Hidden Devotion (Trinity Masters #5)(53)

Rose hugged her, kissing her cheek. “You just answered most of my questions.”

“Rose, I’m sorry. So sorry.”

“Don’t be. For the first time in my life, I don’t know exactly what my future will be.”

Juliette kissed Rose’s cheek. “I hope it’s a good feeling.”

“It is. But, Juliette, don’t give him too much of a hard time. He really does love you, even if he’s an ass.”

“He loves you, too.”

“Not in the way he loves you. And not to be rude, but I love both of you as siblings more than anything.” Rose kissed her cheek once more and squeezed her hands.

Juliette had mixed feelings as she watched the woman who would have been her wife walk away. But then she caught Franco’s eye. He gifted her with a small secret smile.

She could do this. She was the Grand Master.

*****

This room was small, an intimate space compared to the altar room. A few people had lingered though it was approaching dawn, so they’d decided to use the medallion room. The floor and walls were marble and a large bronze medallion with the Trinity Masters’ symbol and logo was inlaid in the center of the floor. Three high-backed chairs faced the center of the room. They ignored the chairs. They were not three strangers called together to meet their trinity. They’d bypassed that ceremony.

Harrison Adams wore no robe, but when he spoke, his words carried the authority of the office he used to hold. “When you joined, you made a vow. You pledged your lives to our cause and our way. You’ve met your partners, your lovers, your spouses.

“You are here to be formally bound in the marriage of the Trinity Masters.”

Juliette, Franco and Devon stepped forward. Harrison’s voice was filled with emotion as he quietly officiated his sister’s wedding. Like Harrison’s own wedding, this was rushed—there’d been no bonding ceremony, and Franco had not gone through any of the new-member initiations or the six-month waiting period. But Juliette was the Grand Master and the only people who could have questioned her were her councilors, who were hardly going to raise objections. Besides, technically Franco was a legacy.

Juliette was radiant in her white dress, Franco and Devon both handsome in their tuxedos, though Devon looked tense. Only when they’d sealed their marriage with a kiss did Devon relax, prompting Franco to laugh.

Alexis and Michael appeared with one of the last bottles of Champagne, passing around flutes and toasting the new trinity.

When there was no one left but the three of them, Juliette sank to the floor, tracing the edges of the triquetra with her hand. Franco and Devon joined her.

“A lot of people know. They recognized my voice.” Luckily the shock over her being the Grand Master had prevented most people from asking what had happened and why Harrison wasn’t the Grand Master.

“It doesn’t matter. You’re the Grand Master. Your word is law.”

The tension that had built up over the past few days was finally dissipating. Her hands started to shake. “I’m not sure I can do this,” she whispered.

They surrounded and comforted her. She had to be strong. Only they could see her fall apart.

“You can. It’s in your blood.”

“We won’t let anyone hurt you.”

Juliette Adams let them comfort her, let herself shake and cry in reaction to the stress of the evening. Then she rose, flanked by her new husbands, and went to celebrate her wedding night.





Epilogue




Sebastian should have been in Boston weeks ago. There were things happening there that he needed to deal with, things he needed to tell his best friend before she discovered them on her own.

Unfortunately, midway through his flight, he’d gotten word a shipment of arms he’d been tracking finally made its way to Libya. He’d had to make a split-second decision, and in the end he’d decided finding those guns was more important and had taken the next flight home. Locating and confiscating them had taken longer than he’d thought—weeks instead of days—and he’d had to ditch his phone along the way. He would have died if not for Anderson.

When he finally arrived in Boston, there was a letter waiting at the townhouse he co-owned with Juliette and a few friends. The expensive creamy paper was unmistakable. It was a letter from the Grand Master.

Sebastian,

You are called to the altar…

It was signed “Grand Master”, but he knew that handwriting. He’d passed too many notes in high school English class with the author to not recognize that scribble as Juliette’s.

Shit. This was bad. He needed to find Juliette and talk to her. She’d been his best friend since they were kids. Sebastian could only imagine how she must be feeling, knowing he’d lied to her for years. The dishonesty hadn’t come easy to him, but he’d had no choice. Surely, she’d understand once he had a chance to explain.

Maybe.

He needed to touch base with his handler, Devon, and get a read on the situation. The Grand Master held absolute power over the Trinity Masters, and Sebastian was pretty sure that at the moment, the Grand Master was super-pissed at him.

That was exactly what he didn’t need—his pissed-off best friend, who’d just found out that he was secretly a CIA asset, deciding who he should marry.