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“And the sex was not part of our plan,” Hugo hurried to add. “We were not planning to seduce you for information.”
“I realize that. After all, I seduced you.”
Sylvia had never been the type of person to hold on to anger, to hold a grudge. Those emotions took too much energy and were counterproductive to her work. When she looked at these men, all she could feel was…love.
She was a fool, always leading with her heart rather than her head. It was probably time to accept and embrace she would never change.
Lancelot nodded. “You have to understand, Sylvie—Sylvia,” he corrected.
She reached out with her good hand and touched his knee. “Sylvie.”
For the first time since she’d woken up, Lancelot smiled. “Sylvie,” he whispered before continuing. “She killed a man, a member of our society. Her husband was the one who killed my former admiral. We think both of them are—well, were for the husband—working with the mastermind.”
“She is working with him. With the mastermind. She talked about it, about him.”
Hugo and Lancelot both reared back.
“Name,” Lancelot said. “Did she give you a name?”
Sylvia tried to think back to all that Alicia had said about him, the man who’d claimed her mentor’s undying, mentally unstable devotion. “She said…” Sylvia rubbed her head with her good hand. “He’s one of you. A member.”
Lancelot nodded. “We knew that…well, I mean we suspected it. This guy had to be a member. He knew too much about us. What else?”
Whatever medication Alicia—or perhaps the doctor who’d wrapped her hand—had given her was starting to wear off. Her hand throbbed painfully, as did her head. Her words when they came out sounded slurred even to her own ears.
“She talked about him like he was a…prophet, or a cult leader. Fanatical devotion. He is Leon and Francisco and Bhagat.”
She closed her eyes, trying to ward off the coming migraine. Lights flashed behind her eyelids and a wave of nausea gripped her. She shivered.
“Enough. She has a fever. She’s starting to hallucinate,” Hugo said, his hand on her forehead. “She needs to rest, Lancelot.” Hugo helped her scoot down until she was lying once more.
Sylvia didn’t bother to open her eyes to see Lancelot’s reaction. Given the urgency of his tone as he asked about Alicia, she could imagine the grimace, the desire to push for more.
A wave of cold swept over her and a soft moan escaped her lips before she could swallow it down. It felt like she was coming down with the flu, but ten times worse.
“Sylvia, ma cherie,” Hugo said, leaning closer, his lips pressing on her forehead. “What is it?”
“Head. Hand. Hurts.”
She heard the rattle of a bottle of pills, then felt Hugo’s hand slip around her shoulders. “Take these. It’ll ease the pain. Help you sleep some more.”
She swallowed the pills and the water, trying hard to keep both down.
She was vaguely aware of the men talking in hushed voices—were they arguing?—before she let the darkness take her again.
Chapter Seventeen
Lancelot and Hugo remained by Sylvia’s bed, neither of them speaking as she slept. They’d been there well over an hour, both of them lost in their thoughts.
They’d told her about the Masters’ Admiralty, told her the truth about why they were there. He knew Sylvia and Hugo thought that was it…all the secrets were out in the open.
Only he knew there was another—bigger—lie lingering between them. What would they say when he told them he’d lied about his identity, about who he was?
How would they feel about Charlie Allerton, the security officer, the man who did whatever it took to get the job done? Hugo had claimed his actions were “knightly” when he’d dived overboard to save Sylvia. That proclamation kept coming back to him, bothering him intensely.
As a security officer, there was such a thing as collateral damage. In that instant, it would have been Sylvia. If he were committed to the mission, if he’d kept his distance and not allowed himself to climb into her bed, not allowed himself to start feeling something for her, would he have allowed her to drown in order to successfully reach his mission objective?
Lancelot knew many security officers would have, would have allowed her to die, so that Alicia could be caught and questioned. Not because they were evil or unfeeling. Because they had to be mission-focused. It was their job. Focus on the objective, the greater good. The mastermind had killed too many members of their society, and unless he was stopped, it was only a matter of time before he struck again.
