Chapter 2

Chapter Two

V adisk watched his husband and wife stride onto the tarmac and wondered again how he'd ended up here.

A week and a half ago, he'd gotten the call that fucked up his life.

He was married.

To two Americans.

And he was probably going to have to leave the Masters' Admiralty to move to America with them and…learn to be a cowboy? Fuck.

While Vadisk didn't bother to hide his irritation, he couldn't stop himself from looking at them possessively. After all, they were his.

Montana.

The man was shorter than Vadisk—almost everyone was—and heavily muscled. He walked with an easygoing stride that spoke of confidence. Vadisk had worked as a bouncer at a club, and a man who moved like that was one he'd watch out for if a fight started. He had reddish hair but sunglasses obscured his eyes.

Dahlia.

She was shorter than Montana by at least ten or twelve centimeters, with straight dark hair cut in a precise line that swung as she walked. A slight smile curved her lips, and she pushed her sunglasses onto her head, squinting a little against the light. Her smile widened as she looked at him, though it didn't reach her eyes. A polite smile. His wife wore a dress made of some soft-looking fabric flowing around her and a short jacket.

His wife.

His husband.

Fucking fleet admiral.

Vadisk still didn't know exactly what the hell had happened at that meeting in Dublin. He'd gone with his admiral, Nikolett, but hadn't been in the meeting itself. He hadn't even been allowed on the grounds, the fleet admiral's Spartan Guard stopping him at the Trinity College gate.

He'd been in a pub just off College Green when his phone rang. He'd planned to ignore it, but then a text from Nikolett popped up on the screen telling him to answer the call.

An American woman he didn't know had announced that he was getting married, not to two members of the Masters' Admiralty but to members of the Trinity Masters—the American secret society based on the same principle of arranged trinity marriages.

He hadn't believed it until, several minutes into the call, the fleet admiral came on and reiterated what the American woman had said.

The marriage would have been shocking enough, but to find out they'd also been given a mission, and a dangerous one at that, had Vadisk reeling.

Especially given what was happening in Budapest right now. Guilt and anxiety at leaving his admiral unprotected—though he knew the other security officers and harcosok would look after her—made his shit mood shittier.

It had been a busy ten days since that call. So busy that he hadn't actually met his new spouses in person until this moment, the three of them chatting only once—briefly—on a video call. Half that time had been spent preparing for this mission, the other half desperately trying to make sure his admiral was safe and protected without him.

Nikolett hadn't said much about the meeting, but she did tell him, in a quiet voice, that she tried to stop the marriage and had been overruled. He had a feeling more bad shit had happened based on the stark, haunted look in her eyes.

Fucking fleet admiral.

"Vadisk?" Dahlia asked.

Vadisk breathed out through his nose and nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

Dahlia held out her hand. "Dahlia McKean." Her lips twitched. "Your wife." Vadisk took her hand in his, surprised to feel some hard spots on her palm at the base of her fingers. Calluses.

Beside her, Montana chuckled, the sound low and rich, and when Dahlia took her hand back, Montana extended his. "Montana-Reginald James Kingston. Nice to meet you, man."

Vadisk faltered as he reached for the other man's hand, a bit surprised by his easygoing attitude, but only for a moment. They gripped one another briefly.

"Montana Reginald? You said that like you have two first names," Dahlia said.

"Technically, I do." Montana shook his head in mock distress. "My mom hyphenated it, but I go by just Montana."

Dahlia laughed. "There's a story there, I think."

"Yep. But don't ask." He winced.

Dahlia stepped closer and put a hand on Vadisk's arm. "Well, now I think we definitely need to know why you're named Montana."

Vadisk looked down at where her small hand rested against his biceps. Her fingers were long and delicate, the nails curved and well maintained.

One thing Vadisk hadn't let himself think about was his physical relationship with his new spouses. By rights, they could, and should, fuck.

He was silent too long because Dahlia's fingers curled into her palm, her nails scraping lightly against the fabric of his sleeve, before pulling her hand away.

Montana was watching him with a narrow-eyed gaze, and when Dahlia backed up, Montana moved closer to her.

"Vadisk Rustemvych Kushnir," he said, formally introducing himself with a nod to each of them. Then he gestured behind him. "This is our plane." He would have preferred to fly them in himself via helicopter, but to do that they would have had to fly out of Ukraine, and all airspace over both Ukraine and Crimea was restricted.

Getting the private plane in and out only worked because the wealthy Russians who were using Crimea as a vacation destination had already paved the way for private planes to land as long as all the right people were bribed.

"Flying private?" Montana eyed the sleek plane the admiral of Rome had arranged for them. "How many seats?"

"Twelve."

Montana's shoulders lowered fractionally, and he nodded.

The sound of wheels on concrete made them all turn. A porter approached with a flatbed cart bearing suitcases and a black hard-sided case.

They all watched in somewhat awkward silence as the porter wheeled the luggage past them to the private plane, where he helped a member of the ground crew load the bags.

"Do you have your Russian-issued visas?" Vadisk asked.

Dahlia nodded. "Yes." She raised a brow. "Do you?"

"Yes. I have a grandfather who was from Perekop. In northern Krym. My territory…" Did they know what that meant? What a Masters' Admiralty territory was? "My people scrubbed my history, so it shows I grew up in Ukraine, but with no strong ties or loyalties." Vadisk tugged at the sleeve of his shirt. He'd be wearing long sleeves for the duration of this trip, despite the summer heat. The Ukrainian military tattoos that made up part of the sleeve of ink on his left arm would be a problem if anyone saw them.

Vadisk switched from English to Russian. "ты говоришь по-русски?"

"Да, я жил в Москве три года, когда был моложе," Dahlia replied.

Vadisk's brows rose. She not only spoke Russian, but he couldn't detect a foreign accent when she did.

"Can I get a translation?" Montana asked.

"Vadisk asked if I spoke Russian. I said yes, and that I'd lived in Moscow for three years when I was young."

"That's why you speak like a native," Vadisk said.

"Not quite that good but well enough," Dahlia said in agreement. She leaned to the side, studying the plane. "Shall we?"

Without waiting for a response, Dahlia brushed past him and headed for the plane.

Montana fell into step with Vadisk.

"Hey, man, do we have a problem?" Montana's tone was deceptively mild.

Vadisk's shoulders knotted. Did they have a problem? Yes. This marriage had destroyed Vadisk's life. But he wouldn't say that. As fucking pissed as he was, he knew neither Montana nor Dahlia had orchestrated this.

Since the day he joined, he'd known he wouldn't choose his spouses, but he hadn't expected his marriage to force him to leave not only his home but the whole fucking continent, plus leave behind a job he loved and was good at—security officer for Hungary.

Out loud, all he said was, "No."

Vadisk felt Montana watching him as they finished crossing to the plane.

A flight attendant greeted them at the top of the stairs. "Welcome aboard." She stepped back and gestured for them to enter; Dahlia was first, Vadisk in the rear. He had to practically bend in half to get through. His head bumped into Montana's back, the other man having stopped just inside the door.

Vadisk grunted and braced one hand on the bulkhead, feeling seriously fucking stupid stuck in the doorway like this.

"Sorry," Montana muttered, taking several steps.

Vadisk finally made it onto the plane, though he kept his head ducked so he wouldn't brain himself.

They took their seats, Montana and Dahlia sitting beside one another, while he sat across the aisle.

"Once we're in the air, it's about four hours to Sevastopol," the attendant said. "We'll wait here for confirmation of permission to land, as we wouldn't want to run out of fuel."

The flight attendant's smile was strained. Normally the only way to fly into Crimea was on a Russian military plane; there were no commercial flights. The flight attendant, and probably the pilots, were most likely used to flying rich people from one rich-person destination to another. Not flying into an area in active conflict, knowing that their flight would be tracked with antiaircraft missiles by at least two different governments.

From Athens, they'd fly east across the Aegean, make a left somewhere over Turkey, and cross the Black Sea to approach Crimea from the south.

"Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help," Dahlia said to her.

The flight attendant nodded, looking a little relieved. Dahlia's connections, and Crimean officials' excitement at having her visit, were what made this possible. The permits had been mostly done by the time Vadisk was told what was going on.

Dahlia and Montana had been planning this for months before that meeting in Dublin.

Undoing his seat belt, Vadisk stood, dropping into the seat facing Dahlia, who sat on the aisle. The flight attendant started to say something, so Vadisk looked at her. Her teeth clicked together as she closed her mouth.

When she headed to the small galley up front, Vadisk turned back to Dahlia and Montana.

"This is a dangerous situation," he said.

"I know," Montana said, some of that easygoing confidence having morphed into tension. Or maybe aggression. "My great-uncle paid blackmail for forty-five years."

"I'm not talking about the blackmailer. I'm talking about Krym." He paused, correcting himself to the name they would know. "Crimea."

The diamond-shaped peninsula of land stuck out into the Black Sea, which bordered three of its four sides, with the Sea of Azof on the northeastern shore. The northern tip of the diamond was a patchwork of sea and land, small islands a testament that at some point, it had been fully connected to the rest of the continent. By car or foot, there were only three ways into Crimea—two north-south motorways that crossed the border with Ukraine, and to the east, a bridge spanned the Strait of Kerch, connecting Crimea to Russia.

Crimea was a Ukrainian territory according to most of the world's governments, but it had been occupied and annexed by Russia, so realistically it was under Russian control, hence their need for Russian visas to enter.

Culturally and historically, Krym, or Crimea, belonged to itself, with a history that stretched back to the earliest known records. Crimea had been Greek, Mongol, Ottoman…

"Sir, we have clearance. Please return to a forward-facing seat."

Vadisk rose, still hunched, and crossed the aisle. Montana was watching the flight attendant pull in the stairs with an odd look on his face. Once the aircraft door was closed, he turned to look out the window.

Vadisk watched Dahlia as the plane took off. She was calm, her legs crossed, a tablet propped on her knee. He'd watched her videos since learning she'd be his wife. Not all of them, there hadn't been time, but enough. She seemed to always be calm and collected, yet there had to be a wildness inside. A thirst for danger. Otherwise, why would she have made a career of traveling to places that were dangerous for her to seek out?

The plane picked up altitude, and Vadisk sat back, working his jaw to pop his ears once they were high enough. It didn't take long for the seat belt sign to click off. Vadisk returned to his seat across from Dahlia, who tucked her tablet into the armrest storage area, giving him her full attention.

Montana was still looking out the window and taking deep, slow breaths. Maybe he got airsick.

"We need a plan," Vadisk said.

"We have a plan." Dahlia reached for her tablet. "I can send you the itinerary?—"

"I read it," Vadisk said, cutting her off.

At that, Montana focused on him.

"You have an itinerary, but we need a plan for how you present yourselves," Vadisk explained.

"We're going in as a couple, and you're our guide and translator," Montana said.

Vadisk shook his head. "You two shouldn't go in as a couple. Sharing a plane is bad enough, but explainable."

"Why do you think we can't present ourselves as a couple?" Dahlia asked.

"You don't want anyone thinking about your relationship. Better to make this trip seem like it's only work."

"That's bullshit." Montana sat forward, elbows on his knees, weight shifted toward Dahlia. "Being a couple gives us an excuse to stay together, and safety-wise, that's a priority."

"We should have different rooms?—"

This time, Dahlia cut Vadisk off.

"I booked a massive villa at the resort where the blackmail took place. It sleeps eight and has two wings. It makes perfect sense for you to stay with us. If anyone questions that, I can honestly say I've done it before. Occasionally, I'll bring a guide or translator with me rather than hiring someone local, and in those instances, my guide and I stay together, especially if I've rented a house or we're staying at a hostel."

"You two will attract attention," Vadisk all but growled. "Two Americans in Crimea…"

"We're not tourists," Montana insisted. "I'm going in on a research visa."

"Technically, I probably count as a tourist," Dahlia said with a smile. "But I have filming and work permits attached to my visa."

Logically, what they said made sense, but Vadisk knew better. Everyone they encountered would be watching them. Assessing. Judging. Any and all interpersonal relationships would be noted. But he didn't know how to put that into words in a way that wouldn't make him sound paranoid. He was paranoid, but he didn't want to admit that publicly.

Vadisk laced his fingers to make one big fist. "The three of us, staying in the same villa, at the same resort where people like us were blackmailed… It's stupid."

"We're not staying in the same room. There are four bedrooms, three of them on the complete opposite wing of the house." Dahlia was still calm and collected, but there was a faint thread of frustration lacing through her voice. "The villa has a private pool, several balconies, two kitchens, and its own golf cart you drive to get around the resort property. No one is going to assume that we're sleeping together."

"Especially if you keep being an asshole to us," Montana added.

Vadisk jerked in surprise, then winced. He wasn't this person. Dangerous, yes, and mean when he needed to be, but not an asshole.

He needed to talk to them, maybe explain what he was feeling. Vadisk owed them at least that much. "I didn't expect that getting married would mean leaving everything behind and moving half a world away."

Dahlia's brows rose in clear surprise. Montana's expression didn't change.

"This isn't what I agreed to," Vadisk said, realizing too late the words came out harsher than he'd intended.

"Maybe things are different in the Masters' Admiralty," Dahlia said. "I'll admit I didn't know anything about your society until my Grand Master called to tell me I was getting married. I'm assuming that, like us, the marriages are arranged without input from those being placed together."

Vadisk nodded his head. "It is the same."

"Yet you want…a choice?"

"There's a big difference between our arrangement and others in our societies." Vadisk's jaw muscles hurt from clenching his teeth.

"I agree," Dahlia said softly. "There is. How do things typically proceed in the Masters' Admiralty once you are called to the altar?"

Vadisk puzzled over the word altar briefly. "We're called together, bound in a ceremony." He wasn't even sure which ceremony they'd do. The Trinity Masters' marriage was probably slightly different than a Masters' Admiralty ceremony and definitely wouldn't involve going to the Isle of Man to sign the book and get the fleet admiral's blessing.

"We haven't had the ceremony yet," Dahlia pointed out.

"No, but we're married," Vadisk concluded, each word heavy.

Dahlia nodded but looked to Montana, who put his hand atop hers and squeezed.

The action made Vadisk feel even more disconnected from the other two. The Americans fit together and seemed, if not pleased, satisfied with the union. Annoyed again, Vadisk jumped out of his seat—nearly cracking his head open—and resumed his seat on the other side of the aisle, leaving Montana and Dahlia together.

Dahlia leaned back in her seat, stared out the van window, and took measured breaths to help calm her heart rate. Her body was having a very normal physiological response to stress and danger, but she knew how to manage it. How to deal with the fact that this had been one of the more harrowing passport controls she'd been through in the past few years.

The officer had taken one look at her and Montana's blue passports and called in additional guards.

Vadisk had already peeled off to use the other passport lane, leaving her and Montana together.

It seemed like that was how it was going to be. Her and Montana together with Vadisk holding himself apart.

Meeting her second husband hadn't gone the way she'd imagined. Nothing about her marriage was the way she imagined. On that point, she and Vadisk were in agreement.

As a legacy, she knew more than most about how things happened. Once she'd joined the Trinity Masters, her parents had told her about the binding ceremony, the marriage ceremony. When she was called to the altar, she'd expected to be summoned to the Boston Public Library. To take the secret elevator down to the underground headquarters—which she personally likened to a temple, thanks to the columns that lined the long main hallway—where she would slip on a robe before stepping out into the dramatically lit medallion room to meet her spouses and pledge herself.

Instead, she'd gotten a much less-formal letter, followed by a phone call that explained both the existence of the Masters' Admiralty (she'd heard rumors of the other society, thanks to family stories, but had thought the society disbanded), that she was about to marry a member from that society, and that her mission to Crimea was now a task assigned to her new trinity.

The fact that Montana was her second spouse hadn't surprised her. Once she was told there was a task assigned to her trinity, she had guessed he'd be one spouse based on the prep work she'd already done at the Grand Master's behest.

She and Montana had been planning this trip to Crimea for several months, but she hadn't actually met him before their marriage was announced. They'd communicated through video calls and email.

She realized she'd closed her eyes as she focused on her breathing and opened them. She didn't want to miss seeing something, even if it was mundane. She wanted to see everything. While she still could.

Beside her, Montana had his arms crossed, his shoulders tight.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Yes. That was…"

"It was," she agreed.

A suited immigration official, accompanied by a soldier holding a very large gun, had taken Dahlia and Montana to different interview rooms. The room had looked and felt like a cell.

She'd been acutely aware of how easy it would be for this to go horribly wrong and turn into not just a bad situation for her personally but a diplomatic nightmare that even her mother, the former foreign service officer and ambassador, wouldn't be able to fix.

But Dahlia hadn't panicked or shown she was afraid. She'd been to far more dangerous places than Crimea, at least dangerous to her personally. This trip was dangerous because she wasn't traveling solo, she had Montana…and Vadisk…to worry about. If she made a mistake, it wasn't just her life and freedom at risk.

And she was, in fact, doing something nefarious. She would film an episode or two of her show "Don't Follow Me" while here in Crimea, but that wasn't the primary purpose of the trip. Given her skill with languages, fluency with different customs, and citizen-of-the-world approach to life, she'd been heavily recruited both by the foreign service and the CIA. Not that the CIA wanted her to be an agent. No, they wanted her to be an information asset.

She'd turned down both organizations.

Maybe if she had been a CIA asset, she wouldn't be quite so unnerved by the multi-hour, relentless questioning she'd gone through at the airport, because if their investigative activities were discovered, it was vaguely possible the CIA might have launched a covert mission to extract her. Then again, she wouldn't want to be extracted if it meant leaving Montana, and yes, Vadisk, behind.

Vadisk might be an ass, but he was her husband.

Her thoughts had spiraled to the point that her heartbeat was picking up again, so she took a few more deep breaths and squared her shoulders, leaning forward to speak quietly to Vadisk, who was in the middle row bench seat.

"Did you have any issues in the airport?" she asked softly in English.

Vadisk glanced back at her, then at the driver, before answering in an equally low voice that wouldn't be heard over the radio playing Russian pop music.

"I don't think they liked me."

It took a minute for his deadpan remark to register, and Dahlia snorted in amusement. "I don't think they liked me either."

Vadisk shifted, his big shoulders rocking. "You were there a long time."

"I was," she agreed. "They wanted to make sure I knew that this wasn't a safe place for a foreigner."

"It's not." Vadisk's shoulder muscles tightened, straining the seams of his long-sleeved dress shirt. "Depending on who you ask, coming here, especially with a Russian visa, is illegal."

"They had me repeat information on how we got clearance to arrive by plane at least four times."

Vadisk grunted, and when he didn't say more, she went back to looking out the window.

The Pivdennoberezhne Highway paralleled the southern tip of the peninsula, the view out the right-hand side of the van occasionally offering glimpses of the water when there was a break in the buildings or landscape.

Vadisk sat forward, speaking to the driver in Russian as they slowed.

"We're almost there," he said when he sat back.

The van turned right off the highway, and the nose of the vehicle tipped down the rather steep grade of the curved road that wound through the verdant cliffs of the shoreline.

They came around a curve, and an oasis of buildings made of butter-yellow stone and rough-cut porous rock spread out before them. The buildings were tucked into the sloped ground and between the trees, sometimes seeming to rise up right out of the hills.

The driver turned off the radio, putting a phone to his ear. Dahlia frowned as she listened.

She leaned in, lips almost at Vadisk's ear. "Is that Ukrainian?"

He tensed. "Sit back, you're too close."

Frowning, she did so, making a mental note to mind his personal space.

"And no," he added. "I think it's Crimean. My grandfather spoke it."

"Interesting." The Crimean language was under threat of extinction according to UNESCO, thanks to a systematic deportation of the native population, including Crimean Tartars. It was possible Vadisk's grandfather, or great-grandparents depending on the timing, had been among those forced from their homeland for speaking their native language.

They turned off the highway, and Dahlia craned her neck to look at the twenty-room hotel building that also housed a spa and restaurant. She took note of the tops of white umbrellas visible along what looked to be a large, curved veranda.

The van turned right, taking a smaller one-lane road that branched off the main driveway to the resort. Where were they going?

Montana, who'd been quiet until now, carefully undid his seat belt, sitting forward. "What are we thinking?" he asked softly.

"Don't react," Vadisk breathed. "Let me."

They'd been headed down toward the water, but the road turned left around a copse of trees. A beautiful two-story villa appeared, as if by magic. Trees hugged two sides, creating a privacy screen shielding them from the rest of the resort property, while a wide veranda on the upper story took advantage of the stunning view of the Black Sea.

The van pulled to a stop in the small circular drive that nestled against the side of the house. There were two golf carts parked off to one side, one of them draped in a cover.

A woman in a white and pale green uniform waited by the door, her smile poised and practiced.

"It's okay. This is our villa," Dahlia said, relieved. She leaned down a little to see all of the building as the driver hopped out. "I booked this one because it would offer us the most privacy."

"We aren't going to have privacy," Vadisk said.

Montana made a noise that sounded like a grunt of agreement.

The driver opened the side door. Vadisk got out first, then Montana, who offered her his hand. She accepted his help but released his hand to make her way toward the waiting staff member.

"Welcome to Crimean Sky," the woman said in English.

"Thank you, I can already tell we're going to enjoy our stay here," Dahlia answered in the same language as she mounted the steps. She waited to see what kind of greeting gesture would be used—extended hand to shake or leaning in to brush cheeks together.

"We're delighted to have you here with us," the woman said, forgoing any physical contact. "Let me give you a tour of Villa Olga."

"Do you need us to check in or register?" Dahlia had planned to start building rapport with the resort staff at check-in. They were going to need access to people and records, and not going to the registration desk, while not totally unexpected given their first-class accommodations, was putting a crimp in her plans.

"No, I've taken care of all of that for you." The woman took several keycards from her pocket and passed one to her, one to Montana who'd joined her, and then hesitated when looking at Vadisk.

"There's accommodation in a separate wing from the primary bedroom, correct?" Dahlia raised her brow.

"Yes, of course. Your…attendant will have a room, and you will have privacy."

"Vadisk is our guide and translator," Dahlia said easily. "He also has a unique familial connection to the area that I plan to feature as part of the story."

"Of course." The woman leaned forward, passing a key to Vadisk, who had to take a step forward to accept it, but then immediately retreated, putting space between himself and her and Montana.

"And what's your name?" Dahlia asked the woman as she turned, using a card strapped to a small retractable clip to open the door.

"I'm Masha." She opened the door and stepped in, arm out to her side. "Welcome."

Three hours later, Dahlia slumped on an elegant couch in the sumptuous upstairs living room. From here, she had a perfect view of the veranda and beyond that, the sea, which was a deep blue-gray in this light.

The ground floor had a dining room, small sitting room, library-like office, sauna and private massage room—all they had to do was call the front desk to send a masseuse. Glass doors in the sitting room led out to the pool deck. A teak table and chairs were positioned under the overhang created by the upstairs veranda, offering outdoor seating, while eight chaise lounges—eight was the maximum sleeping capacity of the four-bedroom villa—were ready for sunbathers, a folded towel topped by an orchid waiting on each chair. There was a chef's kitchen too, and Masha had seemed a little scandalized that they'd foregone the option to have a private chef for the week.

The upper floor housed all four bedrooms—three to the left of the large central living room she currently sat in, one to the right—a small office, kitchenette, a temperature- and humidity-controlled wine closet, and several locked supply closets.

Montana had picked the locks on the closets the moment Masha was gone.

That had been the jumping-off point for the first fight.

Montana and Vadisk had an argument—admittedly a very quiet argument—while standing next to the sink at the wet bar, the water running to help distort their voices.

Vadisk didn't want Montana to do things like open locked doors, in case they were alarmed.

Montana argued that they needed to know what was in those rooms, and that they couldn't sweep for electronic surveillance from outside a locked door.

Vadisk pointed out that if there were cameras in those rooms, the fact that one of the first things they did was enter an off-limits room would make them seem suspicious.

And that was just the first of the men's arguments.

They'd argued about how to sweep for bugs—both of them had brought surveillance-checking equipment, Montana's having been tucked into her camera gear case, while Vadisk's was actually hidden inside the casing of his laptop.

They'd argued about the landline phone—unplug it or leave it plugged in.

Dahlia had used the phone to quickly order food from the restaurant in the main hotel just in case one of them snapped it in half or cut the line.

The chime of the doorbell when the food arrived had ratcheted both men up to a paranoia and threat level of eleven out of ten. When she'd headed for the stairs to go down and get their food, Montana had grabbed her, pressing her to the wall.

When she politely pinched the shit out of Montana's ear and loudly proclaimed that was probably the room service she'd ordered, he'd let her go with a yelp of surprise. Though it was sweet and a little sexy, his first instinct was to make himself a human shield. Sweet, a little sexy, and annoying as hell.

Vadisk had insisted on answering the door and inspected the food before carrying it to the kitchen.

She'd eaten alone at the outdoor teak table, leaving the guys' food in the kitchen, still under the silver domes.

That was an hour ago. She'd finished dinner and come back upstairs to sprawl out on one of the long, low couches.

They were still at it, inspecting every picture frame and piece of molding, scanning endlessly with handheld devices, and then arguing about whatever it was they were doing.

Dahlia's husbands were on her last. Fucking. Nerve.

She loved to plan and prepare but knew that traveling—even living and existing in a world full of so many different people, places, and expectations—required one to be both flexible and calm when things changed.

If Vadisk and Montana were this worked up over the physical security of the villa, the rest of this trip was going to be very difficult.

Pushing to her feet, Dahlia went to the wet bar, mentally thanking whoever had stocked it. There were separate beer and wine fridges under the counter and a built-in ice maker. Wine glasses hung upside down from the shelf that ran along the mirrored wall, liquor bottles with Russian and Turkish labels waiting to be opened.

Dahlia grabbed an angular red wine glass then ducked into the wine closet for a bottle of red.

If her husbands were going to be annoying, she was going to drink.