Page 7 of Master Vidar & Vali

Because of my stubborn bid to prove him wrong, I’d ignored my gut and stayed quiet despite Lincoln’s arguments. I’d followed orders. As a result, women and children had died, and I’d almost lost my best friend. On my knees surrounded by the dead, I’d sworn that no rule or concern for my safety was worth the risk of failing someone. Yet, only a few years later, I’d hesitated with Zara. It was time to fix that.

Yula was sitting at her desk in the front office looking much too chipper for eight in the morning. When I’d first met her, she’d been a server at club Midgard, one of the BDSM clubs my friends and I owned. She’d given Astrid a run for her money, and the two had butted heads one too many times in their need to be in control. While Astrid was a domme, Yula was a switch with an incredible skill set that was being wasted at the club.

Gabe had seen the potential in Yula, and after clearing it with Erik, had offered her the job at G&H. Hiring her to be our receptionist was probably one of the best decisions we’dever made. She could be sweet as sunshine, or as brutal as a thunderstorm depending on what the situation called for.

Not that she was perfect. Having her as a receptionist meant being subjected to a constant barrage of pictures of her monster of a dog, Bilbo. That animal was more spoiled than an only child and pampered like a cherished prince. Admittedly, it was a small price to pay.

“Morning, Colin. Did you know that Lincoln has been here all night?”

I chuckled at the way she shamelesslytold on himout of concern. Of course I knew he was already here. We shared a condo and fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you looked at it, we had intimate knowledge of each other’s habits and schedules. When he hadn’t been around when I’d gotten ready, I assumed he’d come in early to work. It made sense as our impending flight on Jared’s mystery plane was coming up and we needed to have everything ready. But what had he been working on all night?

“We have an emergency case and will probably be taking off soon. I expect Gabe and Rose to be in soon as well.”

Yula smiled. “I’ll order up some breakfast then.”

“You’re an angel.” I gave her a smile before heading back to see what Lincoln had spent the night working on.

Walking into his office, I couldn’t help but feel a surge of amusement. Unlike my office, Lincoln's was a far cry from a typical professional setting. Instead, it resembled a hacker’s paradise with dim lighting barely glowing over the cluttered desks, each one buried under a mountain of wires, gadgets, and multiple computer monitors displaying streams of data that only made sense to him. There was always a low buzz of servers as if bees lived hidden somewhere in the mess.

The only decoration in the room was a picture of his sister. He interacted with the rest of his family as little as possible sincethey usually only reached out to him to complain. Lincoln had been adopted at the age of five as an African pity project, his words not mine, by a wealthy couple who immediately left him with the nannies to be raised.

Two years later, his adoptive mother had gotten pregnant, and with the addition of a biological child to their lives, gave up on even the pretense of caring for Lincoln. My friend had tried to bond with his brother but it had never happened. Now the man was a waste of space who’s only accomplishment was bottoming out the stipend from his trust fund every month and asking for more.

To make things worse for a reason no one could explain eight years ago at the age of sixty-five, Lincoln’s parents had adopted another child. This time an eight year old girl. The poor thing had no love around her so Linc did his best to be there as much as he could. Unfortunately the sweet child was gone replaced by a bitter sixteen year old.

Lincoln was able to escape his parents’ control because of his gift for computers. He’d shocked them when he’d bucked their Ivy League plans and attended the college he wanted by earning a full academic scholarship. Later they’d been privately horrified but publicly supportive when he joined the service after graduating near the top of his class.

I always wondered what they’d thought after our discharge. Officially we’d been injured in the line of duty, but nothing that would’ve meant leaving the service if it wasn’t for the PTSD. I’m not sure even that would have been enough if it hadn’t been for the need to cover up what we’d experienced. The minute we’d returned to civilian life, Linc focused every minute he had on computers and everything digital. I often thought he preferred the virtual world over the real one.

So finding him sitting in the middle of the electronic chaos still wearing the same clothes from the previous evening wasn’t strange. Had he slept at all?

“Did you spend all night here?” I called out as I stepped further into the organized chaos.

He looked up briefly, the frustration on his face evident. “That depends on your definition of all night.” His voice cracked, probably hoarse from hours of silence.

I shook my head, both touched and concerned. “Thank you for getting to work on this right away but you should have gotten some rest. You're going to burn out at this rate.”

Lincoln waved his hand dismissively. He’d heard but we both knew wouldn’t heed my advice.

“Is Gabriel here?”

“Not yet,” I replied, “I think we should tackle our flight plan before anything else. Jared said his pilot is on standby and only requires two hours’ notice, but we should let him know ASAP. I expect Gabe and Rose to arrive any minute so we can get that out of the way and gather our gear while the pilot gets organized.”

Lincoln stopped what he was doing and gave me a look that I didn’t like. “I’m not sure we should get on a plane today. I found out a couple things that we need to look into before heading across the world and into potential danger.”

“What the hell do you mean?” He knew what it would do to me if our delay made us too late to help. Hell, I was already kicking myself for waiting a week before saying anything.

Lincoln raised his hands as if to placate me but the gesture did nothing to lower my racing pulse. “Most important reason to wait is I don’t know if she is even in Albania anymore.”

Not in Albania! What the hell had he found out? Were we already too late or has she saved herself? Had her danger been a figment of my imagination?

“Start at the beginning.” My teeth were clenched with the effort to hold back my impatience. We both looked up at a knock on the door.

“Hey, guys, I’m getting us set up in the conference room if you’d like to join us?” Rose peeked around the doorway, her flame-red hair done up in a sleek ponytail.

I glared at Lincoln but headed out before I said something I would regret. The five minutes it took for him to hook up his laptop to the projectors grated on the last of my nerves. I didn’t like the almost pitying looks my friends were shooting in my direction.

“We don’t have many contacts that I trust in that area of the world, but there are a few. As Albania is six hours ahead of us, I was able to start calls to our people earlier. What I found in that short time frustrated me.” Linc stared at Gabe, anger obvious in his glare. “Nayan needs to be at least chewed out for his lack of diligence.”

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