Wrath's Storm: A Masters' Admiralty Novel by Mari Carr (desktop ebook reader .txt) 📕

was midafternoon now, nearly twenty-four hours after she’d spotted the similarities on the videos. They were back in Budapest. Getting everyone here, including Ava and a wounded Jakob, had taken some logistical planning, and a large, expensive helicopter.

Annalise suspected that Nikolett had also had to do some fast-talking or serious negotiations in order to get Leonid to agree to let them take custody of Ava. From what she’d seen of him, Leonid wasn’t the kind of man who let his enemies go. And based on what Walt had said about Zasha’s substantial injuries, it was even more surprising that Leonid had let them take Ava and helped arrange it so they could leave Odessa via the helipad at his company’s facility on the port.

Between Leonid and assistance from the Ottoman territory janissaries, who had arrived a few hours after everyone was hauled back to the hotel, they’d managed to leave Odessa in the early hours of the morning, before the sun rose.

Rather than going to downtown Budapest, Vadisk had flown them to Nikolett’s private residence in the Zugliget neighborhood to the east of Budapest.

The modern-style villa was lovely, but much of the inside was still under construction—though the exterior was done and the security systems were all up and running.

The safe room, which wasn’t yet fully functional, was now both prison cell and interrogation room. Jakob, Walt, Nikolett, and a few others who’d been working the case at the Hungary territory headquarters were in Nikolett’s large home office, which had secure phone and internet connections, and a live feed of everything going on in this room.

“That’s a parent’s job. To protect their children.”

“It’s not a parent’s fault if something bad happened,” Ava shot back, the predator back in her voice and posture.

The way she was vacillating between victim and predator was dazzling in how completely abnormal it was.

“Sometimes,” Annalise agreed. “Bad things happen that no one can stop. Accidents. Sickness. Other times the parents could have done more to protect—”

“My father wasn’t wrong! They needed him. Too many of them called themselves Christians, but they were bound for hell. My father was saving them.”

“How did he save them?”

“He taught them. Showed them the right way to be good. There were Zionists, Catholics.” She spit the words as if they were foul.

Her earpiece beeped quietly before beginning transmission.

“Empregada is the Portuguese word for servant,” Nikolett’s voice was tiny but clear. “We think the other word she said earlier is xima. It’s a porridge they serve in Mozambique, where upper classes speak Portuguese. No progress on her records.”

At least one of the forms Petro’s presumed patronage must have taken was to wipe away any trace of Ava’s past. They’d found her birth record in England, but then there was nearly no trace of her—only the odd record of her entering and exiting countries in South America and the Far East. Her immigration records within the EU had all been deleted.

Annalise stayed quiet, waited until some of the rage had seeped from Ava’s posture.

It was time to take another calculated risk, based on the information she had. “There aren’t many Anglican missionaries in Mozambique.”

Ava jerked as if struck. She turned away, shoulders hunched. The posture of someone who knew to protect their chest and stomach from incoming blows.

It was all but certain that Ava had suffered some kind of steady, sustained abuse in her childhood. It was rare for people with severe abnormal behavior, the kind that resulted in the psychopathy of a serial killer, to have a trauma-free past.

“How old were you when your father took you to Mozambique?” Annalise asked softly.

“He was called when I was four. We went with him. To support him. That was our duty.”

“Duty? But you were just a child.”

“I was more. God had a purpose for me.” Little by little, Ava started to unfold, morphing once again.

“Is your purpose something you can talk about?”

Ava looked down her nose at Annalise. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh? Why not? I’m a pretty smart person.”

“This isn’t about intelligence. It’s about moral fortitude.”

Annalise took a breath and reminded herself that this was police interrogation, not a diagnostic interview. No matter how fascinating Ava would be to diagnose. That job would be left to others, mostly like a psychology team with whatever government or prison system Ava ended up in.

But before they could turn her over to those authorities, there was information the Masters’ Admiralty wanted.

Annalise had rarely been the one to conduct interrogations when she worked at the Kripo. Usually she was where Jakob and Walt were now, on the outside of the interrogation room, watching, listening, and assisting with ongoing interview strategies.

Of the people currently in Nikolett’s house, she was the most qualified.

“How do you know if someone has moral fortitude?” Annalise asked.

A genuine, peaceful smile graced Ava’s lips. “I can see it.”

“What does it look like?”

“It’s a halo around them. I first saw it on my mother.”

“Your mother has a halo.”

“Not has. Had. My mother had a halo.”

“My condolences on the loss of your mother.”

“No need. She sits at the feet of my father, who sits at the right hand of God.”

“Did she die when you were young?” It was time to start pushing Ava, and asking more specific questions would give the other woman fewer opportunities to spout rote religious statements.

“I was ten.”

“And how did she die?”

“They killed her.”

“How did they kill her?”

Ava jerked, as if she hadn’t expected that question. She’d probably expected “who killed her?” which was why Annalise hadn’t asked that.

Ava’s eyes seemed to glitter with an emotion Annalise wasn’t ready to name.

“They tortured my mother. Raped her. Cut off one hand, then the other. Then they cut off her head.”

Annalise nodded, keeping her expression sympathetic. It wasn’t hard.

“I watched. With my father. They made us watch, and I begged him to do what they wanted so they’d stop hurting my mother. He wouldn’t. He was a righteous man.”

“Your mother’s halo, was that because of how she died?”

“No, the halo appeared before. When they started to