by Sara Arden
She’d stopped trying to argue with him about what did and what did not belong to him. He’d made up his mind, and no amount of correction from her was going to change that. There was no reason to set herself a harder course than what she already had— meaning she had to pick her battles. Nomenclature wasn’t worth fighting over.
“Do you think your ranger will come?” Grisha asked.
“No. I was just a mission to him.”
“You put on a very convincing show for the world. You’re going to have to top it if you want to convince people you left of your own free will.”
Why he thought she’d ever do that was beyond her. “It wasn’t a show on my part, Grisha. I love him.”
He suddenly grabbed her. “Say that again and I will kill him.”
She didn’t need to say it. It was already tattooed on her heart. But she didn’t defy Grisha; she’d already pushed him as far as she’d be able to.
Grisha must’ve seen the surrender in her eyes because he released her. “Glad we understand each other. We’ll go to our beach house.”
As the car drove down the winding cobbled roads of Castallegna City, Damara realized the route was familiar.
He was taking her to what had once been her mother’s retreat house. It was where she went with the children when the Council was in session or she’d just had enough of the pomp of court.
How could Abele have given it to him?
Some of their best memories were there.
When the car took the last turn, those memories came rushing back to her. The happy days spent on the sand and in the water, her mother’s large, floppy hat that was supposed to shield her from the sun but blew away on the island breezes more often than not.
She and Abele in the lagoon while he taught her to swim and showed her various fish.
That was all gone.
Now there was some gangster living in her mother’s house. The house where she’d fallen in love with Damara’s father, the house where she’d given birth to Abele and to Damara. The house where she’d taken her last breath trying to bring another son into the world.
She wanted to burn it down.
Damara would rather see it and everything in it disappear to ash along with the love and life that had happened in there than see it sullied by Kulokav.
“It was your mother’s, yes?”
She nodded silently.
Damara didn’t speak until they went inside the house. It was completely empty. Everything was gone. From the pictures of her grandmother, to her mother’s favorite chair, it was all gone.
Empty. Just like Abele.
“Where are all my mother’s things? Tell me they’ve been put into storage.” She turned to face him. “Tell me.”
For once the big man had nothing to say.
“Did you do this? Did you have her things removed?”
“That would have been unnecessarily cruel,” Grisha acknowledged.
“One day, I will cry for the boy that my brother was. Today is not that day.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
DAMARA KNEW THAT Byron would come for her.
She couldn’t see him, but she knew he was out there watching, waiting for the right time to make his move. Castallegna wasn’t very big. She was torn between wanting him to hurry and wanting him to flee.
If he fled, she knew that he and Abele would both live.
It wasn’t long before Grisha announced it was time to go to the palace and speak with Abele.
“Are you going to kill him?” she asked.
“Do you want me to?”
“No. I don’t want anyone to die.” She meant that from the bottom of her heart.
“What if he tries to kill you?”
She exhaled heavily. Part of her wanted to say that, yes, he should defend her life. But she knew he’d use it as an excuse to kill her brother whether her life was in danger or not.
“Even then.”
“You know that in the eyes of Castallegnian law, you are my wife already. Even if I still have to make you a widow to the Americans.”
“Just stop, Grisha. Stop. You have me. I’m here. I’ve done everything you wanted.” She was so tired of all this talk of death.
“You’re not in my bed.”
“You were so sure I’d come to want you—where is that confidence now?”
Grisha sighed. “I will give you one month. No more. I want sons.”
More men like him who would murder, rape and steal? No. She’d never have his child. She’d drink the yam root tea to prevent conception until her fingers turned yellow if she had to.
“You are suspiciously quiet.”
“Of course I’m quiet. You’re taking me to see my brother after he threatened to kill me and crowned himself king. I’d be stupid not to be worried.”
Her brain had been set to spin since they’d arrived on the island. Part of her kept hoping that Byron would show up with some elite commando force and fix everything. It was just a spoiled little-girl princess thing for her to think, and yet she couldn’t dismiss it.
When they got to the palace—a sprawling, whitewashed, hacienda-style estate—they were met by guards she’d never seen before. In the time she’d been gone, he’d changed everything.
She inhaled the scent of jasmine, and it fortified her. All her fears and doubts didn’t disappear, but they were caged and quieted.
They were led into the formal receiving room as if they were guests instead of royals.
She thought it would be terrible to face her brother, and seeing him there on the throne, wearing her father’s sash and driving their country to ruin, it was terrible.
But not for the reasons she thought it would be.
He was not better than she was. He was not stronger. He was not more.
Damara realized that she had her own power, her own worth, and it had nothing to do with her blood, her birthright or the crown everyone wanted to keep on her head.
She finally understood what Byron had been talking about when he called her the Jewel.
She was as kind as Abele was cruel. She was as gentle as he was ruthless. She tried to find some empathy for each person she met, and all Abele had was greed.
Damara had always been loved for herself. The people loved her; her father loved her. And Byron loved her not because of her name, or her crown, but because of herself.
That realization changed something in her, made it solid and whole. There was nothing Abele could do to take it away from her now.
“The prodigal daughter returns,” he sneered.
“Where are my mother’s things?”
“Destroyed.”
She pursed her lips. “I see.”
“I don’t think you do.” He leaped from the throne to his feet. “I don’t think you do at all, sister.”
Damara didn’t flinch away. She stared him down.
“Do you think that I won’t punish you for what you’ve done?”
“I’m already punished, Abele. But I think I’m finished with that. For a long time I thought I was the spoiled and coddled princess who didn’t know much of the world. It turns out I was wrong. You’ve been so spoiled that you don’t really understand what a weight that crown should be on your head. You’ve been talking about what a disgrace I am? How I’ve shamed you? Well, Abele, I say the same about you.”
He raised his hand to strike her, but when she didn’t cower, his conviction wavered.
“You are an embarrassment to Castallegna, to our mother, to our father, to me. You shame the very throne you sit on.” She motioned to Grisha. “You’ve given control of our country to gangsters because you were so afraid someone was going to take your power away. So instead, you gave it away with both hands.”
&nbs
p; A guttural sound was torn from him. “Watch how you speak to me.”
“No, I won’t. That hand that you’ve raised to strike me? It’s the one that taught me how to swim, that helped teach me to read. It was with that hand I learned to love you, Abele. Now I’m just sorry that boy is dead.”
“I’m right in front of you. I live. I breathe.” He patted his chest.
“And still I say you’re dead. You’re dead to Castallegna and to me.” She leaned in toward him. “Worst of all, and deep down inside you know it’s true, you’re dead to yourself.”
“That doesn’t even make sense, Damara.” He snorted and returned to sit on the throne.
Abele tried to act as if he wasn’t affected, but he was. This was his way of retreat.
“Control your woman, Grisha.”
Grisha shrugged.
“What will you do? Hit me? Kill me? That doesn’t change who you are or what you’ve done. You’re still the same inside whether I’m breathing or not.”
“Keep a civil tongue in your head. If you don’t, I can still blow that town to bits. My operatives are still in place.”
“You’re such a coward,” she spat. “Hurting innocent people and children because you didn’t get what you wanted. You disgust me.”
“Yet, you are still at my mercy. Guards!” he called.
Except no one came.
“Guards!” he yelled again.
“There is no one coming for you, princeling.” Grisha smiled coldly. “And you are sitting in my chair.”
Abele didn’t know what to do; the smug expression on his face melted like wax in the summer sun. All his hopes and dreams had just shattered around him.
“This is treason.”
“As are most regime changes.” Grisha shrugged. “There is no one who will stand up for you. No one who will hear you. You are not a beloved leader. You have no army.”
Army? The way he said that, it was if he were saying that he did have an army. She didn’t want troops on Castallegna. They’d be nothing but mercenaries and thugs. Even if there were never any battles, Castallegna would be a war zone.
She had to stop this, but she had to do it without bloodshed.
* * *
WHEN HE HEARD GRISHA call for a guard, Byron took a deep breath and reported. He’d been able to snatch a guard’s uniform when he found the central command post in the palace.
The room he entered was obviously the throne room, and Grisha had faced off with Abele, with Damara watching.
“See, they do not answer to you any longer,” Grisha said. Then he looked at Byron. “Escort my wife to her new chambers.”
His wife? Byron imagined twenty ways he could kill him with various objects around the room.
“Grisha, no. You promised.”
“I am not a man of promises, malenkaya. I promised no such thing. Go with the guard, unless you want to watch.”
Damara stood there, anguish on her beautiful face.
“More to life,” Byron said in a low voice.
Damara’s eyes grew round, and she dropped her head in faux subservience. He allowed her to walk in front of him because she was the one who knew where they were going.
As soon as they were out of earshot, she shoved him into an alcove and threw her arms around him.
“Are you crazy?”
He ripped off the mask. “Me? What’s wrong with you?”
“You don’t hate me?” she asked softly.
“I’m pissed that to find you I had to steal an inferior bike, camp out in a field and I haven’t had a shower. But why would I hate you?”
He tried to make light of the situation they were in by being blasé, although he was anything but. It felt so good to have her in his arms again, so good to know that she did love him. He was sure she did, but that validation of her embrace made everything better—made it worth it.
“Because I was gone. I left, I didn’t tell you... You told me to stay there.”
“Survival is the only promise I want from you, Princess. You didn’t have a choice.”
“Oh, God, Byron. I don’t know what to do. Grisha has declared himself king because the Council validated the proxy marriage. He’s inserted all of his own people in the palace guard and he has some kind of army of mercenaries. He’s going to kill my brother. Please don’t let him.” She buried her face in his neck. “Please.”
When she looked up at him, he knew he was going to save her damned brother. Against his better judgment, and against what every instinct in his body was telling him. Every instinct but the one to please her.
There wasn’t a curse word invented that could describe his feelings about this development. She’d been right about him, right that when it came down to it, he wouldn’t hurt her. Even if it was the best way to keep her safe.
“Would it be too much to hope for that you’d go wait somewhere safe?”
She arched a brow.
“Fine. Get to a phone and call the Interpol office in Greece.” He shoved a piece of paper in her hand with the number written on it. “Tell them who you are, that the Kulokav brothers are on the island and, as princess, you give them authority in Castallegna.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too, Damara. More than you could ever know.” He turned away from her and headed back into the throne room.
His mouth wasn’t usually in the habit of writing checks that his ass couldn’t cash, but with Abele holding a gun on Grisha and Grisha standing like a bull about to charge, it was going to be ugly.
They both turned to look at the intruder, and Grisha smiled that cold grin of his.
“It is the real cowboy motherfucker.” He quoted Miklos’s words about him. “I’m so glad I get to kill you.”
He was out of options.
And he decided since Grisha thought he was a cowboy, he might as well live up to his reputation. He drew his guns and fired.
But he aimed low and blew out both men’s left knees. A great shot, if he did say so himself. Then he hit the deck, because they fired back as they fell.
Abele was softer, not as used to pain. He dropped his weapon immediately, howling and clutching at his leg.
Grisha, however, was made of sterner stuff. He fired a good shot, and it grazed Byron’s shoulder. It was like being burned with a hot pan, a sizzle and an unpleasant surprise, but it wasn’t debilitating.
He launched himself at Grisha and went for the already injured knee to bring him to submission. Grisha would have kept fighting if Byron hadn’t knocked his head into the marble floor a dozen times.
Byron rummaged through his utility belt and found a pouch of zip ties. They were harder to get out of than traditional handcuffs, but that didn’t stop him from putting three on Grisha and two on Abele.
Abele was still moaning about his leg. When he opened his mouth to speak, Byron stopped him.
“I promised her I wouldn’t kill you. Don’t make me break that promise.” Yet as he looked into the man’s eyes, he knew killing him would be a trial on his soul he didn’t want to bear. Not only would it have hurt Damara but the bastard had her eyes. He couldn’t put a bullet in a man who looked at him with his wife’s eyes.
For as happy as he thought he’d be when he got to end these two, he realized this was better. He’d saved Damara. He’d saved her country, and it was a good thing.
He’d done a good thing.
And he didn’t have to destroy or kill to do it.
That knowledge gave him hope that he could build something when this was over. Byron didn’t know how he’d do it, but he knew he could never be parted from her forever.
Renner had promised him retirement with full benefits if he did this thing, and he’d accepted. He wasn’t going to let the man go back on his word. He�
�d take it and come here and...and what? What would he do?
Serve the princess?
His brain wandered to all the ways he could serve her, but that was only fantasy. Reality was he was still a weapon, and here he’d be a weapon without a purpose.
And yet that was secondary to his need to be with Damara.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
DAMARA HAD BEEN terrified when she’d heard the gunshots. She didn’t know who to worry for most, Abele or Byron. Abele won, but only because she knew that if anyone could figure a way out, it was Byron.
She never thought she’d see him again, let alone be in his arms.
She loved him so much it hurt, and she thought her heart would explode out of her chest and fly away.
It was Byron who emerged from the room, blood on his arm.
“Have you been shot? Again?” She called for some of the old guards still loyal to her to come assist.
“Just a graze. It’s nothing.”
“I forbid you to get shot,” she cried and flung her arms around him again. “Are they—”
“They’re awaiting justice and removal.”
She squeezed him tighter. “Interpol said they could have agents here in an hour and the Italian navy has Castallegna surrounded. Did we really do this?”
“Yeah, baby. We did.” He squeezed her back. “Now you have a country to run.”
“No, I— This wasn’t what I wanted.”
“It’s what you got. Did you think you could just get rid of these men and then what? You have to guide the process.”
“We’re still going to have to be apart, aren’t we?” All the joy she’d felt earlier crashed and burned.
“I don’t want to leave you. But I belong to the U.S. government, at least for a little while longer.”
“No. You’ll just stay here.” Even as she said it, she knew it was wrong. Damara couldn’t ask him to give up his honor.
He pulled away from her embrace and met her eyes. “If that’s what you want.”
She shook her head. “No. I mean, I do. But I won’t ask you to sacrifice your honor and your country for me. Not after you helped me save mine.” She worried her lip with her teeth. “You know, since we’re married, if you want to speak technically, you’re the crown prince of Castallegna.”
