Wrath's Storm: A Masters' Admiralty Novel Mari Carr (great books of all time .txt) 📖

to make your acquaintance, Dr. Fischer. It is good to see you safe and sound after your ordeal yesterday.”

Jakob recognized the man’s voice from the car phone. “Dimitri. I want to thank you for your help.”

“Dimitri,” Walt said, shaking the man’s hand. “Nice to have a face to go with the voice.”

Annalise looked at Jakob curiously, so he explained. “Dimitri was instrumental in helping us find you.”

She smiled at Dimitri. “Thank you, truly, and please, call me Annalise.”

Dimitri nodded his head.

“And this,” Nyx said, pointing to the other man, “is my husband, Grigoris Violaris.”

Grigoris shook Jakob’s and Walt’s hands.

Jakob cleared his throat and forced himself to say something rather than make do with the silent nod. “It is good to meet you, chorbajis.”

Grigoris smiled. “I’m neither janissary nor chorbajis any longer, but thank you.”

The upheaval in Hungary had affected not only that territory, but others. When Nikolett pulled Nyx in to be vice admiral, Grigoris had come with her, relinquishing his position as leader of the janissaries—the Ottoman territory knights. Security minister Dimitri and his trinity, which included the former leader of the Spartan Guard, Mateo, had moved here from England. Petro had left Hungary in shambles, and Nikolett had pulled in the best to help her revive the territory.

“You need medical attention,” Nyx said, turning to Annalise and Walt. “I’ve had a portable X-ray machine set up in one of the conference rooms down the hall.”

“Thank you,” Walt said. “I’m fairly sure she’s okay, but based on the bruise, there could be a stable closed fracture to the humerus.” He gestured to her arm, which was in a simple sling they’d bought at a pharmacy on the way to the helicopter.

Nyx studied Annalise’s face. “Are you in pain?”

“Oh no,” Annalise interjected. “I’m fine. Walt has given me medicine for the pain and I’m certain nothing is broken.”

Nikolett gestured toward the long table. “Good, because I’d like to begin. However, if you find yourself in pain, we can get you enough drugs to allow you to function.”

Grigoris shook his head and walked up to his wife, placing a hand on her back. Being in the same room as Nyx and Nikolett was giving Jakob the twitchy feeling he got when in the presence of powerful, dangerous people. Vadisk and Dimitri weren’t exactly non-threatening, but they were more of a physical threat.

Now, as in the hotel, Vadisk took his place beside the closed door to Nyx’s office, while the rest of them claimed chairs at the table. Jakob didn’t like having Vadisk doing a job he would prefer to be doing himself, but he had no authority here. Another thing that was making him twitchy.

Nikolett took a spot at the head of the table, the other end occupied by Nyx. Dimitri and Jakob sat together on one side, facing Annalise and Walt. Grigoris had rolled Nyx’s office chair over to sit next to and slightly behind his wife.

“Walt, can you set up my laptop?” Annalise asked.

“Do we need a whiteboard?” Nyx asked, sounding almost hopeful.

Annalise blinked. “No, but do you have a projector?”

For the first time, Nyx grinned. “I like visual aids.”

Grigoris helped Nyx set up a small projector on the tabletop, then lifted a painting down off the wall to give them a wide white surface.

Annalise was working one-handed—Walt grumbled at her each time she tried to slide her arm out of the sling—so Jakob got up and acted as her assistant. He knew how she worked, what she would need. In a way, he could imagine he was helping her prepare for a lecture.

Finally, Annalise tapped the trackpad and projected on the wall was a window showing two files. One titled “Decapitation,” the other “Dismemberment.”

Grigoris murmured something in Greek, Dimitri stiffened, and Nikolett sat forward, all their attention on the screen.

Nyx had gone perfectly still.

Annalise began. “I was asked to consult on the profile of a possible serial killer.”

“By whom?” Nyx turned dark eyes to Annalise.

Jakob tensed, the feeling that he was amongst dangerous people increasing. Annalise ignored the question.

“As you can see, the potential uniting factor is that the bodies are not left intact. From that broad categorization, there are two subcategories, each with possible different pathologies.”

Annalise clicked open the decapitation file, and a list of subfolders appeared, each bearing the name of a victim. Annalise clicked on the folder labeled Josephine O’Connor.

Nyx jumped to her feet, her chair toppling backwards. Her face was stark. Pale. “Josephine.”

Annalise looked over. “Oh, I’m sorry, I should have warned you that you might know of some of the victims.”

“Know of?” Nyx snarled.

Grigoris reached over and closed the laptop.

The projection cut off.

“We don’t…didn’t…just know her,” Grigoris said softly. “She was our wife.”

Chapter Seventeen

Annalise stared at Grigoris and Nyx, utterly horrified by what she’d just done. A wave of nausea passed through her.

Josephine had been their third? Nothing in the file the fleet admiral had given her mentioned that Josephine was married. She’d thought, given his unyielding determination to bring the killer to justice, that perhaps she and the fleet admiral had been lovers.

Nyx closed her eyes for a moment, then put a hand on her husband’s arm. When she opened her eyes, she stared straight ahead and sank down into her chair, which Grigoris had righted.

“She would have been our third,” Nyx said softly. “If she hadn’t been murdered. But most importantly, she was my friend. I felt her death keenly.”

Nikolett was looking at Nyx with such compassion that it softened the admiral, who struck Annalise as the sort to take no prisoners. Of course, at the same time, Nikolett was the kind of woman who wouldn’t have broken, wouldn’t have gone into hiding from a stalker. She would have stood her ground in the middle of the street and dared the villain to come for her, especially if, by doing so, she was protecting someone else.

Annalise glanced at Walt, then Jakob. They each smiled back at her, and she tried to let their kindness ease her guilt over upsetting Nyx.

“I’m