Page 2 of Forgotten Promise

“The hotel is secure,” Lachlan said. “I have two men in the lobby, one on the roof, and the others are checking on the library.”

“You don’t answer to him,” Rose told Lachlan while eyeing the Irishman.

“The library is compromised,” Sebastian said. “We shouldn’t bring attention to it.”

Lachlan raised his brows. “They won’t.” His tone made it clear he was insulted by Sebastian’s comment.

There was a knock on the door, and Price walked into the room. “What happened?”

“Are we waiting for anyone else?” Lachlan asked, looking at Franco.

Rose stepped in front of Franco, answering for him. “No. We need to act.”

“We need to find them,” Franco snarled.

It was shocking to hear the normally clever, sweet man sound so feral.

“We will.” Lachlan walked over and crouched by Franco. “I will. We’re already on it. But it would help if I had more information.”

That seemed to calm Franco. Or maybe the anxiety medication she’d given him was taking effect.

“Can you tell us what happened?” Lachlan asked.

“They took them. Juliette and Devon. They’re gone.”

The heartbreak in Franco’s words made Rose’s own heart ache, and she checked the urge to grab her phone to text Marek and Wes, just to make sure they were okay. She’d been at the symphony with her husbands when her phone buzzed in her clutch. Given that she’d put it on “emergency mode”—a custom setting that looked like the phone was off but would vibrate if calls from certain numbers came in—she hadn’t hesitated to leap from her seat when she felt it go off.

Despite it being incredibly rude, she had raced out of Symphony Hall and answered, only to hear Franco’s frantic voice saying almost exactly the same words he’d just said to Lachlan. It was the Irishman who’d gotten on the line, provided the name of the hotel, then ended the call.

Wes and Marek had followed her out, her husbands knowing she wouldn’t have gotten up without a good reason. Sometimes it still shocked her, the closeness she felt, the bond between the three of them. All she’d had to do was look at them, and Marek had said, “Where?”

Together, the three of them had run down Huntington Avenue toward Copley Square, not bothering to get a taxi since they’d be faster on foot.

Sebastian had beat her to Franco’s room by a few minutes. It was Sebastian who had stopped Wes and Marek at the suite door. Rose’s husbands had turned around and gone to check them into a room in the hotel, promising to stay close if she needed anything.

She’d assumed Sebastian had barred the way because they weren’t members of the council, and therefore didn’t have clearance to be in this room right now. Rose glanced at “the Archivist,” and wondered if Wes and Marek being stopped at the door actually had more to do with the fact that Marek was former Masters’ Admiralty, and Wes had spent years living in England.

Rose’s journey to happiness had involved a decades-old mystery and spanned continents, bringing her into contact with the Trinity Masters’ European counterpart, the Masters’ Admiralty. The European secret society was far older than the Trinity Masters, and the two organizations had fallen out of contact, thanks to treachery and lies. Now a tentative relationship was being forged, but that didn’t mean Rose liked the Archivist’s presence here tonight. It was suspicious.

“Yes, they’re gone,” Lachlan agreed, focused on Franco. “Where were you when this happened?”

“Just have him start at the beginning.” Sebastian looked like he was ready to shake the information out of Franco.

Lachlan cast Sebastian a cold look. “Mr. Stewart, please don’t interfere.”

Franco took a deep breath, then shook his head as if clearing it. “The library. They were taken from the library.”

“Where in the library?”

“The back, the Boylston Building.”

The Boston Public Library was old, at least in the context of the United States, and was actually two buildings joined together. When people mentioned the Boston Public Library, they were usually referring to the Central Library. A stately Renaissance-style building with grand reading rooms, it was both a tourist destination and a favorite of students from one of Boston’s many universities. The entrance was on Dartmouth, looking out on Copley Square and facing Trinity Church.

This whole section of the city was built on what had once been water. When they filled in the back bay, one of the original architects had an underground building constructed in secret. That underground structure, directly below the library, was the Trinity Masters’ headquarters, accessed via a hidden elevator. The fact that they were taken from the library implied that whoever had taken Juliette and Devon knew where headquarters was. Hence, the location might be compromised.

While the Central Library was the famous tourist destination and aesthetic study location, there was actually a second building, linked to the first, referred to as the Boylston Street Building, which was a more modern library. Carpets instead of marble floors, computer stations, dedicated spaces for children and teens, it was the library used by Bostonians for day-to-day needs.

“Not in the rare books room?” Lachlan clarified. The rare books room was where the secret elevator was hidden.

---