralty (she’d heard rumors of the other society, thanks to family stories, but had thought the society disbanded), that she was about to marry a member from that society, and that her mission to Crimea was now a task assigned to her new trinity.

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