by Amelia Autin
A packed cathedral and a packed square—the security personnel would have their hands full trying to watch everyone, every minute. They would not notice the two inconspicuous men until it was too late. The assassins were counting on it.
Chapter 5
Angelina walked into the restaurant, her eyes quickly moving over all the diners, cataloging them. Then she breathed a sigh of relief. No one she knew was here tonight. Specifically, no one on the queen’s security detail. There were two women she knew just in passing, and she recognized a third who’d been a friend of her cousin Caterina’s in high school. The sight of Caterina’s friend brought the mystery of her cousin’s disappearance to the forefront of Angelina’s consciousness.
Where are you, Caterina? Angelina thought now. A question she’d asked for more than eight years. A question that hurt just as much now as it had all those years ago, because Angelina felt responsible in some way.
Responsible...and guilty. Guilty she hadn’t been able to prevent Caterina from leaving Zakhar in the first place, hadn’t been able to talk her out of going. Guilty she hadn’t managed to track her cousin down when she’d vanished without a trace somewhere in the United States. Why did you not stop her? Angelina’s conscience demanded now. And why did you not find her when she disappeared? Even if only to bring her body home?
The loss of the cousin who’d been like her little sister was a festering wound that would never heal unless Caterina miraculously reappeared, which Angelina no longer believed might happen. After all these years she knew in her heart her cousin was dead—but without a body there would never be closure.
“Hey,” a warm deep voice said from behind her. “You’re right on time.” She turned around to see Alec’s gaze flickering over her, masculine appreciation evident in his eyes. Angelina was glad she’d changed into a dress she’d pulled from the back of her closet—one of the few dresses in her wardrobe. She never wore dresses to work—slacks, a tailored blouse and a blazer to hide her ever-present shoulder holster were what she always wore on duty. Not just because a dress might be a distraction for whatever male team member she was working with that day, but because a dress would be a distraction for her. She just didn’t feel comfortable in a dress. Not for work.
But it was different tonight. Or maybe it was who she was with that made the difference. Alec, whose eyes made her yearn for those very things she’d long ago decided weren’t for her. Alec, whose kisses sparked a flame she’d been hard-pressed to quench...both times. Alec, who called her Angel in that strong, ardent way that demanded a response equally as ardent. As if he knew what they’d be like in bed, and it aroused him.
Now his eyes spoke volumes, and Angelina was fiercely glad she’d dressed up for him. The royal-blue color of her dress did something for her eyes, making them more blue than gray. The silky, blouson material clung discreetly in all the right places, making her aware of her femininity for the first time in a long time. The heels she’d unearthed from the bottom of her closet and decided to wear at the last minute made her as tall as Alec. She thanked her lucky stars he was so tall to begin with. Most men’s egos were ridiculously fragile if their date was taller than they were, and on the few dates she’d allowed herself in the past, she’d always been careful to wear flats so she wouldn’t tower over the man she was with. She didn’t have to worry about that tonight.
“They’re holding a table for us,” Alec told her. He placed a warm hand on the small of Angelina’s back to guide her, and a little thrill shot through her. She tried to tell herself not to respond to him—his eyes, his smile, his touch. But her body was telling her that— unlike her totally disappointing, one and only sexual encounter—sex with Alec would be far from disappointing. Something she’d already realized the first time she saw him.
Just for a moment she let herself fantasize about what it would be like with Alec, before she shut down her errant thoughts with a firm resolve. Regret stabbed through her. If her job weren’t so important to her...if Zakharian men—especially the men in her line of work—weren’t so judgmental of women they saw as women...if she dared risk exploring this attraction between Alec and her...
Angelina sighed to herself, but made sure nothing of what she was feeling showed on her face.
Alec declined a menu when they were seated at their table, telling Angelina, “Order for me, please. You know what’s good here, I don’t.”
She laughed a little at the unexpected offer—so different from most men she’d dated, who always wanted to order for her. “But I do not know what you like,” she demurred.
“Meat and potatoes,” he said with a smile. “Isn’t that what most men prefer? And no zucchini. I can eat any vegetable except zucchini. Other than that, I’m easy.” His voice dropped a notch. “I’m putting myself in your hands, Angel,” he said softly. And just that easily, her control over her body’s reactions was shattered as she imagined the alternate meaning that could be applied to his words. A sexual meaning.
He did that to her throughout their leisurely meal, from the bacon-wrapped Mediterranean dates stuffed with almonds, all the way through the dessert she usually didn’t eat but ordered especially for him: mini chocolate éclairs that were a specialty of the house. There was nothing she could call him on outright. He just had a way of saying something totally innocuous that could be taken more than one way if your mind was looking for a double entendre. And hers most definitely was.
Over dessert, he asked, “So explain to me again why I’m not supposed to call you Angel. Not that Angelina isn’t a beautiful name, but—” his eyes sought hers “—it seems so...I don’t know...distant. Formal.”
Angelina sighed. “You do not understand. I cannot allow myself to appear weak to the men I work with. Which means I cannot allow myself to appear feminine. Angel—” She glanced down at her plate, then back up at Alec, struggling to overcome her hard-won reserve. “I loved it when you called me Angel,” she admitted in a low voice. “But—”
“But not in public. I get it.”
She hesitated, unsure if he really understood. “If anyone heard you call me Angel, they might think that you...that I...” She cleared her throat. “I cannot allow the men I work with to think of me as a woman. Can you understand that? It is different for you. Where you come from, women no longer have to worry about being taken seriously. Especially women doing what used to be a man’s job.”
Alec shook his head. “My sister, Keira, could tell you that’s not true.”
“What do you mean?”
“My dad—he’s been dead for a long time now, but—” Alec grimaced. “Remember how I told you my dad always kidded that my mom broke his perfect record—four boys and then one girl?” She nodded. “He wasn’t really kidding. Keira always had to fight for respect from my dad growing up. Not because of anything she did or didn’t do. Just because she was a girl.”
It shamed him to remember. “All of us—my brothers and I—we kind of took our dad’s attitude. Don’t get me wrong, we loved Keira, just as our dad did. But we didn’t give her a lot of respect. Not then. It wasn’t until she followed us into the Marine Corps that we started seeing her as...well...as someone who deserved our respect.
“Then she went to work for the agency—the same agency McKinnon works for. And a few years back, she stepped in front of a man to take a bullet meant for him. Saved his life...but almost lost her own.” His face contracted in pain, the pain he still felt over almost losing his only sister.
Angelina reached across the table and touched Alec’s hand in silent comfort. “Why did you tell me this?” she asked softly.
“Because I didn’t want you to have any illusions about how easy women have it in the American culture.” His eyes held hers. “And because I didn’t want you to have any illusions about me, either. I’m not the man you think I am.”
“That is not true,” she contradi
cted. “Perhaps you do not see yourself as I do. Just telling me what you have told me, admitting it to me and to yourself—no Zakharian man I know would do this. That makes you unique, Alec. Unique to me.”
* * *
They walked afterward, both needing the exercise after the meal they’d eaten. From time to time Angelina pointed out some landmark of note, though mostly they just wandered through the central district in companionable silence.
“Drago is a beautiful city,” Alec said finally. “Unspoiled. I like that. It’s different from most European capitals.”
“Where else have you been posted?” she asked, unable to keep a touch of wistfulness from her voice. She loved her country, loved her city, but she had dreamed of traveling someday, dreams that hadn’t yet materialized. Except for her trip to the United States searching for Caterina. But that had hardly been a pleasure trip.
“I was in The Hague a few years back. The Netherlands. The International Criminal Court is headquartered there. That was an experience, let me tell you.”
“How so?”
He expounded for a few minutes, then said, “When I was in The Hague, Liam was stationed in Rome, which is about the closest we’ve ever worked to each other except for the six months when we were assigned to guard Princess Mara together.”
“But you are still close to your brother. That is what you said, yes?”
Alec laughed. “Yeah. Even though we’ve rarely seen each other since we left home, except for the occasional Christmas holiday.”
“My cousin was—” She broke off.
“You said the other day you had a cousin who was like a little sister to you,” Alec reminded her. “What happened to her?”
Angelina thought about it for a moment before answering, choosing her words carefully. “She disappeared more than eight years ago. She was only sixteen.”
Alec stopped walking, tugging her back toward him. “Oh, Angel, I’m so sorry.” He cupped her cheek with his hand, his dark brown eyes full of sympathy. “She just vanished? Did she run away, or...?”
Angelina shook her head. “She went to America to model—she was so excited about it. But from the moment she stepped on the plane, I never heard from her again.”
* * *
Alec saw Angelina safely home, his mind working furiously. He performed a quick electronic sweep as soon as he entered the privacy of his apartment, then got on the phone with Trace McKinnon. “Angelina Mateja,” he said abruptly. “Lieutenant Mateja. Queen’s security detail.”
“What about her?”
“She had a cousin who disappeared roughly eight years ago. A cousin who supposedly went to the US to model but was never heard from again.”
McKinnon cursed softly, making the connection. “You think this trafficking ring has been going on for that long?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out. Can you see what you can uncover on the cousin?”
“You got a name?”
“Nope. I don’t even know if she has the same last name as Angelina. All I know is she was sixteen when she vanished, so she’d be around twenty-four now.”
“I’m on it. I’ll let you know what I learn.”
“Thanks. And McKinnon?”
“Yeah?”
“I didn’t tell Angelina anything. I could have pumped her for more information, but she’s too intelligent, too savvy. I didn’t want to raise her suspicions.”
“Among other things.”
Alec bristled. “What the hell does that mean?”
McKinnon laughed, not unkindly. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
Even before they hung up, Alec knew McKinnon had been lying, and wondered if his attraction to Angelina was obvious to everyone...or if McKinnon was just more astute than most. Probably the latter, he consoled himself. McKinnon was a damned good special agent. He hadn’t gotten where he was with merely run-of-the-mill powers of observation and an average ability to assemble disparate clues. But that didn’t make it any easier to accept.
* * *
Sunday dawned, a bright and beautiful fall day with clear skies and a gentle breeze. A perfect day for the christening of Crown Prince Raoul Theodore Alexei Stepan. As if God himself is smiling on the occasion, Alec thought whimsically as he arrived in the Drago town square just as the sun peeked over the mountaintops to the east.
He wasn’t supposed to be here this early. In fact, he was supposed to arrive with the McKinnons, whose guest he was. But Alec had cried off, telling McKinnon he’d make his own way to the christening and meet them there because he wanted to experience the whole event as a spectator, not just as a guest. But that meant he was already dressed for the occasion in the formal morning suit he wore for official embassy events, right down to a carnation in his lapel.
Alec wasn’t the first to arrive, though. A crowd had already begun to assemble, lines forming to enter the cathedral when the doors opened at noon. Members of the Drago police department and the Zakharian National Forces were on hand to keep things orderly, but they were hardly necessary with the friendly crowd.
Smiles and jests were the order of the day—no pushing or shoving. As he watched the crowd—so different from American crowds—Alec theorized people must have come from miles around, not just from Drago. But everyone seemed to be in a jubilant mood. He struck up a conversation with an elderly couple near the front of one line, grateful his knowledge of Zakharan was up to the task, and his theory was quickly confirmed.
“We are from Timon, near the eastern border,” the husband said. “We left home at midnight to be here today.”
“Why?”
“To witness the christening, of course,” the man told him, as if it should be obvious. “And the official royal acknowledgment that the baby is the true heir of Zakhar’s king. I was right here when the king himself was christened almost thirty-five years ago.” His wrinkled face became animated. “I was almost the same age then that the king is now, and I remember that day as if it were yesterday.”
In his head Alec heard Angelina say, “It is not just the baptism of a child, you understand. It is a celebration of the future of our country...”
Alec smiled, beginning to understand why these two elderly Zakharians were willing to subject themselves to this ordeal along with the rest of the crowd. “We don’t have ceremonies like this in the US.”
“That is your country’s misfortune,” the man said with a touch of superiority, before his wife chimed in.
“This is a historical event,” she explained. “This ceremony—it is more than five hundred years old, you understand. The line of direct descent from father to son has never been broken. God willing, it never will be.”
“Were you here the last time, too?”
“But of course. My husband and I, we were both here. That is why we are here today.” She beamed at Alec and went on to explain that it wasn’t just a historical event for Zakhar, it was a good omen. Not that the Zakharians were any more superstitious than citizens of other European countries, as a general rule, but they had come to believe the good fortune and prosperity Zakhar had experienced throughout the centuries was somehow tied in with the House of Marianescu. Zakhar had never had a truly bad king in all those years of the monarchy’s direct descent. Was this cause and effect? “No Zakharian is willing to put it to the test,” she added in all seriousness. “And now we will not have to.” She took her elderly husband’s hand. “Not in our lifetime.”
After a little more conversation, Alec thanked them both and excused himself to wander around the square outside the cathedral, taking everything in.
Large screens were being erected to project the ancient ritual from inside the cathedral, one performed by every Zakharian king except the first Andre Alexei—his heir had been born in captivity, far away from Drago. But his successor, his son Raoul, ha
d begun the ritual when his first son was born.
The clock tower in the square had just proclaimed the time as nine o’clock when cars began arriving, disgorging a phalanx of steely-eyed men with the distinct look of bodyguards about them. They swarmed up the cathedral steps and disappeared inside. “Security teams,” Alec murmured to himself. A couple of women dressed just like the men were also there, and he remembered Angelina saying Queen Juliana had requested a certain number of female bodyguards, although the vast majority of her security detail were men.
Neither Captain Zale nor Lieutenant Mateja were with them, and though Angelina hadn’t mentioned it to him, it didn’t take much to figure out they would arrive with the royal family. Which meant Angelina was highly thought of by her superiors.
As if he were inside the cathedral with them, Alec knew the security teams were taking up their assigned positions, fanning out throughout the cathedral, making sure security was tight. Everything that could be done to ensure the safety of the royals would be done, but none of the members of the various security details would breathe easy until the christening was safely over. Been there, done that.
More cars arrived at ten, but Alec noted all these arrivals were moving in through a side door. His eagle eyes spotted the photo-ID badges that were being flashed to the security team monitoring the entrance and the portable metal detector set up there. Not guests, he figured. Must be participants in the ceremony— musicians, choir members, people like that.
As he walked around the square for the umpteenth time, Alec still couldn’t get over how vast the crowd was—there had to be close to a quarter-million people here—and they remained orderly. Many had been there for hours, but the overall celebratory atmosphere engendered good-natured camaraderie.
