“It’s a closely held private company registered in the Caribbean.”
Always, his brother had been agonizingly slow to make a point. The slower he was, the worse the point.
“Cayman records aren’t easy to pry open, but after Lorenzo alerted me, I acquired the names of the three shareholders. You may recall them from a prior engagement, if you can think about something other than your libido. Francis Bannister. Uziah Gruble.”
That second, uncommon name meant Wulf didn’t need to hear more to be engulfed with the enormity of his mistake. But of course his brother told him.
“And Baird Durfey.”
While Ivar had guided the Continental Congress through financial negotiations with the French, Wulf’s militia had chased those three and their men across the colonies, too often arriving too late to save the women and children in their path.
“You’ve been playing games with Unferth.” Baird Durfey. The bard, Unferth. The singer-skald at Hrothgar’s court had been accustomed to controlling from behind the old king’s throne, and he’d resented Beowulf’s success and popularity. He’d never agreed with the dictate to remain anonymous and conceal their abilities from mortals. Gradually Unferth’s disputes with Ivar had shifted to a quest for power, a vendetta fought through the proxy of human wars. Using the same aliases they’d employed to rampage through the colonies to double as shareholders for Black and Swan, a company that supplied the modern American military, undoubtedly amused the cast-outs.
“You will immediately cease your activities.”
“He’s smuggling heroin.” He was failing to make Ivar understand, failing to speak as an equal or to explain his side with clarity.
“Unferth’s business interests don’t matter. You understand our law. We don’t risk exposure or chance injuring mortals by challenging each other.” Ivar had continued the rules established by Beowulf. “Now I must resolve this crisis you’ve created.”
By the Hammer, if an immortal had joined tonight’s raiders, the fight wouldn’t have ended. And Theresa was there. “I have to keep her safe.” He hadn’t realized he’d spoken until Ivar snorted.
“I doubt that woman needs your help. You’ve told her about us, but she hasn’t told you who she is, has she?”
“Meaning?” On the receiver, Wulf’s hand grew sticky.
“What has she shared, besides the obvious?” He didn’t want to hear his brother sully what Theresa and he were building, but Ivar continued. “Did she tell you her stepfather’s a capo in the Gambino family in New Jersey? Indicted three times, never convicted.”
“No...” In front of his eyes, the stone wall seemed to film over.
“By chance did she mention her stepbrother’s on parole for running what is termed a chop shop?” Every word flayed him until he felt like he had a hundred bleeding wounds, but Ivar had more to say. “Or that she has a cousin in the U.S. penitentiary at Hazelton?”
“Stop.” Ivar didn’t have to list more for Wulf to realized how mistaken he’d been, how his naive lust had led Theresa’s connections to him. At least his brother shut up, giving him a moment to shred all his growing hopes without sibling assistance.
Eventually Ivar muttered, “Now you know. Move on. Lorenzo said—”
“Don’t, for the glory in Valhalla, say another word.” The phone handset would be lucky to survive his grip, but he wouldn’t throw it across the room, because of all of them, the phone hadn’t done anything regrettable. Even dumb plastic was smarter than he was.
“He said she acts as if she genuinely cares for you. Anyone could have—”
“Doesn’t matter, does it? It was a setup. And now it’s over.” He hung up. This burning anger would get him through the cleanup, and then he’d take the five bodies far out in the Adriatic. And he wouldn’t come back. Lorenzo could get rid of that woman.
Chapter Nineteen
No matter what happened in the outside world, nothing changed on a deployment. Even though Italy and Wulf had turned Theresa’s life upside down, Camp Cadwalader offered the same rocks, the same schedule and the same people.
“Keep talking.” Jennifer handed a water bottle to Theresa and then perched on the foot of the bunk, eyes wide and inquiring. “There’s more to your story than getting robbed.”
“Not really.” Theresa hunched in her ratty robe, glad to be out of the cruddy clothes she’d worn for thirty-six hours on the flights from Italy. Her roommate had overcome surprise at her unexpected return better than the clerks who’d processed her at Bagram Air Field in Kabul, but barely. In the history of army deployments, she must have had the honor of being the first to show up early from leave. “Nothing happened.”
“Liar.” She fished in Theresa’s laundry bag. “I apologize for touching your crap, and normally I would never handle your you-know-whattie’s, but these—” a pair of the lacy La Bellezzas dangled off one finger, “—are not the undies I saw you pack. No way you bought these.”
Hoping Jen would get the hint, she turned her head and shoulders toward the wall, but her roommate was as persistent as a plantar wart.
“We’ve shared a room for more than seven months. Spill.”
“I met a guy?” Because of their ranks, Italy couldn’t have ended with her and Wulf arriving at Camp Caddie hand in hand. From their first candlelit dinner, she’d acknowledged that fact, even mentally prepared for it, but the way he’d ditched her—going so far as to have his butler drive her to the airport without even a note—had sliced to the bone.
“That’s a question? Like you don’t know if he was a guy, or you didn’t meet him, or you’re trying to put one over on your best buddy?”
In a way, her roommate had hit the trifecta, because Wulf wasn’t really “a guy.” Surrounded by her real life, at a fundamental level she doubted the carnage in Italy had really happened, and, if it had, then there was a whole lot she couldn’t tell Jen.
“What am I going to find if I dig deeper?”
“Nothing.” Regardless of whether Jen meant to dig in the laundry or in her head, she wouldn’t find answers. “I was robbed.”
Jennifer’s eyes darted around the room, confirming that their four other roommates were absent, before she continued. “Given how Chris Deavers pumped me for your hotel, and then a certain hottie pants left for parts unknown the same time you did, I’m putting one and one together.” She rubbed her two pointer fingers against each other and waited, eyebrows raised.
The gesture was nothing but a simple joke, the type of teasing she and Jen had shared two weeks ago, before the helicopter crash, before her discovery of Wulf’s immortality, before Italy. She should have grinned and tossed off a reply, maybe thrown in a line of New Jersey-style crudeness, but the muscles in her cheeks burned from the effort to contain her tears.
“I was so bored while you were gone, and I kept imagining you drinking Bellinis all day and soaking up Rome. Come on, I need to live vicariously.”
Her control burst like a gallbladder, flooding her with hot pain as she wrapped her arms around her knees and curled into a ball. Even though her arms and legs felt icy and shivers drove her deeper into her robe, her face and throat felt acid etched by tears.
“I’m so sorry!” Jen’s hug was solid and warm across her back. “Shhh, whatever he did, he’s scum, lower than norovirus, and I’ll string him up for you. What’d he do?”
“Nuhh—” she could barely speak through her heaves, “—thing.”
Jennifer patted her back. “Babe, if you’re crying, he did something, and it was wrong.”