by Maria Luis
Rowena Carrigan will be the death of me.
And, if I didn’t know any better, I’d swear that she’s enjoying the hell out of this.
Just to rattle that smug smile of hers, I hook a finger over the collar of her shirt and slip the camera back into place between her tits. Then I grin at her, dark and ruthless. “It’s called staging a kidnapping, love.”
She surprises me not by reeling back in shock but by actually leaning forward to pat my chest like I’m a treasure that needs safeguarding.
Or, in other words, a complete idiot.
“And that,” she chirps, “is why men complicate everything. Women—me, in particular—always know a person who knows a person. Lucky for you, I once spent a ridiculous number of hours at a charity dinner sitting next to the hospital’s director. She’s lovely, by the way.”
It takes superhuman effort not to let my jaw fall open. “What?”
Though Rowena blinks up at me, there’s a hawkish awareness in her gaze that tells me she’s already strategizing her next five steps. “I’ll ring her when we get there and walk right in the front door while I do it.” With a sway of her hips, she bumps me out of the way and motions for me to unlock the door. “If you would, please.”
“Rowena, I’m not sure if you heard me but this is a kid—”
“The door, Damien.” She smiles, wide. “Don’t you trust me?”
When she looks at me like that, like she can see right into my battered soul, I’d be a fucking fool to say no. Bringing Rowena to Broadmoor Hospital, however, is asinine. I don’t doubt her ability to handle herself—but embroiling her in this mission won’t just be putting a target on my back, it’ll land one on hers too. Kidnapping a former Holyrood agent for political leverage goes against every rule in the bloody handbook.
And I’m going straight to hell.
With my jaw clenched, I plant a hand over Rowena’s, where she has it ready to open the car door. “What I’m doing at Broadmoor isn’t for Holyrood,” I mutter, careful to keep my voice low, “and it isn’t for the queen.”
Her head tips back. “Then who is it for?”
I want to lie.
And yet, as I hold her gaze, I feel her silently daring me to confess the truth. To trust her with something that has nothing to do with the queen or the future of England and everything to do with me.
“Get in the car.”
As if sensing that I want privacy for this conversation, Rowena slips into the passenger seat without protest. I close the door behind her then grab the duffel bag. With one last glance up at Holly Village, I feel the hair on the back of my arms stand tall.
I know you’re there, you bastard.
Scouring the vacant windows, I find him on the second floor where Alfie Barker and Guthram’s man, Kendrick, are locked away in the loft.
Pushing the curtain wide, Hugh Coney presses both hands to the glass.
Mercy or not, if he turns me into Guthram before I’m good and ready, I’ll string him up by the bollocks and let the vultures feast on his entrails.
Turning my back on him, I cut around the bonnet and climb into the driver’s seat. The duffel goes in the back seat and the key into the ignition. With my hand on the gearstick, we peel out of the drive and onto Swain’s Lane. The sycamore-laned street winds us down toward North Road, and I’m surprised that Rowena waits until I’ve merged onto the motorway, to reiterate, firmly, “Who is this for?”
“Me, Rowena.” With the quiet admission, I tighten my grip on the steering wheel. “It’s for Saxon, too, but mostly it’s for me.”
I feel her gaze linger on me before shifting back to stare out the windscreen. “Does this have anything to do with that bloke you brought back last night?”
Brought back implies that I had plans to invite him to the pub for a pint. Instead, I put him in the backseat of this car. Dead men can’t talk, and those who keep their tongues and their lives . . . Well, I can’t risk him running back to Marcus Guthram.
Briefly lifting my hand from the wheel, I scrub my palm over my unshaven jaw. “It has to do with that night at Westminster, when your father found me. Turns out that telling him to fuck off carries with it a life sentence. He’s the one who had the Met’s police commissioner put the bounty on my head.” When I hear Rowena’s small intake of breath, I cast a sharp glance her way before admitting, “My family goes back years with the Guthrams. Marcus’s father, Robert, was best mates with Pa. They served in Holyrood together.”
In my periphery, I see her frown. “Are there rules about who becomes involved with Holyrood? If Robert Guthram took the oath to the Crown, wouldn’t that mean his son would serve too?”
“No. Marcus shouldn’t even know that Holyrood exists.”
She taps her fingers on her thighs. “Wouldn’t the same be said for you and your brothers, then?”
“The Godwins have served the Crown since 1899. We are Holyrood.” Flicking on the indicator, I ease into the middle lane to cut around a lorry. “Generation to generation, we all join. It’s in our blood.”
“Like a title,” she says slowly. “Some people inherit dukedoms and others, like you, inherit—”
“Spy rings.” I give a low laugh. “I’m not sure which one of us has it better, but it’s the same concept—the eldest takes control. For us, it’s Guy. Pa was an only child.” Over the years, Saxon has mentioned time and again that Henry Godwin wasn’t the right man for the position. I’ve always taken his word for it—my memories of our father are few and far between. “Outside of the Godwins, it’s like any other post. Only, if you’re hired, you agree to never say a word. So, no, Guthram should have never told Marcus about Holyrood.”
“Then why would he?”
Because a man with a big heart couldn’t find it in himself to punish his best mate for breaking the rules. Not that we’ll ever know if that was really the case. When Pa was alive, we were too young to know any better. Now that we’re older, Robert Guthram’s health has long past deteriorated. The fault lies with all of them and we’re stuck with the consequences: a bounty on my head and my brother briefly held behind bars for a murder that he didn’t commit.
Saxon may be out but I’m still being hunted. If I can use Robert Guthram to corral Marcus into letting me go free, without resorting to just killing the commissioner—which was my original plan—then I’ll take it.
Mercy isn’t without its benefits. It just requires more devious scheming.
To Rowena, I say, “Guy will tell you that he thinks Guthram pushed his case to Pa. Probably even pointed out that the three of us—me, Guy, and Saxon—were growing up in the same world as our father and he only wanted the same for his own son.”
She rests her elbow along the window, gently knocking her knuckles against the glass. “But you don’t think that, do you.”
I shouldn’t even be surprised that she’s read me so well. “No,” I answer, reflexively squeezing the steering wheel, “I don’t.” Switching gears, I push the car a little harder. “I look for signs, patterns in behavior. Whenever Marcus comes for us, it’s not motivated by envy.”
“Power?”
My stomach tightens with the memory of seeing my name appear on the UK’s Most Wanted list. For seven months and counting, I’ve remained the number one fugitive. Without a picture of me, Marcus Guthram was forced to stick with Damien Priest’s fake profile. A lifetime of serving this country, and the Crown, only to end up with Domestic Terrorist captioned beneath my name.
I grit my teeth.
It was a power move on Guthram’s part, all right. It was him staking claim over a city that he views as his, done as rashly as whipping out his prick and pissing all over the streets of London. But no matter how hard he tries, the Met’s commissioner will never stretch his fingers as far or as wide as we do—my brothers and I rule from the turquoise seas of Cornwall to the dark, turbulent waters of the Shetland Islands.
We may not wear the crown but all of Britain is our throne.
�
�For whatever reason, he likes the idea of us down on our knees. Guy terrifies him, but Saxon and me, he seems to think that he can pick us off one by one. Yesterday he had me followed.”
Her voice kicks up a notch when she demands, “From Holly Village? You were followed from my home?”
“No, after I met Matthews by St. Paul’s.”
“So the man that you . . .” Clearing her throat, she taps her knuckles against the window again. A restless tempo that picks up speed when she says, “He was one of Guthram’s?”
“Is one of Guthram’s,” I correct, darting a quick look at her. “I didn’t kill him, though God fucking knows I’ll probably regret that soon enough.” Easing the car into the left lane, I merge onto M3, heading for Southampton. Almost there. “Today isn’t for Holyrood or the queen, Rowena. It’s for me and it’s for Saxon, whom Guthram put in prison for murder. Even though it wasn’t him who did it but Jack.”
Rowena’s hand falls away from the window. “Who did Jack kill?”
“The priest from Christ Church Spitalfields.”
She clutches her stomach. “I had no idea. That’s not . . . I hope you know that in no way did I tell Jack to kill—”
“I know,” I cut in, wanting to ease the stricken look on her face. “Guy had Saxon released. And we . . . Guy and me, I mean, we may have taken things too far.” Thinking of the way I severed Jack’s head and left it for Guthram to find in his bed chills my blood to ice.
Madness.
Life is a series of cause and effect, and while I may not have started the war with Robert Guthram’s son, I plan on being the one to end it.
“For putting the bounty on my head, I always planned to kill him,” I tell her on a rough exhale. “The only want to make a cycle stop is to end it in the most permanent way possible.”
Hiking her leg up under her skirt, she turns to face me in her seat. “Are we finding ourselves an accomplice at Broadmoor?”
“No,” I mutter, grimly, “we’re kidnapping Robert Guthram as leverage over Marcus, and if that still doesn’t work, then I’ll kill him.”
33
Rowena
Broadmoor Hospital is a Victorian behemoth.
Chimney pots dot the roofline, stretching north toward a cloudless sky. Rows of double-arched windows parade across all three stories of the red-brick structure—there’s no mistaking the bars laid across each set. The grounds before the hospital offer a sparse but well-maintained lawn, and surrounding the entire facility is a tall fence, no doubt the electrical variety guaranteed to temper a flood of escape attempts.
All may enter and none shall leave.
I swallow, roughly, and dig my fingers into my thighs. Cast a quick glance to my right, where Damien has his laptop balanced against the steering wheel. Dark, messy hair falls over his forehead, and I stifle the urge to reach across the gearshift and rake those strands back from his handsome face.
“Do you know his diagnosis?” When blue eyes lift from the screen to collide with mine, I clarify, “Robert Guthram’s, I mean.”
“No.”
Fuck me.
Returning my attention to the hospital, my antsy fingers tap out a rhythmless beat. The good news: I’ve never met a man that I haven’t managed to charm, even with my teeth bared and my claws ready to draw blood. The bad news: I generally don’t remove them from psychiatric hospitals better known for housing the country’s most infamous serial killers.
Already dreading the answer, I ask, “When did you see him last?”
Damien leans over his laptop, his fingers scraping across the keyboard so fast, so efficiently, that it’s like watching a magician at work. “A decade,” he mutters around the pen clamped between his teeth, “give or take.”
“And he’s been here for all those years?”
Those nimble fingers lift from the keyboard as he looks my way. “You don’t have to do this.”
I don’t have to do much of anything, but still, the idea of Damien being caught by the hospital’s security team leaves me feeling strangely frantic. Whether he wants to admit it or not, the bounty Guthram placed on his head is a real threat. One wrong move, and he’ll find himself behind bars for the rest of his life.
“Your plan is reckless.”
“For anyone else, maybe,” he allows, giving the computer screen a sideways glance, as if whatever he’s doing there carries a time constraint, “but not for me.”
“Your ego, Damien.”
“Love, if you’re concerned about the size of my ego in a time like this, then we need to work on your priorities.” Plucking the pen from his mouth, he taps the end against the laptop. “In exactly thirty minutes, Broadmoor is going to sound like a bomb site during World War II. Every morning like clockwork. Which means that I either have twenty minutes to deactivate that alarm, leaving the security team in scrambles while I sneak in, or I’ll be taking the next ten minutes to rewrite Guthram’s file so you can get him out of there without a problem. I can’t do both.”
I raise my brows. “You can do all that from your laptop?”
“There’s really not much I can’t do.” He says it with such ease, such unlabored arrogance, that a spark of laughter burns in my chest. Brows knitting with consternation, he passes a hand over my shorn hair before cupping my face. “I won’t burden you with this,” he utters, his voice dark, hypnotic, “and I won’t sway you either way. But you have five minutes to decide before I’ll need to—”
“You can’t be seen.”
Those blue eyes, always so hot and fierce, turn glacial. “Don’t do this for me.”
I clasp my fingers over his wrist, holding tight. “If it weren’t for you, then I wouldn’t do this at all.”
“Rowena—”
“The way I look at it, there’s really no better way to feel alive than with a hastily-planned kidnapping.” I feel tethered to this man, bound to him. I didn’t lie when I said that, with pulling the trigger to a gun that wasn’t loaded, he took something from me—and I don’t think that I’ll ever get it back. Squeezing his hand, I let him go. “One kidnapping it is, courtesy of yours truly. Also, I’ll need your mobile to make the call to Kathryn. Mine went up in flames.” I tilt my chin toward the computer. “Will you be able to find her number on there?”
“Look at me.”
The command is an assault on my senses—deep and velvet and laced with undisguised need. When I turn my attention on Damien, it’s to find him with one hand planted against the steering wheel while the other hooks around the back of my headrest. His computer sits at a crooked angle on his lap. Under the weight of his heavy gaze, I feel slain, stripped down to my soul.
A sharp breath cuts past my lips.
“I live this life because it’s all I’ve ever known,” he expels roughly, “and I do it to perfection because that means survival. But you, Rowena”—he shakes his head, those dark strands slipping over his temple—“you found the strength to walk away. I won’t be the one to drag you back, do you understand me? I won’t be the one to use you, just to save my own fucking skin.”
Thud-thud. Thud-thud. Thud-thud.
Madness.
“We leave right now,” he adds, already closing his laptop, “and no one will ever know that we were here.”
I stop him with a finger to his wrist.
“I could have stayed in that stairwell,” I confess on a shaky murmur, “and no one would ever know that I had the chance to save a queen and chose instead to take her with me to the grave.” His blue eyes burn bright, and his throat works with a visible swallow. I force the difficult words from my own: “I could have left the Palace and fled London, and you would never know who I am. And I could sit here now, aware that the noose is closing around your neck, and be content with the fact that at least I’m alive. Beauty is fear, Damien. It’s feeling the chill all the way down to your bones and pressing onward anyway. I’m stronger than you know, stronger than anyone ever realizes. Stronger, even, than I realize.”
His p
alms clasp the back of my head, startling me to my core with his ferocity, and then he drags me over the gearstick and captures my mouth with his. I taste cloves, feel heavy muscles rippling under taut skin, and hear the moan that rises in my throat like a benediction. The kiss is over before it’s even begun when he pulls back to growl, “Beauty is you, Rowena.”
Beauty of character.
Beauty of soul.
For better or worse, Damien Godwin has already ruined me.
From our vantage point, Broadmoor Hospital appears before me like Mt. Everest. A mountain to scale and defeat, come hell or high water. Its double doors beckon me closer even as its barred windows mock me for daring to enter.
“Don’t let security take your jumper, do you understand?”
Ignoring the trio of floaters that have become my personal little stalkers, I glance down at Damien’s fingers pinning a red poppy to my left breast pocket. The metal brooch winks under the sunlight. If he hadn’t told me, I’d never know that it’s been outfitted with a camera and audio. Like Odin himself, who sacrificed an eye to see all things, Damien allows nothing to fall to chance.
“Understood,” I tell him.
“Good girl.” Turning his left wrist over, he unfastens a black watch and motions for my hand. “This,” he tells me, looping the supple leather straps around my wrist, “is if you need me. Tap this button here”—the screen shimmers to life, glowing red around the edges—“and I’ll find you.”
“Damien, I don’t think—”
“Wherever you are,” he reiterates, “I will find you.”
Sweat coalesces on my spine. The heat from the sun overhead, maybe, or the gritty determination in his voice. Either way, I give him a firm nod that I pray translates to Don’t worry, I have this. When I stepped into Buckingham Palace ten days ago, this is not where I imagined I’d be this morning—kidnapping a former spy when all I’d hoped was to stop my best friend from being kidnapped herself. But I’ve not stopped running yet, always reaching, always grasping, and I look down at the watch as if it has the power to save us all.
