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

She smiled. “I love you too, but we can’t steer our destinies any more than Walt can. The admiral will put us in trinities that he chooses.”

Jakob didn’t respond to that, not at first. Walt didn’t believe it was the silent stoic returning as much as Jakob was weighing what he said next.

“Perhaps. But what if we talk to the admiral together? Plead our case.”

Annalise glanced at Walt. “We could, but…”

“But Walt wouldn’t be with us.” Jakob scrubbed his hand over his close-cropped hair in frustration. “He’s a part of us now. Mist! I can’t stand this. Can’t stand the thought of losing both of you. I’ve spent years dreaming of this moment with you, Annalise, never imagining we’d be together. And now that we’ve found Walt…I never knew love could feel like this. So intense. So right. So perfect.”

Though the sheer agony in Jakob’s tone cut deep, Walt was thrilled that Jakob no longer held back with them. “I feel the same way,” Walt admitted. “I’ve spent the last six months watching my brothers fall head over ass in love, wondering if something was missing inside me, some vital piece, because I’d never experienced anything even close to what they described feeling for their partners. Now? Well, now, I get it.”

Annalise turned to her back, taking their hands in hers. “Let’s not talk about the end tonight, please. I’ve spent the last four years fearing what may happen in the future. For right now, I want to live in the present. I’m happy here. It’s been so long, so damn long…”

“You’re right,” Walt said, squeezing her hand. “Now isn’t the time to worry about what’s to come. Let’s steal as much joy as we can during the time we have left together. Let’s make it all count.”

Jakob placed a soft kiss on the side of Annalise’s head. “Let’s make it count,” he repeated.

With that decision made, sleep came much easier and quickly.

Walt pushed away every other concern, focusing only on his happiness, a happiness so big, he was surprised he could hold it all.

When he closed his eyes, he drifted away with a smile on his face, his dreams the sweetest he’d ever had.

Nikolett rolled off the couch, unable to untangle herself from the blanket in time to make it graceful. She landed in a heap, struggled inelegantly, and finally unwrapped herself. Bouncing to her feet, she threw off the blanket. Panting, she looked around to make sure her office was empty and no one had seen her looking ridiculous. No one. Good.

Nikolett cleared her throat, tugged down her shirt, and smoothed back her hair.

She wobbled for a moment—damn it, naps always made her feel odd—then folded and stowed the blanket before going to her desk.

Needing a minute, Nikolett jiggled her desktop computer awake and opened major news sites in Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia, and the Ukraine. She was fluent in Hungarian—her native language—English, and Romanian. She had basic conversational language skills in Ukrainian and Bulgarian and was working toward both verbal and written fluency.

Pulling a small toiletries bag out of her desk, she scanned the headlines as she applied some moisturizer and brushed the sleep tangles out of her hair. She’d take a few more minutes to herself, and then she’d go back into the conference room and—

Nikolett’s eyes narrowed, then widened as she clicked on “more” to keep reading an article. It wasn’t one of the top news articles—the story had been toward the bottom of the homepage on the Ekspres, a major Ukrainian newspaper, which she’d had the computer translate since she wasn’t up for trying to muddle through it.

Twenty-seven-year-old Zasha Romanov, an international trade lawyer and native of Odessa, had been missing for four days, last seen leaving her office in a city-center building.

Nikolett clicked over to read the original article from the local Odessan newspaper, but it was in Russian. Sadly, her Russian was terrible, and though predominantly ethnically Ukrainian, Russian was the main language in Odessa, as it was along much of the coast of the Black Sea.

Nikolett shook her head, telling herself to calm down. Odessa was a large city, but not on the scale of Krakow or Dublin, and it didn’t have a large English-speaking population. She glanced at the picture of Zasha—brown hair, light gray or blue eyes. Brown hair was the only similarity between her and the other victims. In fact, brown hair and a white-collar job were some of the only commonalities they’d been able to put together for victimology.

And Zasha fit both of those.

Nikolett couldn’t ignore this tense, tight feeling. Maybe it was a product of lack of sleep. Maybe she was hoping for there to be similarities because she wanted to find and stop this killer. Hesitating for only a moment, she quickly tapped the keys to translate the article, then searched for other articles, in languages she did know, on the Zasha Romanov disappearance.

Her printer whirred to life and Nikolett snatched up the papers as she stood.

Zasha had seemingly vanished, and it appeared the authorities were ready to say she’d fled the country for unspecified reasons. One article included a quote from her brother, a former Ukrainian Navy officer, now CEO of a major stevedoring company based out of the port of Odessa, vehemently denying that his sister was connected with any criminal activities and insisting that she had no reason to flee.

Nikolett marched into the conference room, sweeping her gaze around. Grigoris and Nyx were gone, Dimitri was slumped in a chair in the corner, apparently asleep, but Vadisk was there, his massive body looking ridiculous hunched over a tiny laptop. Nikolett thrust the papers at him.

Vadisk had apparently been concentrating so hard he hadn’t heard her approach. Startled, he reached out and grabbed her wrist, starting to jerk her forward before he realized what he was doing. Nikolett didn’t show any outward reaction, though internally she yelped in surprise and a little fear.

“Admiral. Sorry.” Vadisk grimaced and released her.

She waited, still holding out