The damage had been contained more than any of them could have hoped, but that didn’t make them feel any better. They were fucking lucky they hadn’t been torn to pieces. Ripped to shreds. Only the grace of God had saved them where it had felled good men. Strong, brave soldiers who had worn their uniforms with pride, and had done their duty to their nation in the melee.
The four of them had stinging cuts from shrapnel that had sung through the air and hit them. But nothing had injured them too badly. Nothing that the EMTs hadn’t been able to swab up and clean after checking their vitals.
Perry had insisted on staying with them in Parliament, where they’d taken refuge. She had refused to go to hospital even though she, too, had been sprayed with shrapnel that had glanced off her; the blood on her terrified him, but they’d had the confirmation she was okay. Just looking worse for wear.
Not that she realized she’d been hit.
The blood, whenever she saw it after rubbing at her face or running a hand through her hair, still had the power to make her blanch.
Outside was chaos, and it would continue to be while the security and emergency services worked together to stabilize the scene. Until that happened, George knew there would be few answers; considering that Edward felt like answers had been short in coming over the months since his coronation, it was no wonder that he was beyond frustrated.
Still, it didn’t help Perry.
And Perry was all that mattered.
“How did this happen?” Edward demanded, but he was speaking to Xavier. Since they’d made their way in here, tucked amid the green leather Chesterfields, the paneled walls of a study, it was like Perry and George had ceased to exist thanks to their silence. His focus was purely on Xavier now.
“As soon as the reports come through, you know we’ll be the first to get them.”
“It has to be an inside job.”
“No, it doesn’t. Bombs are planted all the time.”
“On the busiest square in the capital city? How does anyone plant a device here, where there are more cameras per square foot than in London?”
“I don’t know, Edward. But it happened.”
“It did, that’s the problem, Xavier. It did happen, and there had to be inside help.” Edward’s hands slammed down in rejection of his own words: “We’re in a state of emergency. I should invoke Article 42.”
“No.”
The word was timorous but it was the first thing Perry had said since she’d screamed their names while being dragged to safety.
George knew he’d never forget the sight of her panic. Knew he’d never forgive himself for putting her through that.
Edward scowled at her. “What?”
“No, Edward. No Article 42. We believe in democracy. We don’t right a wrong by creating a dictatorship.” Her voice quivered. “No. I won’t have it.”
Before his brother could say anything, George murmured, “She’s right.”
“We both know she is,” Xavier concurred. “You’re too focused on the Article because you feel you’re not being heard and you’re not getting the respect you deserve, Edward.
“But it isn’t that at all. I don’t like to say it…” He scratched his head, then winced as he obviously touched a cut. They were all battered by the day’s events—emotionally, physically, and mentally. “I don’t think Philippe left things in a very good stead with the councils.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re not as organized as they should be.”
“He’s right, Edward,” George joined in. “Father was a good king, but he wasn’t a strategist. We both know that. Unless it was chess, he was useless. But he was loved, and when it came to the important things, modernizing the cities and bringing Veronia into the new millennium, he was a trooper.”
“So? What does that have to do with anything?”
“It means that you don’t need the Article to get us out of this mess,” Perry whispered softly. “It means that you can handle this situation without doing something your father would have had to do. You’re not him.”
Edward shook his head. “I’m not as good as you seem to think.”
“You’re running blind and we’ve already managed to figure out something our security councils haven’t,” Xavier argued. “I think we need to contemplate completely rehiring new men. Nominating new members with allies from our pasts rather than your father’s. Our friends rather than his.”
“I agree. Maybe it’s time to stop keeping Markov in the shadows. Bring him to the fore,” George encouraged, “where the man can do some good.”
“He’s Russian. You know they’ll never accept him.”
“They being who?” George demanded. “The people? Parliament? They have no say over who you appoint.” He cut Perry a look. “And the same goes with you, Perry. It’s time to do away with the old guard. Get rid of the Guardians of the Keys that my mother chose. Let’s get some fresh blood in—we’ll nominate women who are married to men that we know we can trust.” He scrubbed at his head. “I wish you’d made more friends. Can we change the law that says Guardians have to be married? It’s an outdated piece of claptrap anyway.”
“How do you know who we can trust?” Edward demanded. “You’ve been out of the damn country for years. And no, there’s too much change as it is.”
Through the wall of anger opposite him, George lobbed: “Then we’ll figure out another way, but we’re not going to get anywhere by sticking to what didn’t work for our parents, either.” He sucked in a breath, truly feeling the wave of rage his brother hurled at him—Edward’s bitterness at George’s absence was evident. “And in the interim, I think for Christmas, I should take Perry back to the States.”
“What?”
Edward and Xavier roared the question at the same time, but George held his nerve. Jerking his chin up in the air, he argued, “She’s not safe here. Not for the moment. Even if you don’t invoke the Article, declaring a state of emergency is on the cards. If I take her home, she’ll be safe there.”
“You’re failing to recognize one simple thing, George.” Perry’s voice held a quaver, but the look she shot him was like steel.
“What’s that, sweetheart?”
She jerked her chin up. “I told you I’d never leave you. Any of you. The only way you’ll get me out of this country is if you handcuff me to the seat on the plane.” She cast them withering looks. “I’m going nowhere. So, you’re just going to have to do what you said—get a goddamn move on, figure out what the fuck is going on, and put the bastards in jail so that we can finally start living again.” The quaver had disappeared, and she got shakily to her feet. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to puke.”
And with that, she rushed off to the nearest bathroom, leaving them staring at one another.
“Why did you suggest that?” Edward demanded as he came to sit opposite him, glowering at him all the while.
“Because I wanted her to know that if she wanted to leave, she could. I’d take her.”
“We don’t want her to leave, dammit.”
“This isn’t about us, Xavier,” George retorted. “You think I wanted her to go? Of course I fucking didn’t. But I wanted her to know she had an out. She never signed up for this, dammit. This is going above and beyond anything we ever imagined.
“I never thought within the space of half a year, my mother would be shot, my wife would be under threat from a gunman, and that today, we’d be fucking bombed… Why should she have to deal with that when we never warned her? She should know that we forgive her if she decided to go.”
“She’s ours,” Edward argued. “She was never going anywhere.”
“Just because we knew that, doesn’t mean we should be complacent about it either,” he retorted, refusing to back down and keeping his gaze glued to his brother’s. “You can say what you want, but you have to feel better knowing that she has chosen to stay here when she could have gone home to safety.”
Edward gritted his
teeth. “Maybe.”
George nodded. “Exactly. Anyway, now we need to think about replacing the councils. They’re going to be busy for the next seventy-two hours, but we need to start figuring out who we can get on board. We’ve a lot of places to fill and only a short window to make the changes happen.
“But first things first, I think we need to get Markov here.”
“He’s a private businessman, and he has concerns of his own,” Edward said as he exhaled. “He can’t just dump everything.”
“Not even for the man who saved his life? Not even for the Regent who’ll pay him a king’s ransom to take up the post?”
“You manipulative shit,” Edward said on a grumble, but he pulled out his cell phone.
George watched as his brother searched his contacts, and then connected the call. As he lifted the cell to his ear, he was surprised when what seemed like flawless Russian escaped Edward’s mouth.
Course, it could have been utter shit, but George hadn’t even realized he could speak Russian, never mind with a fluency that was visible in his ease on the phone with the other man.
“Da,” Edward said after a few moments, and George caught another, “Niet,” which was probably the total amount of Russian he could understand.
He caught Xavier’s eye, saw their cousin looked just as bewildered—a fact that surprised him. Xavier was the sort who seemed to know everything about life at court…even though he spent most of his time avoiding it.
At around the ten minute mark, Edward put the phone down with a grim, satisfied smile.
“It’s done.”
“He’s coming?” Xavier asked.
“Yes.”
“Did you have to get the thumbscrews out?”
He snorted. “No, George. Torture wasn’t required. A signing-on bonus that would make most governments blanch was a condition for him, though.”
“He’s worth it?” Xavier prodded.
“Yes. Without a doubt. Markov, for all I like the man, is a damn spider. His web has global reach. He’s the equivalent of L’Argeneau except he’s on my side and his loyalty won’t waver.”
What the fuck had Edward done to earn such allegiance? Not that he didn’t deserve it, but still… there had to be a tale there, and knowing his brother like he did, George would undoubtedly never discover the truth.
“Why didn’t you hire him on before?”
“Because he’s Russian. That says it all. But desperate times call for desperate measures.”
“I think we’re going to need a hatchet job on the councils in the press, and we’re going to have to big up how you guys met.” George rubbed his chin, wondering if that hint was enough to find out how Edward and the Russian had actually met.
“That story is for us; it’s personal. I’ll leave the PR to the PR people, George. That isn’t something I’m willing to share.”
“I don’t think we should reveal who he is,” Xavier countered. “I think he should maintain a shadowy presence at court. There’s no need for him to be active there. He can remain on the outskirts; that’s more of what we need, anyway. We get people we trust on the councils, and he can watch them.”
“To make sure we can trust them?” Edward asked grimly.
“Exactly,” Xavier murmured.
George nodded. “He’s right.”
“Markov won’t mind. Hates being in the spotlight anyway.”
“You likened the man to a spider; I don’t particularly think he’ll mind what opinion you have of him,” Xavier retorted. He lifted a hand and rubbed his temple. “Now, I need sleep. If we’re going to pad the councils out, I need some rest before we dive into it.”
“Headache?”
“It’s more like my ears are ringing, George. Yours?”
They’d been about twenty feet behind the carriage holding Edward and Perry when the bombs had exploded. The blasts had been from dirty bombs, explosives rammed full of shrapnel. Anything from coins to nails.
How they hadn’t been hit fatally was more of a blessing than even luck could provide. Their horses seemed to have taken most of the fray. Their pure white and black hides were pinned to shreds by the dirty bombs. The wounds had been ragged, deep, impossible to recover from. Whisper’s whinnies, his pain-filled cries, would forever haunt him, George knew.
When he’d shot his own beast, George had had to shake his head at the task ahead of him. He was a Prince, supposed to be used for nothing good save for opening events and looking pretty in pictures. Yet, here he was, having to put his own animal down because the wounds were too grievous to survive. While having to meander through the military parade like he was out in the sandbox on war-torn territory in his own goddamn country. In the center, the very heart, of their most metropolitan landmark.
There were many moments where a man thought “enough is enough.” They happened every so often in life. But they usually revolved around angry arguments with family or a wife, dealt with betrayals by friends or injustices at work.
They didn’t revolve around bombings.
They didn’t revolve around assassination attempts.
The truth was, if anyone had wanted to flee to the USA, it was George. He’d pushed his own desire onto Perry, hoping that she’d be the one who would make them go. But she had more balls than him. She was determined to stay, steadfast with her desire to remain with them.
For a moment, he felt like a coward. But he was a banker now, no longer a soldier. He dealt with numbers. He dealt with facts and figures, not this political bullshit. Just because he’d been born into the role, didn’t mean that he was made for it.
His thoughts had him bowing his head as he rested his elbows on his knees.
“You okay, George?”
His brother’s concern had his cheeks prickling with heat. “No. But neither are you. I’ll be fine eventually.”
A heavy sigh sounded, and he knew his words had hit home.
Now wasn’t the time to be cowardly; now was the time to man up, to fight the bastards who were attacking them, to hurt them exactly where they deserved to be hurt—their balls. But he was only a man, and this man had lost his mother, had fled to a hospital thinking his wife had been shot, and had watched the mother of his child being passed down a line of men like an ungainly parcel toward shelter away from bombs.
Even as the chaos of the moment had overtaken him, his eyes had been glued on her, from the moment he’d been tossed from his horse and he could catch sight of her.
The way she’d screamed their names? It would merge with Whisper’s agony-drenched neighs, and they’d fill his nightmares forevermore.
Once again, he was left with the notion that he had brought her here. He had introduced her to this. And it was then he realized that he wasn’t scared for himself as he’d thought just a handful of moments ago. He was petrified for her.
She was his future, his present, and his past.
Without Perry, this insanity didn’t make sense.
Without her influence, without her love, he knew he couldn’t handle this world.
She was it for him, and he knew his brother and cousin felt the exact same way.
Like the rest of the world watching on, he knew he’d been astonished at the way the two of them had settled into the carriage together. They’d snuggled up, had kissed a little, had even laughed. For the serious occasion, it was unheard of.
Without knowing it, they’d announced to the world how important Perry was to Edward. Had declared, to one and all, that they were a love match.
If she didn’t have a target on her back before, she did now. And that was why he now felt sick to his stomach.
The danger had just heated up all the more, and they were no way close to finding a resolution.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Xavier asked, still rubbing at his temple as though that would diminish the ache.
“No. I’m not,” he replied. “But I will be when we get underway. The time for prevaricating is over. Edward’s been right all al
ong, Xavier. We don’t have to invoke Article 42 for us to act like it’s in place.
“Tonight, or for as long as we’re able, we rest. Then, in the morning, we take control of our country, and we show our subjects who the fucking rulers are. The DeSauviers—not some whiny fucking terrorists—us.” He gritted his teeth and fisted his hands as rage flushed through him, and when he cast looks at his brother and cousin, he saw they were as angry as him, as outraged.
Good.
They had a rebel extremist group to dismantle, and George needed no others at his back than the men with him tonight.
Chapter Sixteen
Perry narrowed her eyes at Cass. “He’s coming home?”
“Yes. The bombing scared him.”
“Funny that,” she said with a disgruntled snort.
Cass wriggled her shoulders with a tension that they were all feeling. “He said he’ll be on the next flight out here tomorrow.”
Considering Marcus had been saying that for the last two months, Perry wouldn’t exactly be getting her hopes up. But, this time, she knew things were different.
The difference was, of course, that Edward had called Marcus. Edward had demanded his friend return home, and as King, had issued it as an order.
His only concession had been that Marcus could tell Cass it was of his own volition. A fact Perry disagreed with wholeheartedly.
The dick had promised to come home after a big deal of his was finalized. With four million in the bank, he should have flown home first class, but he hadn’t. He’d stayed on in New York, even though Cass had been in tears when she’d called Perry up—just moments after Marcus’s call—sobbing that despite all her threats, despite her move home, Marcus was still refusing to return to Veronia.
Perry wasn’t, she had to admit, predisposed to like the jerk. But she’d be seeing a lot of him because he was going to be something called an “equerry.”
She wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, and didn’t particularly care, if she were being honest. If it lightened her men’s load while shoring up their defenses, then that was all that mattered. Still, she hated the out Edward had given the man—that he could lie to his wife about why he was coming home.
Long Live Queen Perry: Contemporary Reverse Harem (Kingdom of Veronia Book 3) Page 28
