by P. G. Van
Sid made no effort to hide his anger as he slammed the door shut before letting her go. “How dare you, how dare you stop me from doing my job?”
“Sid, you can’t kill everyone who tries to attack me. How long can you do this?”
“My entire life… I will do it until I die.” His eyes shone with anger.
“You can’t, don’t do this to yourself. You are not the only one responsible for people’s safety.”
“I am, I am the only one responsible for people’s safety because I failed to kill everyone responsible. I spared the dictator’s family, and now someone in the family is doing what he was doing in the region. I should have killed them all,” he declared making her weak in her knees.
Amy took in the image of the man she loved and saw the man who was obsessed with duty, who held himself solely responsible for keeping the people of his country safe and most of all a selfless soldier willing to give up his life for a cause. His uniform had splashes of blood, and his hands were red with blood. She took a deep breath and stepped closer to him.
Her fingers trembled as she unbuttoned his uniform suit. “You are a soldier and not a savage beast who takes lives. You are the hero of the country who slowed down the rebel group from taking over the rest of the country. You lost your mother, gave up a grand life as the President’s son to serve not to end lives.”
His eyes widened in surprise.
“I know, your dad told me.”
“The Eagle is the President of Edenridge,” he growled.
“You lost your mother, but your father lost his wife and his child.”
“People have lost so much more, Amy, and the only way to stop them is for you to become the queen and give me one order to take them down.” He dug his fingers into her shoulder.
Amy smiled weakly, pushing his uniform off his shoulder letting it fall to the floor. She led him toward the bathroom and placed his hand under the faucet before turning on the water. “I will become the queen under one condition.”
“Anything you want.” He scanned her face as she washed the blood off his hands while getting the staining off her hands as well.
She reached for the hand towel and wrapped her hands around his hands holding his wrists together.
“Anything?”
“Yes.” He pulled his hands away from her to cup her cheeks with his palms.
“I want you to walk away from who you are now.”
“What?”
“I will be crowned as queen only if you promise to leave the Army. Give up your position as the Commander.”
“What the heck are you talking about?” He let his hands fall to his side.
She reached out and took his hands to her chest. “Sid, you’ve spent too much time around brutality and bloodshed to see the full beauty of life.”
“I can’t, I was born to serve my country, and I will do so until I die.”
“Sid, the choice is yours. If you want Edenridge to have a queen… ever, you will step down as the Commander.” She gently pushed him aside and took a step away from him only to be yanked back to him. Her back slammed into the bathroom wall, and she felt his fingers in her hair, tugging on her hair to make her look into his eyes as his breath threatened to incinerate her.
“Why are you doing this?” He seemed intimidating and helpless at the same time.
“Because I love you, I want you for myself.” She cried an overwhelming emotion weighing her heart. “I’m not a selfless person like you, I want you.”
Amy sensed the shift in his manner, his fingers loosened in her hair, and his body stopped crushing her to the wall. His arm wrapped around her as his lips claimed hers demandingly. His hands worshiped her body like she was a delicate flower, but his lips were punishing making her wonder what was going on in his mind.
“I love you, Sid,” she moaned against his lips making him shudder.
“I love you, too, Regina Amyra Jane Charles,” he groaned making her feel the rush to her core.
Chapter 19
Amy woke up to gentle kisses on her bare shoulder. The warm breath of the man who promised away his life goal warmed her entirety. She turned to face him and brushed her lips over his. “Good morning.”
“Good morning, my queen.”
“Not a queen yet, Commander.” She smiled tightening her arm around me.
“That’s right, I get fired the day you are crowned.” He laughed.
She had to gather a lot of courage to stop him from beating up the mole. Watching him torture the man was a harsh reminder she was in love with a monster. She shuddered watching him knock the man unconscious, and strangely enough, she fell deeper for him. The more she saw him passing threats to everyone for her safety, she felt the ecstasy building like someone stabbed a drug into her bloodstream.
“How are you not mad at me?” She felt guilty for putting him in a fix but knew it was best for him to walk away from the life of a soldier.
“I am, but I love you more.” He planted a light kiss on her cheek.
“I’m proud to be the woman you love.” She buried her face into his neck.
“Are you ready to be the queen?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Commander.”
“Not for long. Thanks to you.”
“I have no choice. I’m a selfish bitch,” she teased.
“I have other ways of serving, you know.” He snaked his fingers in her hair pulling on her locks delectably.
“Really, what are you going to do?”
“I am going to run for Parliament in the Barkha region. I get to rebuild the region the way I had envisioned it and… the Queen needs someone who’ll give her a tough fight.”
“Really, how tough do you want the Queen to be?”
“I want her to whip my ass,” he grunted rolling over her, threatening to crush her with his weight.
“I would love that.” She bit down on his lower lip making him groan. She knew Sid was doing what he thought was the right thing to do, but she knew he had deep-rooted emotions he had not acknowledged or addressed. He built a shell around those emotions never wanting them to surface, as he perceived that as his weakness. Amy wanted him, all of him including the darkness in his heart.
A few hours later she stood on the other side of the two-way mirror watching the man she had rescued a little over a month ago prepped for an interrogation. He looked tired like he hadn’t slept all night, but something about him told her he was putting on a show.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Sid stepped into the room setting his earpiece in place.
“Yes, and you are on the wrong side of the mirror.” She mocked.
“Prepping for my life after you become the queen.” He laughed sending pangs of guilt through her.
“Sid, I know you are pissed. Can you at least be mad at me for putting you in a tight spot.”
“I am pissed but not at you.” He winked.
She put her arm around his waist. “You need to step away from the violence before… before I lose you to the bloodshed.” She placed her cheek on his chest and felt the thudding against her skin.
“I will step away from all of it only after we re-claim the Barkha region.” His voice was soft.
“Fair enough.” She planted a kiss on his chest.
“Why did you stop me yesterday?”
“Because the Eagle asked me to,” she murmured, but in her heart, she knew she had a stronger reason.
“Why did you stop me yesterday?” He repeated, his voice stern.
She gently pulled away from him to look into his eyes. “You carry enough guilt for every drop of blood you have seen. You don’t need more.”
“It’s my duty. I have no guilt in showing those bastards the consequences of treachery.” He clenched his jaw.
“I am not talking about Commander Sidney, I’m talking about Sid.” She ran the back of her hand over his clenched jaw in an attempt to smoothen it.
“There is no Sid, I am Commander Sidney.”
“I did
n’t fall in love with the Commander, I fell for the guy who got me the best pizza I’ve ever had, the guy who knows how to soothe my pain, and the guy with the heart to spare a life for me.”
He took a deep breath pulling her back into his arms. “I love you, Amy.”
“You are a good leader, and the people of Barkha need you.” She tightened her hold on him.
“We are ready, sir,” a male voice interrupted their moment.
Sid pressed on his earpiece. “Let’s get started.”
Amy looked at the man seated at the table in the middle of the room. He looked frazzled from the outside, the way his leg shook and the way he clasped his fingers, but his eyes held a level of calm which surprised her.
“Sid, why do I get the feeling he is faking nervousness?”
“Nervousness is a sign of innocence in many cases, and he definitely knows more. I’m just surprised he didn’t recognize you for who you are and not just the girl who gave him a ride.”
“Well, the mole gave away the address of the ranch. What they didn’t know was that the girl who took him to the hospital was the girl they have been looking for.”
“This is true.”
“And there are no pictures, just a rough description.”
“Yes.”
“What was on that memory card you found in my van?”
“Couldn’t retrieve any data, it was soaked in his blood and was completely damaged.” He looked as John stepped into the interrogation room.
“Did you see that? He recognized John but is pretending not to recognize him,” Sid declared. He pressed into his earpiece. “John, this man knows you, but is pretending he doesn’t.”
John touched his watch to confirm he heard Sid.
Amy watched as John and another man in uniform talked to the suspect like they wanted to know everything about him to be friends forever. They started with gathering the standard information to even discussing his dog. They asked him about the age of his dog almost to remind him they had his dog with them.
The man spoke in a weak voice and kept asking them why he was being held. Sid was on the computer looking at the reports being sent to him by his team analyzing the man’s voice and also checking for the legitimacy of the information provided to them.
“John, we have confirmation of his identity. Timothy James Matthews, thirty-eight years old, lives in the area we found him yesterday, owns a couple of computer repair stores, but I’m not convinced he is telling us the truth.” Sid passed on the message to the people in the interrogation.
“Sid, does he have a family?” Amy wondered.
“There seems to be no one else at his place, but we have someone watching the house. Serena has technically lived in that neighborhood for years, but she doesn’t recognize the guy.”
“Who is Serena? Why did we stay over at her place?” She was burning with jealousy.
Sid’s eyebrow raised up, and the edge of his mouth twisted wickedly. “Do I sense something more than curiosity?”
“No, just curious. I wouldn’t let any random person bring their girlfriend to my place.”
He laughed, annoying her but did not respond.
“You should thank her and let her know my clothes are lying in her shower.”
“She won’t mind.” He ran his finger along her lower lip.
“Sid, I’m not asking again. Who is Serena?”
“I’m enjoying your misery, is that bad?” He winked.
“I’m not miserable. Just curious,” she barked.
“Fine, that is just one of the many secure locations outside of the Embassy. The house is registered in her name as a decoy, but the Embassy owns the location, and she hangs out at the house from time to time. Serena’s dad worked for your grandfather many years ago before moving to the states. Serena is a citizen of this country but volunteers at the Embassy’s medical facility.” Sid pushed a lock of hair away from her face.
“How does Timothy know Serena?”
“She technically lives there, shows up for a few of the homeowners’ association meetings, but her neighbors think she is with the W.H.O. and travels for work.”
“Interesting and what’s more interesting is that we found this guy in that area. What are the odds?” She ran her fingers through her hair looking through the glass wall as John continued to talk to Timothy.
“Well, it’s been coincidence after coincidence, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, me stopping to take a stranger to the hospital, you showing up to investigate, and oh my…” Amy was happy for where she was, but it was overwhelming every time she thought about how her life changed in a short period of time.
“It’s all good. I just need to keep you away from these pricks,” he growled.
She swirled around to look at him. “No, maybe you should send me into that room to be part of the investigation.”
“To interrogate him?” He scrunched his nose.
“No, like you took me in as a suspect. See if he would tell me anything.” She beamed.
“I like the way you think, but let’s give the guys another hour to see what they can get out of him.”
“We’ve been here for almost an hour, and all he has admitted to doing is taking a memory card from a client, he has no idea what was on it, and that he lost it.” Amy shrugged impatiently.
“You know that’s not the truth.”
“What are the odds of him being innocent?”
“Slim to none. First thing, he managed to get away from the hospital even when he was heavily medicated, and the memory card we found was slipped in the seat pocket of the minivan,” Sid reiterated.
Something sparked in her mind. “Sid, that night when I took him to the hospital I was convinced he was a doctor, but he claims to be a computer guy.”
“Why did you think he was a doctor?” Sid seemed surprised.
“Well, just from the way he was talking about his injuries. He told me he was bleeding internally, he might have had a concussion, and that I needed to keep him up. That’s why I was asking him all the riddles as we drove to the hospital.”
“He may just know a bit more about his injuries.”
“Not enough to tell the medical staff about what medication to give him even before we got there. I called to tell them the medications he needed, and he claimed he needed those specifically because of his medicine allergies.”
“He might have known that from a previous injury.”
“That’s not possible in his situation. He was in a lot of pain.”
“That’s what he gets for driving an old car with a bad airbag system into the wall of rock.” Sid snarled.
“And he claims the car he was driving was his imaginary client’s car?” Amy shook her head.
“Yeah, he is full of shit and nowhere close to being innocent.” Sid ran his fist into the glass wall like he wanted to punch the man looking at the interrogators innocently.
“I can’t believe he claims to have run away from the hospital because he didn’t have insurance.” She laughed in disbelief.
“He’s full of it, but his record is clean. Born in Scotland, moved here for school. Degree in economics, a few jobs before he started his computer store.” Sid read through the details on his screen.
“Did you find anything weird on his phone?” Amy remembered Timothy handing her his phone.
“Nothing unusual. We are running a check on his contacts to see if we get any hits, but nothing so far.”
“What is this guy hiding?” She wondered out loud.
“It’s obvious he is not the hired help. He is up there in the ranks, a strong believer of the philosophy of the Barkha Group.” Sid seemed confident.
“Sid, are you going to use the truth serum on him?”
He laughed pulling her to him. “Are you sure you want to be the queen and not work for me.”
“Stop teasing me, I’m just curious.”
“We sent his blood sample to the lab so that we know his threshold before we give
him the truth serum.”
“Did you do a blood test on me before you gave it to me?” she demanded.
“I had access to your health records, but this guy has no record. No medical record, no insurance. It’s like he doesn’t exist after he graduated. Claims to make just enough from his business to pay for his employees and the rent.”
“But he manages to live in a nice neighborhood.” Amy snickered.
“Claims to have bought that house with his inheritance money and is scraping by, but something doesn’t add up.”
“Yeah, definitely fishy.”
“We have one more thing to do today before we try the truth serum on him.”
“Me? Do I get to pretend you captured me because of him?” Amy laughed.
“Not yet, we have one more card to play… the mole.”
A shiver ran through her at the memory of the man drenched in his own blood. “Is he in a position to talk to the guy?”
“No, we’ll bring him in to see if he recognizes this guy who claims to be innocent.”
“Hmm… interesting.”
“Do you want to go back to your room or hang out here? We are going to have the mole look at him from this side of the glass.”
“I’m good. I’ll just stay out of the way.” She settled into a bar stool in front of Sid’s computer.
A few minutes later, she heard a knock on the door, and two men in uniform rolled a wheelchair into the room. The guy in the wheelchair looked to be in his late twenties and had bandages on his hands and stitched up wounds on his face.
The guy in the wheelchair looked at Sid with fear and remorse in his eyes, and his eyes traveled to where Amy was sitting, and she saw the remorse turn to anger.
“Keep in mind, she was the reason I stopped what I was doing to you,” Sid roared.
“Commander Sidney, we don’t need a royal family to govern us,” the man objected weakly.
“What about the remaining ninety percent of the people who are being treated unfairly in the Barkha region. Do you not care for them?”
