There was no time. Jakob very much doubted the British woman would leave this room alive.
Ava’s nails scratched Eric’s hand and wrist as she gasped and struggled to breathe. But she was still breathing. Jakob could hear the air wheezing in and out of her lungs. Eric wasn’t killing her…not yet.
“Josephine died in pain and alone because of you.” Eric’s accent had thickened, his tone guttural and dark. “She died thinking I would come for her, find her.”
Eric’s fingers tightened, and Ava’s struggles became frantic, her heels scraping the wall as she tried and failed to find any purchase that would allow her to leverage out of his hold.
“I promised them I would protect them. Josephine is dead and Colum is drinking himself to death. He’s locked himself away, given up his job, disappeared from the world.”
Eric’s rage and grief were almost palpable. Even Jakob could tell that it was deep, pain-filled grief that threaded through the fleet admiral’s voice. He’d mistakenly believed perhaps Josephine had been a lover, but hearing him talk about her and a man he didn’t know, it sounded more like a father speaking about his children. But the fleet admiral had no children.
No one spoke. No one moved to stop him, not daring to get too close lest they be consumed by the inferno that raged so hot inside the fleet admiral, it could turn them all to ash.
Ava’s choked, desperate sounds were terrible to hear.
“The only reason I don’t take you, and do to you everything you did to her, and more, is because Josephine wouldn’t want it this way,” he snarled.
“No, she would not.” Nyx stepped into the room. If in this moment Eric was fire, Nyx was ice, cold and merciless as she stared at Ava. “But I’ll salt the earth of her shallow grave so nothing grows where her unshriven body lays.”
Holy. Fuck.
Jakob felt his eyes get big before he got himself under control. So Nyx was…nuts. He needed to remember to tell his vice admiral to avoid pissing off Hungary’s vice admiral at all costs. Then he considered Nikolett and figured they should just avoid the entire territory if possible.
Eric eased his hold, lowered her so her toes touched the floor. Ava took two shallow, rasping breaths before he once more cut off her air supply.
Jakob nudged Annalise toward the door, but before they could exit, someone else pushed Vadisk—who had been using his big body as a door—out of the way.
Nikolett walked into the safe room, heels clicking, raised the gun she held, and pointed it at Eric.
Holy. Fuck.
Everything was about to get royally fucked up and Jakob had zero idea what the hell he was supposed to do in a situation like this. Protect the fleet admiral? Fuck that, the guy might be bulletproof or something. Maybe his rage could become a physical armor.
Out loud, Jakob said what he always said, cursing. “Mist.”
Annalise, tucked against his side, nodded in agreement.
“Release her, Eric.”
“Don’t threaten me, Nikolett.”
“I am not threatening. I’m warning. If you’re going to kill her, you do it quick and clean.”
“Like she did?” Eric turned his head just enough to stare down the barrel of Nikolett’s gun.
“That is why she is a monster. You, we, are not.”
Eric bared his teeth in what might have been a smile. “I am a monster. I am the drage.”
“No. You are not.” Nikolett shifted the gun, aiming it at Ava’s head.
With a snarl, Eric released Ava. She dropped to the ground, barely conscious.
Eric shot Nikolett an unreadable look, then reached down, cupped Ava’s jaw with one hand, the back of her head with the other, and twisted. There was an audible pop as her neck broke, and then Eric released her, Ava’s body slumping to the floor.
Breaking a neck like that was far harder than it seemed. It was why Jakob had been trained to first press down, force the spine to compress. Just twisting…that took brute strength.
In the silence that followed, Eric bowed his head, his hand, the hand that had been strangling Ava, curling and uncurling. Nyx glanced at the body, then turned and walked out, Vadisk stepping out of her way at the last minute. Jakob hustled Annalise forward, finally getting her out of the room.
He glanced back over his shoulder just before he made his escape, so he was the only one who saw Eric look up and reach out to Nikolett, his hand blood-spattered and shaking.
She was looking down, putting the safety back on the gun, and didn’t see the fleet admiral’s moment of need.
Eric hesitated, fingers curling into a fist before he dropped his hand and turned away from Nikolett.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Annalise blew on her tea to cool it off, but it was still too hot to drink. Then she looked to her side for somewhere to set down the cup. “You need end tables in here,” she said to Jakob. It seemed like an inane comment to make, far too normal after all the three of them had been through, but it also felt good to have a conversation that didn’t include the words stalker, crazy, or serial killer.
“What style do you want?” he asked.
She rolled her eyes and grinned. Jakob had admitted their first night back in Frankfurt that he’d remodeled this house for her. “Don’t you want to pick out anything to your taste?”
Jakob shook his head. “No. This house is for you, Annalise. Always.”
She tried to hold on to her smile, not wanting Jakob to see how much his words meant to her, even as they pierced her heart.
They’d returned to Frankfurt the day after Eric showed up in Budapest and killed Ava. She, Jakob, and Walt hadn’t even really discussed where they’d go. It had been assumed they’d return here, to this perfect, amazing house. And for three days, they’d shut themselves in, pretending that the world outside them didn’t exist, that they hadn’t witnessed so many countless horrors it would probably take them a fair amount of therapy to overcome it all.
Every time Annalise closed her eyes, the same two images replayed themselves. Eric snapping Ava’s neck. Jakob snapping Axel’s. What she couldn’t admit, not to Jakob or Walt or even herself, was that she’d felt relief—and in Axel’s case, actual happiness—that they’d been killed.
So yeah…she needed therapy.
Upon returning to Frankfurt, it was as if they’d all agreed—though they hadn’t discussed it—to shut the past week away, pretending it hadn’t happened. Instead, they did what normal couples—or throuples, in their case—did at the beginning of a relationship. They got to know each other.
The three of them spent their days drifting from the bedroom to the kitchen, where Jakob prepared mouthwatering German dishes, from recipes he’d inherited from his Oma. Jakob told them about his lonely childhood and his cold, strict father, about the reasons he was hesitant to speak. His Oma had died when Jakob was only eight and Annalise wondered how his personality might have been different if she had lived longer. According to Jakob, his Oma had never told him to be quiet, not once, and that when she was around, she protected him from his father’s ire.
One afternoon, Walt had video chatted with his sister, Sylvia, and his brothers over Zoom. He’d pulled her and Jakob into the screen to introduce them. She had been blown away to see Walt’s face on two other men. Of course, it hadn’t taken more than a few minutes of listening to the triplets talk before it became quite simple to tell them apart. Oscar’s love of the word fuck and Langston’s larger-than-life personality were entertaining, but she had to admit she preferred Walt’s gentle manner and quiet wit.