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“Oh,” Sylvia said, suddenly seeing their sexual interludes through a different lens. For her, the ménage sex had been life-changing, amazing, exciting, a fantasy come true.
Obviously, the same didn’t hold true for them.
She looked away, suddenly feeling small, insignificant. “I didn’t realize…what we’d done…”
Hugo cupped her cheek in his hand, forcing her to meet his gaze. “What we shared together—you, me, and Lancelot—was more special than I can say. I don’t ever want you to doubt that.”
Their eyes remained connected for several moments, Hugo refusing to continue his story until he was convinced that she believed him.
“I’d never had a threesome until us,” Lancelot confessed. It was the first time he’d spoken since Hugo started telling her about the secret society.
She looked at him, surprised.
“Truly?” Hugo asked, also sounding surprised.
“I’m not a legacy. I didn’t grow up in the same world as you. I was recruited at twenty. Right after I was badged and joined an SAS sabre squadron. And since then—”
Lancelot’s sentence ended abruptly. So abruptly that Sylvia could tell he’d been about to say something he didn’t mean to. Which meant what came next would be another lie.
“Don’t,” Hugo said, before Lancelot could finish. “As you said to me, if you can’t tell us the truth, say so. No more lies.”
The night was still, and Sylvia wondered if all of them were holding their breath.
“I’m not going to lie. Since being recruited, I’ve been working in service to my territory, to my admiral. I haven’t pursued any romantic entanglements because it didn’t seem fair to date, to allow a woman into my life, knowing I couldn’t offer her my heart.”
As he spoke of his heart, he looked at Sylvia, and for a split second, she thought she saw love. He shuttered the emotion quickly. He had to. She wasn’t a member of this society of theirs. Instead, she fell into the category he’d just mentioned. She was a woman neither of them could love.
“Tell me the rest,” she urged Hugo. He’d told her the history, but hadn’t yet explained what any of it had to do with Alicia, or her.
His voice grew quieter as the tale turned darker, and he told her about the evil mastermind within the society, and the dangerous minions—bombers and serial killers—he’d gathered to bring the Masters’ Admiralty down. This mastermind wanted to destroy them all.
“People are dying,” Lancelot said. “He’s killing countless people in brutal ways, but we can’t catch him because we don’t know who he is.”
Sylvia sat up, careful to only use her left hand. She wanted to be upright for the next part of this conversation.
“Alicia wasn’t wrong,” she said quietly. “About your secret society making the world an un-level playing field. What you’re describing is an organization that trades on social and economic disparity.”
Lancelot’s face went stony and blank, but Hugo smiled. He put one knee up on the bed so he was facing her. “What do you see as the alternative?”
“Success by merit,” Sylvia said instantly.
Hugo tsked. “Merit? What merit?”
“Intelligence, skill, determination,” Sylvia replied.
“That’s how I got in,” Lancelot murmured. Before Sylvia could respond to that, Hugo continued his argument.
“Intelligence, like skin color and class, has a biological component. Some are born with less, or atypical intelligence.”
Good point. Sylvia shifted, making herself more comfortable. “True, but not a justification for the existence of an organization that, by its very nature, perpetuates inequities.”
“But that is where you are wrong. We do not perpetuate inequities. We correct them.”
“How?”
“By granting access to wealth and power to those who would not ever reach that level on their own.” Hugo gestured to Lancelot.
“Thanks, fooker.”
