Bravery’s Sin: Masters’ Admiralty, book 5, page 16
She recognized the black silhouette of a man on targets that were standard at every shooting range in the world. These used targets had clearly been kept, though given the placement of the bullet holes, Nyx wasn’t sure why. On the center of the body, there were numbered circles—seven, eight, nine—all leading to X marks the spot in the middle.
None of the holes on these sheets had hit any rings of the target. Instead, they all pierced the right shoulder of the figure.
Nyx inhaled sharply.
Petro had been shot in the right shoulder.
Grigoris said Petro’s injury wasn’t self-inflicted, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t orchestrated it. Hadn’t planned the shooting, and made sure the person with the gun was skilled enough to hit a non-vital but still serious spot. His right shoulder, rather than left, which would be too close to the heart, held no major organs, and if his lung was damaged, it was one of a pair.
She looked at the top target sheet again. Studying it, she caught sight of something small penciled in on the lower-right corner.
A date. Written in an elegant feminine hand.
And written in Polish.
Hanna’s first language was Polish.
She considered Hanna’s room, the dual sense of loneliness and confinement.
Nyx knew what lengths she herself had gone to in order to escape her fate.
But how far would Hanna go to escape hers?
Suddenly, Nyx wasn’t so sure this was about the mastermind at all.
Chapter Thirteen
Grigoris was rudely awakened when something heavy dropped onto his stomach, forcing the air from his lungs.
He lunged up, moving through the pain, shoving whatever was pinning him off to the side as he whipped his knife from the sheath. He stopped the blade mere centimeters from Nyx’s throat.
She ignored the blade. “Hanna is the shooter.”
Grigoris collapsed back on the bed, panting in horror. “I almost stabbed you.”
“You wouldn’t have stabbed me. Hanna shot Petro.”
“I could have stabbed you.” Grigoris lifted his head. “I came at you with a knife. Are you all right?” After what she’d been through, having a knife that close to her body had to trigger some bad memories.
Nyx looked down at him in irritation. “I don’t have time for unnecessary emotional reactions. Hanna is the shooter, and potentially the mastermind.”
“Unnecessary…” Grigoris sheathed his knife and then threw his arm over his face. His heart was still racing.
“Hmm, no, she might be too young to be the mastermind. Then again, discounting someone based on youth might be a folly.” Nyx lifted his arm, peering down at him. “It appears you aren’t fully awake. Would it help if I slapped you?”
“Don’t slap me.”
“Then get up and pay attention.”
Grigoris sat up, a sense of déjà vu taking him by surprise. It took only a moment to realize that this conversation reminded him of when he’d first met Nyx. The thought made him smile. It was nice to see her returning to her former self.
Nyx stared at him. “Are you sure slapping you wouldn’t assist in waking you up?”
Grigoris slid one arm around her waist and jerked her onto the bed. She landed on his lap with a surprised squeak. He kissed her long and deep, and when he was done, she was the one who seemed not quite awake. With a smirk, he slid out from under her, quickly pulling on some clothes before turning back.
She was fully dressed, and the heavy thing she’d dropped on him turned out to be a battered black duffel bag. His amusement turned to outrage.
“You went out without me? Nyx, that was dangerous.”
“Hmmm?” She touched her lips with her fingertips.
The caveman part of him was happy he could distract her so thoroughly. The knight part of him wanted to shake some sense into her.
“Nyx, focus,” he commanded.
She blinked, then looked at him. Her eyes narrowed. “You did that on purpose.”
“Payback, for making me almost stab you.”
“You wouldn’t have stabbed me.”
Her faith in him was…alarming. “You shouldn’t have left the room without telling me.”
“You are not my keeper.”
“No, I’m your bodyguard, and I can’t guard your body unless it stays with me.”
“You needed sleep.”
This was going nowhere. “Why do you think Hanna is the shooter? Where did you go?”
“I went to Petro’s room. The master suite.”
“Skatá, Nyx!”
“Stop cursing and look in the bag.”
Grigoris jerked the duffel to the edge of the bed and ripped open the zipper, his irritation at her fueled by his fear that something could have happened to her, making his movements short and choppy. He looked into the bag and froze. “This was in Hanna’s room?”
“Actually, it was in my room.” Her lips twisted as she said the words.
“Your bedroom in the master suite?”
“Petro would not allow his wives their own bedrooms,” she said with a sneer in her voice. “But the master suite has two large dressing rooms, huge closets with small beds in them. I’m assuming that sleeping in those beds, rather than in the massive bed in the main room, is intended as some sort of punishment.”
Grigoris wanted to haul her into his arms, to promise her, even if he had no right to make that promise, he would keep her safe. That she would never have to see Petro again.
If Petro is the mastermind, I can kill him.
If I say he’s the mastermind, kill him, and then it turns out he isn’t, Petro would still be dead. Then I could blame the real mastermind for orchestrating my mistake.
Those disconcerting thoughts were both abhorrent and tempting.
“These are pieces for a long-range rifle. It would fire .223 rounds.”
“Is that what shot Petro?”
“According to Ivan. I need to call and get an update.”
“Lazar or Hans might have spoken to Petro, or at least to Hanna.”
“True.” Grigoris ran a hand through his hair.
Nyx reached into the bag and pulled out folded target papers. She carefully unfolded them, laying them on the bed then watching him with an air of expectation.
He flipped through them, blood starting to hum with adrenaline. Each target showed a cluster of shots in the right shoulder, almost exactly where Petro had been hit. Nyx pointed to the handwriting in the corner.
“This is Polish. Hanna’s first language, though by the time I knew her, she predominantly spoke Hungarian.”
“Hanna is the shooter,” Grigoris cursed. “And she left with the admiral. He might be in danger.”
“He is in danger. I think she may also be the mastermind.”
Grigoris wanted to agree. He wanted it to be that simple. But it wasn’t. Nothing about this was simple. “Or, she doesn’t love him and saw an opportunity to kill him, to free herself, and hope the blame would fall on the mastermind.”
Nyx looked down at her hands. “It’s not a bad plan.”
Grigoris searched through the bag a second time, then glanced at Nyx. “You said you found this in your room?”
“Yes.”
“Skatá.”
“What?” Nyx asked.
“She might be planning to frame you for the shooting. You show up after years of avoiding Petro and he’s shot.”
Nyx’s eyes went round with shock. “But I wouldn’t write a date in Polish.”
“Do you speak Polish?”
“Some.”
“Nyx…”
Nyx bounced to her feet and started to pace. “If she’s the shooter, she could have written the date in a language we both know, but people might assume would be hers. Then she placed the gun accessories in my room to make it seem like I was planning to frame her, instead of her framing me.” Nyx stilled, frowning. “But then why wouldn’t she put the gun pieces in her own closet? If I were framing her, wouldn’t it make more sense for me to plant evidence there?”
“Yes, and no. It could be Hanna isn’t involved at all,” Grigoris said. “There’s a saying—when you hear hoofbeats, a horse is more likely than a zebra.”
“She hates me,” Nyx said quietly. “She said before they left that she’d see me burn.”
“Damn it,” Grigoris cursed. “That points more to her trying to frame you for shooting Petro rather than to her being the mastermind. And I keep coming back to timing…”
“But if she’s such a good shot, why didn’t she kill Petro? If she hates him, why not shoot him in the head?” Nyx remembered what he’d said and parroted his words back.
Grigoris opened his mouth, closed it. “We have too many possibilities and not enough answers.”
“Unless,” Nyx said slowly. “Unless Petro planned it with Hanna. He had Hanna shoot him in a nonlethal spot, made her practice first. That way he was removed from suspicion.”
“Hanna wouldn’t have had time to circle around…” Grigoris stopped, frowning. “Unless she came in directly through the shattered window. A straight shot, a quick sprint, and she hides in the room, waits for the first responder to run out looking for help, then she goes to Petro, pretending she just slipped in. It’s tricky but possible.”
“Don’t forget about the bomb in the helicopter. He would have been on that helicopter when the bomb went off if we hadn’t gone searching for it.”
“And he could have planned for that,” she insisted but then frowned. “Bomb-making seems to be a more unique skill than proficiency with firearms.”
“Agreed, and dogs went over the whole property. If Hanna, or Petro, was hiding explosive materials, the dogs would have found them.”
“Then Petro had one of his pet bomb-makers plant the bomb. Maybe the bomb was on the helicopter the whole time.”
“That’s convoluted and complicated planning,” Grigoris said gently.
“Which is what the mastermind has been doing.”
“I know you want it to be him,” Grigoris said. In truth, he wanted it to be Petro too. “But it would be too easy to twist the evidence to fit the theory. Right now, my major concern is that you are being set up.”
Nyx’s composed confidence had fractured, and she stepped closer to him. “What do we do next?”
Grigoris wrapped an arm around her and kissed the top of her head. “We get more information. It’s time to wake some people up and start asking questions.”
“What do you want me to do?”
Grigoris looked down at her. “You stay with me. I don’t trust anyone right now. We remain together.”
Nyx nodded, her cheek rubbing his. “Are we starting with Nikolett? I don’t want it to be her.”
“No,” Grigoris said. “We’re going to talk to Lazar. You have good instincts, and the fact that you were worried about what he said tells me we need to talk to him again.”
“What do we do with the duffel?” she asked.
Grigoris repacked the bag, zipping it shut. “Show me that secret passage.”
“Ah, feck ye for a game of soldiers.”
“You know there is no game, Colum?” Josephine asked, twiddling one of the knotted strings on her peasant blouse. She was bored, and had been ever since Eric had assigned her the task of working with her brother in the archive in Dublin. Meanwhile, all the other librarians were out in the field, investigating suspects, searching for clues.
Darn Eric and his overprotectiveness. While the fleet admiral would never admit it, she was certain he’d given her this task because he was trying to keep her out of harm’s way. Given the fact Karl and Nyx had been put in very dangerous and nearly deadly situations while doing their parts to track down the mastermind in Bucharest, she could understand that, but it didn’t please her to be stuffed in some…well…stuffy archive.
“There’s no actual game,” he grumped, looking up from the paper he was examining. He had on a jeweler’s headset and one of his eyes looked huge, thanks to the magnification.
Josephine rolled her eyes. She loved her brother dearly, but he was confusing as hell. “What are you looking at?”
“Letters from members to past fleet admirals. I’m looking for any that show dissatisfaction with the way the organization is run.”
“Ooooo. Anything juicy? Gossip?”
“I can’t read the fecking handwriting.”
“Lemme look,” she said, trying to shove her brother out of the way. He was immovable, unwilling to give up his seat. “Come on,” she pleaded. “You never let me see anything.”
“I’m the archivist.”
“Yeah, and that and two pounds will get you a box of Barry’s.”
“Get on with ya,” he grumped again, peering at the faded cursive handwriting on a very old-looking piece of paper.
“Eric sent me here to help you. You aren’t letting me help, you gobshite.” She’d come straight to the archive after Eric had held his Viking traitors meeting. She’d helped him come up with the name, and even now it still made her giggle, though there was nothing funny about what they were trying to do. She wished Eric had given her a more exciting assignment. Sending her to work with her brother in the archives was the equivalent to watching paint dry. And all they had to show for their efforts was…nothing. So far, only a few people had come looking for information, and the likelihood that some old letter would hold the key to the current problem was slim.
“I don’t know why he sent you here, except to feck with me. Everything I have is thirty years old and older. I don’t have emails, and if this daft fucker is alive now, and was stupid enough to have emailed Kacper something about how he hated him, I wouldn’t have a record of that.”
Josephine sighed. “Give me the letter. Let me do something. I’m going out of my mind here, boyo.”
Colum sighed and reached into a case, pulling out a second letter encased in two thin, rigid pieces of plastic. “Here. Read this.”
Josephine scanned the paper, silently agreeing with her brother. The handwriting was nearly illegible. But it was better than looking at the top of Colum’s head, listening to him grumble and curse all day. She turned to a clean sheet of paper in her notebook and picked up a pencil, ready to transcribe the entire thing. If she could.
Was that first letter an A or an H?
Several hours later, Josephine sat up, stretching her back even as she frowned. So far what the letters had told her was that most objections from the membership had to do with the Masters’ Admiralty’s involvement, or lack thereof, in various political issues of the day. So far, the one thing they hadn’t run up against was any sort of political motivation.
“Fancy going to get a pint at the pub with me? I need to give my eyes a rest,” she said when it got too hard to focus on the page.
Colum didn’t even look up from the paper, shaking his head.
“Maybe I’ll just take a walk then. We’ve been sitting here for hours. Wanna come with me? Even vampires need fresh air every now and again.”
Colum waved her away. “Just bring me some.”
“Bring you some fresh air?”
“Food, drink, whatever.” Colum jotted some notes on a pad of paper, then selected another letter from the case beside him.
Josephine sighed. She’d eaten alone every night since she’d started working with her brother at the archive. Not that she should have been surprised by that. Colum didn’t do people, in general, and as far as she knew, she was the only one—with the exception of Eric—who occasionally got eye contact and two minutes of real conversation.
She smiled down at the top of his head, feeling affection for the oaf. Then she bent over and placed a kiss on his brow.
Colum swatted her away like she was a bothersome gnat. “Get on with ye. You know I hate that shite.”
Josephine laughed, and in true annoying little sister style, she kissed him again on the cheek. “I love you too, Colum, ye gobshite.”
“Imigh uaim,” he muttered.
Josephine laughed at his usual, un-endearing way of saying go away instead of goodbye. “You’re going to miss me when I’m gone,” she singsonged…her usual reply.
She left him alone in the archive, debating whether or not to have the chipper or Chinese takeaway.
Chapter Fourteen
It was late afternoon by the time Grigoris was able to speak to Lazar. His attendant Patty had given the vice admiral something to help him sleep, and Grigoris hadn’t been willing to go so far as to slap the sick old man awake.
By then, he’d spoken with most of the other guests, and let anyone who wasn’t a member of the Masters’ Admiralty go. His afternoon round of interrogations had included Nikolett, who had questioned him as much as he’d questioned her.
Fedir’s questioning of the staff had been slightly more productive. Petro’s estate had a live-in staff of four people, plus the full-time residents, Petro, Hanna, and, surprisingly, Lazar himself. The four staff members included an estate manager, cook, chauffeur who was also a pilot, and Patty, who also served as assistant to the estate manager. Those four individuals had rooms in what Grigoris was now referring to as the servants’ wing of the house. In it were six small bedrooms, a restaurant-style kitchen—separate from the smaller kitchen Petro and Hanna had for their personal use—and industrial laundry facilities as well as the estate manager’s office.
The servants’ wing was only accessible from the rest of the mansion via a single door in a back hall. Besides that, there were four entrances that opened directly onto the grounds, but the servants’ wing was on the opposite side of the massive building from Petro’s office.
Two full-time maids came in on a daily basis but didn’t live on-site. There were also gardeners and vintners and a roster of regular service people—exterminators, plumbers, electricians—who all used one of the servant entrances, usually going to the estate manager’s office to check in.
