Forgotten Promise, page 1
Forgotten Promise
Trinity Masters: Crossroads Contempt
Book One
Mari Carr
Lila Dubois
Copyright © 2023 by Mari Carr and Lila Dubois
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
Trigger Warnings
Forgotten Promise
Welcome to Trinity Masters
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
About the Authors
Trigger Warnings
The Trinity Masters series is a romantic suspense and all books contain explicit sex and depictions of violence (action scenes).
Forgotten Promise
She holds the key to their survival.
Kailani’s family have kept a secret for generations. She never thought it would put her in jeopardy until the night her phone rings and a stranger says, “Our society is under attack.”
With danger all around her, Kailani is forced into a deadly race across the country to find the others who share her secret. But she’s not going alone. Because before that call, she had an entirely different crisis on her hands–her arranged marriage to two men, including the man who broke her heart, Benjamin.
A centuries old secret becomes a race against time and the survival of the Trinity Masters hangs in the balance. Kailani, John, and Benjamin may not survive the mission. But even if they succeed, the fate of their trinity is at stake due to past mistakes and present tensions. And in the end, Kailani may seize the power to dissolve their marriage.
Welcome to Trinity Masters
Before the birth of a young nation, a society was formed. Like-minded men and women, who knew the great experiment of their country wouldn’t survive without support, came together and—in secret—formed the Trinity Masters.
If you know the way in, you’ll find their headquarters deep under the Boston Public Library. If you saw the list of members, you’d know their names, recognize great scholars, artists, politicians, and soldiers.
The founding members were individuals of vision, power, and creativity. They knew that without deep bonds to both strengthen and protect, their country would fail. The rules of the society were set: the best among them would be invited to join and reap the benefits of membership. But there’s a price each member must pay—they agree to an arranged marriage. The marriages create those much-needed bonds. However, a stool with two legs will fall but with three legs…
The arranged marriage is between not just two but three people.
They meet at a binding ceremony, after which the newly formed trinity is given a month to get to know one another. Sometimes, they are given a task by the leader of the society—the Grand Master. Once formed, trinities are final, with no appeal and no second chances for those who disobey.
The punishment for disobedience is both creative and brutal.
But the Trinity Masters isn’t the only society based on the arranged menage marriage concept. Time and treachery allowed the Americans to forget about their European counterpart…the Masters Admiralty.
Formed during the Black Plague, the Masters Admiralty is ruled by the Fleet Admiral, but their membership is larger, their society more complex, than that of the Trinity Masters. Divided into nine territories, their borders drawn long before the modern borders of European nations were decided, the Masters Admiralty has nine territory admirals, and not all of the territories get along.
Recently, the two societies met again, the distance between them the result of betrayal and greed. The Grand Master of the Trinity Masters and the Fleet Admiral of the Masters Admiralty have a tentative alliance, though relations are strained.
Both societies have faced treachery from within, as well as attacks from those who hate what they are. It’s up to the members, to the trinities, to protect and defend not only their spouses but the societies themselves…
Introduction
If you’re new to the world, here’s a refresher on what’s been happening for the Trinity Masters and Masters Admiralty…
* * *
The current Grand Master of the Trinity Masters is Juliette Adams, descendent of founding father John Adams. She inherited the position when her brother, Harrison (Forbidden Legacy), fell in love with a nonmember and was forced to step down.
* * *
Juliette never expected to inherit the title, and when she did, her first action was to dissolve her own trinity (Hidden Devotion). Essentially betrothed since she was a child to two other legacy members, she grew up loving Devon Asher, until the day he broke her heart. Juliette had no idea that dissolving her trinity would reveal a conspiracy within the society because their third, Rose Hancock, was poised to betray them all…
* * *
Now married to Franco Santiago, a man who should have been a legacy member, but whose name was purposefully erased from their history, and Devon, Juliette is struggling to manage and lead the society while also unraveling a host of mysteries and dangerous secrets. Rose (Beloved Sacrifice) is now one of Juliette’s counselors, and was pivotal in repairing the relationship between the Trinity Masters and Masters’ Admiralty, as well as tearing down the conspiracy she was forced to serve.
* * *
Meanwhile, in Europe, Fleet Admiral Eric Ericsson is dealing with an ongoing threat from an old enemy while also struggling with some very personal grief. Colum O’Connor is the Archivist of the Masters’ Admiralty, holder of all records and information. The archive is kept in Dublin, the only place in Europe that doesn’t belong to one of the Masters’ Admiralty’s nine territories. Colum and Eric are grieving for the same woman (Bravery’s Sin), and Eric pushes Colum to befriend Franco in the hopes that it will give Colum something to focus on besides the loss he suffered.
* * *
Colum travels to Boston to meet with Franco, but Franco doesn’t show. Colum is getting ready to leave when Franco, bloody and disoriented, stumbles down the steps of the Boston Public Library and tells Colum that Juliette and Devon have just been kidnapped.
Chapter One
Boston
One hour and forty-five minutes since the Grand Master was kidnapped
* * *
Walking into a dangerous crisis felt like coming home. She trusted pain and catastrophe more than joy and contentment, and in many ways, this was normal to her. More normal than the peaceful existence she’d been enjoying this past year as a happily married woman with two wonderful husbands.
Rose sized up the situation and then turned to her small clutch, which she’d dropped onto a chair when she entered the suite. Ten minutes ago, she’d made a dramatic entrance into the hotel—running through the lobby in a ball gown with two tuxedo-clad men at her heels. Ideally, she wouldn’t have drawn attention to herself, but that was the sort of dramatic moment that people noticed.
Luckily, the front desk clerk who’d watched her didn’t know she was the one responsible for setting the hotel on fire several years ago. She’d been in a dark place for, well, most of her life, only now beginning to experience a calm, peaceful happiness.
She glanced behind her at the man who, like her, had found his own happy ending, except now…now that was falling apart.
Rose finished digging the small pill case out of her clutch and raced over to Franco Santiago. He was covered in blood, but when she first approached him, he’d assured her that none of it was his. She didn’t fully believe him, but there didn’t seem to be any fresh blood, which meant he wasn’t actively bleeding. Now if she could just get him to stop panicking long enough to provide coherent information, they could begin crisis management.
“Open,” she said to Franco.
The Irishman seated beside Franco eyed her warily. Rose didn’t know who he was, and as far as she was concerned, he was their primary suspect. A suspicious nature was one of Rose’s best qualities. But questioning the Irishman had to wait. Because until Franco could give them the whole story, all they had were the frantic calls that had brought her, Sebastian, and Lachlan to the hotel.
Franco looked at her, opened his mouth to say something, and she popped a pill in.
“Swallow.”
He grimaced, but she saw his throat work.
“What was that tablet?” the Irishman asked suspiciously.
“Who are you again?” Rose countered.
“The Archivist. Colum O’Connor.”
“He’s Masters’ Admiralty.” Lachlan Howard tapped his wrist piece to end the call he’d been on.
Rose glanced around the room again, assessing who was here. Besides her, there was Sebastian, who held the same position within the society she did, and Lachlan, a Warrior Scholar—one of a group of on-call security professionals. Each Warrior Scholar was former military, with refined and dangerous skill sets. But by day, they were graduate students, most in fields entirely unrelated to their previous occupations. Rose had heavily encouraged Juliette to create the Warrior Scholar corp.
Juliette…
Rose looked at Franco.
Juliette was Franco’s wife, and she, along with Franco’s other spouse, Devon, had just been kidnapped.
It was terrifying and horrible…except it was even worse than that.
Because Juliette Adams wasn’t just a humanitarian activist and Boston socialite. Juliette was the Grand Master of the Trinity Masters. Leader of America’s oldest and most powerful secret society. The identity of the Grand Master was a closely guarded secret; in fact, Rose wasn’t even sure if Lachlan had known exactly who the Grand Master was before tonight.
Juliette and Devon’s kidnapping wasn’t just an attack on Franco’s spouses; it was probably an attack on the Trinity Masters itself.
“Right, so…” the Archivist said, pulling her attention back to the one person in the room whose presence Rose didn’t understand.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“Wait, Price is in the elevator,” Sebastian cut in.
Rose didn’t see why they had to wait. Price Bennett was, like Sebastian and Rose, one of the Grand Master’s counselors. They served as advisers most of the time, fixers when needed, and their identities within the Trinity Masters were also secret. Price was the one counselor Juliette had retained from her brother Harrison’s tenure as Grand Master, but Price had taken a passive role within the council, acting more as a form of institutional memory.
“Are we safe?” the Archivist asked.
“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.
“No. I mean we were near the rare books room. They were planning to go down to headquarters, but I was staying up top because I was meeting with Colum.”
At that, everyone looked at the Irishman, whose eyes widened slightly. He leaned back, as if putting space between him and Lachlan would lessen the danger he only now realized he was in.
