His Princess (A Royal Romance)

by Abigail Graham

  “Are you wondering if I’ve poisoned the blade, Quentin?” Santiago taunts.

  “Shut up,” Quentin retorts.

  He lunges and Santiago toys with him. I can feel every eye in the room on them. I can sense this Lily woman behind me, too, tensing, her breathing growing even as her hands disappear in her pockets.

  There are two guards standing to either side of us, more standing around. I don’t know how many could be in the building.

  “When I kick your chair, get down,” she whispers, just as a clang of metal almost drowns her out.

  Quentin is bleeding from half a dozen shallow cuts, even one on his cheek. Santiago is unmarked, strolling around Quentin with a bullfighter’s grace, light on the balls of his feet. It’s a contest he knows he’s going to win.

  “I have long waited to see the light drain from your eyes, Quentin. How does it feel to know it’s hopeless?”

  Quentin bellows and lunges at him, swinging wildly, and Santiago ducks out of the way and swats the blows aside. Quentin throws himself into it with brute force, grunting and snarling, and his blunted blade slashes across Santiago’s side.

  It does nothing, but that hit should have hurt.

  “Body armor,” Quentin gasps. “You’re wearing fucking body armor. You’re cheating.”

  “The blunt blade wasn’t cheating?” Santiago chuckles, and comes at him again.

  Quentin directs all his swings at Santiago’s head, trying to land a blow in a vulnerable spot, and fails. He picks up more cuts along the way. His arms are slick with blood. It splatters on the floor when he moves, and Santiago hasn’t even cut him deep yet.

  God, he’s doing it on purpose. Bleeding him out.

  Lily kicks my chair, and in the same instant, draws a pair of pistols from her jacket and shoots two of the guards, standing on either side of us, in the head.

  I throw myself down and pull the girls to the floor. The world goes crazy. More shooting, people throwing themselves to the concrete, people falling, women in cages screaming.

  Santiago turns and Quentin takes the sword, two-handed, and swings it so the flat of the blade hits Santiago right below the shoulder blades. The metal snaps and the upper half of the sword goes flying.

  Bastard felt that. He stumbles, swings around, and Quentin ducks out of the way like he’s getting a second wind.

  Santiago starts to run, coming our way.

  My daughter Karen kicks her legs out and trips him. He goes sprawling forward as Quentin ducks down to the floor. The shooting hammers my ears as I pull the kids together, trying to roll on top of them and shield them.

  Santiago turns and sits up, raises the sword, and readies to bring it down right on my head. Quentin appears and catches the blow with the broken half of the sword he still carries, and shoulders into Santiago, howling.

  Quentin goes down on top of him and they roll, wrestling.

  There’s a gun on the floor. It’s got a strap on it. I wrap my fingers around it and pull, scraping it across the floor.

  Santiago rolls on top of Quentin. He has a little blade in his hand, and his gloved fist is slick with blood. Oh my God, he stabbed Quentin.

  Karen grabs the gun, rolls, and shoves it into Quentin’s reach.

  I drag her back by her legs, away from them, as Quentin grabs the grip and swings it up. He jabs the barrel into Santiago’s chest and pulls the trigger, holding it down. The sound is deafening, the gun firing until it goes dry and locks open.

  Santiago falls back and rolls on his side. His coat and shirt are ripped open and shredded. He is wearing armor, Kevlar like cops wear, but it must not have helped. He’s clutching his chest and rasping for breath, and starts to tug at his mask as he coughs, his whole body jerks, and the face of the cloth mask soaks through with blood.

  Quentin rises to his knees, reaches over, and takes hold of Santiago’s sword. He jams the point in the ground and the blade flexes when he stands up.

  Santiago drags the mask from his face, leaving a smear of blood.

  I’m not sure what I was expecting, but he’s just a man. Sweaty, bleeding from the nose and mouth. He hacks up more blood over his chin and stains his suit coat.

  Quentin walks over, leaning on the sword like a cane, then takes it in two hands.

  “Wait,” Santiago says, lifting his hand.

  Quentin says nothing. He swings the sword like a golf club and it goes through Santiago’s hand and then his neck. He clutches his open throat as if he can shove the gouts of blood rushing between his fingers back into his veins.

  “Don’t look,” I tell the girls. Kelly listens, Karen doesn’t. She watches.

  Santiago goes still.

  Behind me I hear a groan.

  Lily is on the floor, clutching her stomach.

  “I got shot,” she says.

  21

  Quentin

  Place is going nuts. Must be fifty women screaming. Rose and the girls are on the floor, Lily’s hit, Santiago’s men are on the floor. I’m bleeding pretty bad and starting to get dizzy.

  I get up on my hands and knees and crawl to Rose. She’s not hurt, she’s not hurt, she’s not hurt. She throws her arms around me and recoils, wide-eyed, at all the blood on her hands. I’m not sure how much of it is mine.

  “We have to get out of here,” she says.

  “Have to get the girls out,” I rasp. You know you’re in trouble when you stop forming coherent sentences.

  I look back at Santiago. He’s dead. He’s fucking dead.

  He looks…smaller than I remember.

  Lily lies against the wall, clutching her belly. She’s bleeding bad but it doesn’t look fatal. Rose helps me up, grabs her girls by the arms and pulls them along. Karen is still looking at Santiago’s body.

  I kneel by Lily and almost fall down. I hate to do it but I have to pull her hand away. She’s not gut shot, buy the look of it. The bullet mostly grazed her left side, but it’s a bad wound and she’s bleeding a fair bit.

  Grunting with effort, I tear a strip of cloth from my shirt and wrap it around her middle, pulling it tight against the wound. She clutches the cloth and presses it in.

  I try to help her and slump against the wall. Rose grimly pulls Lily to her feet and all four of them help me up.

  “Women,” I rasp, “can’t leave the women.”

  “I’ll take care of that,” Lily says calmly. She’s not talking to me anymore. She’s addressing Rose. “Take my keys. Get him out of here. He needs medical attention. There’s a first-aid kit in the trunk. Get some pressure on his wounds.”

  Rose snatches the keys.

  “I have no idea who you are, but thank you,” she says. “Come on, Quent. Girls, help us.”

  Rose gets under my arm on one side and Karen on the other, and I stumble with them back to Lily’s car. I drop on the backseat and sit while Rose pulls out the first-aid kit and starts pressing bandages to my fresh cuts and one of the old ones that broke open while I was fighting.

  Bandages aren’t going to do the job. A couple of them soak through immediately. I’m getting lightheaded. Rose lifts my legs and Karen helps pull me into the backseat. Rose backs the car out and starts driving, clutching the steering wheel in shaking hands.

  “I’m going to be okay,” I grunt.

  “You fucking better be,” Rose whimpers.

  Karen’s eyes flash with momentary shock, that Mom-said-fuck look that kids get on their faces when their mom cusses. Kelly clutches her sister for dear life, shaking. Good God, these kids, what have I brought into their lives?

  “It’s a long way to the hospital.”

  “No hospital. Somebody’ll kill me. I’ll tell you where to go.”

  “Are you insane? Quentin, you’re going to bleed out.”

  “Nah, I’ll be fine. Just drive, Rose. Go where I say.”

  The next half hour is hazy. She takes a few wrong turns and it’s my fault. I’m headed for one of Dale’s places, from the list. There will be some gear there, medical s
hit. Rose gets visibly nervous driving into the city.

  She looks panicky when she parks in the dusty lot behind the place and I drag myself out and lean on the car door to keep from falling. All three of them swarm me and usher me inside. Karen does up all five locks on the door and follows us up the stairs, hugging herself.

  The place is above an old disused garage. Mechanic probably used to live here.

  “You need a nurse or something,” Rose says as I flop onto the couch.

  “You’ll do. I’ll tell you what to do.”

  Rose looks at me wide-eyed. “I keep telling you I’m not a nurse.”

  “Welcome to nursing school. Please hurry up and do what I say so I can pass out.”

  Getting my shirt off is agony. Rose uses blunt-tipped scissors from the kit to cut away the legs of my jeans. I wince as she cleanses the wounds, and rest my hand on her back as she holds the hooked needle in her hands and forces herself steady.

  “Karen, take Kelly in the kitchen and get her some food.”

  “But—”

  “Now,” I snap, too harshly.

  Rose’s eyes tear up as she guides the needle through my flesh.

  “That’s good,” I tell her, trying not to let her see me wince. “You’re doing fine, keep going. Keep the stitches together and tight.”

  “This is going to be a nasty scar,” she says, clearly trying to distract herself.

  “Chicks dig scars.”

  She gives me a flat look and keeps going, awkwardly but competently tying off the suture.

  Great, only a half dozen more to go.

  By the time she finishes the last one, Rose is growing fairly practiced.

  “You lost a lot of blood.”

  “Yeah, I’m a little dizzy. Might be best to give me some. Check the fridge.”

  Rose gets up and leaves me there trying not to pass out, and heads into the kitchen.

  “There’s bags of blood in here. They’re marked universal donor.”

  “Yeah, great. You’ll need to start an IV first. C’mere.”

  Rose walks back out. “I have no idea how to—”

  “I’ll walk you through it.”

  I’m nervous as she prods my arm, but it’s easy enough to find my veins. She wipes down the spot with alcohol and slips the needle in, badly. Under my direction she tapes it down and secures some tubing to my arm so it won’t rip out, and sets up the IV.

  Once it starts to flow I lie down on the couch.

  “How long do we have to stay here?”

  “I don’t know,” I sigh. “I’m not feeling so hot.”

  She brushes the hair out of my face. “Get some sleep.”

  I close my eyes. Something like sleep comes, halfway between wakefulness and drowning in the heavy dark of a deep sleep. Something wakes me, my body jerks, and I find myself lying on the couch covered in a blanket. Karen and the girls are sitting on the floor in front of it, watching an almost-muted television. Rose sits back so her head leans on my arm.

  When she sees I’m awake she looks at me and rests her cheek on my shoulder.

  Sleep grabs me again.

  The next time I wake up, it’s light out.

  What is it, Monday?

  I sit up, or try to. Rose pushes me back down. The kids are at the little dinette table by the kitchen eating cereal. Rose looks quietly panicked and sits down next to me.

  “I’m not at work and the kids aren’t at school. This is going to be trouble.”

  “I’ll write them a note,” I sigh.

  Rose gives me an annoyed look. She’s had a shower since I went to sleep. Her hair is damp, clinging to her neck.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Like I got in a fistfight with a cheese grater.”

  There’s a knock at the door, and the whole room tenses, everybody going rigid.

  Rose stands up. I sit up, wincing. Not much good I’ll be, but I rise shakily to my feet. Rose looks at me and drops down the stairs, looks through the peephole, and slowly opens the door.

  It’s Lily. She presses inside, closes the door, and jogs up the steps.

  “Well?” Rose says.

  “I stayed close until the authorities arrived. They’ll ID the cartel people, they won’t ID Santiago, there are no records on him.”

  “What about the girls?” I rasp.

  “Authorities are moving them out. Every three-letter is there right now, poring over the place. I think they even called in the FDA.”

  “Great,” I grunt. “You’re not going to try to kill me again.”

  “No.”

  “Then what are you going to do?”

  She holds up a piece of dark cloth. It hangs from her fingers like a discarded skin.

  Santiago’s mask.

  “There must always be a Santiago de la Rosa. He wasn’t the first, you know.”

  She holds the mask in both hands. “I wonder if this is how he got it,” she sighs. “Killed the one that came before him.”

  She extends her hands and offers it to me. “You deserve this more than I do.”

  “Get that thing away from me,” I rasp, stepping back. “I’m not going to take over for Santiago.”

  Rose takes my hand.

  “I’m out. I’m done,” I tell Lily. “I’m not a killer anymore.”

  “Somebody needs to take over for him. Do you know what would happen if there is no more Santiago de la Rosa?”

  “Somebody else will take the contracts,” I sigh, lowering myself into the couch.

  “Girls,” Rose says, “go in the kitchen. Now.”

  Rose sits next to me and squeezes my hand.

  “There’s something else,” Lily says. “Santiago has unique access to the criminal underground. Everyone knows him, he knows everybody, if only by reputation. The women in that warehouse aren’t the only ones, you know. There’s thousands of them, millions of them all over the world. Think of the horrible shit these people are involved with. Somebody on the inside…” she trails off.

  “Sudden change of heart,” I rasp, eyeing her.

  She sits down on a side chair and fingers the mask in her hands. “Santiago de la Rosa was my life,” she says softly. “He took me in when I was fourteen, raised me, nurtured me, trained me. Then I find out the whole purpose behind it was to get back at you. I’m just a footnote in somebody else’s story.”

  Lily bunches the mask in her fist. “What the fuck am I supposed to do now? All I know how to do is kill people.”

  “You have some good ideas,” Rose says softly. “Stopping criminals and helping innocent people. Why don’t you do it?”

  She blinks a few times. “Me, how could I—”

  “You were trained by the best,” I say, and slump into the couch.

  “Nobody will believe I’m him.”

  “Why not? Ninety percent of the time he never met clients face-to-face. He took contracts and delivered proof and that was it. You could do that.”

  “You want me to keep it going, kill people.”

  “I want you to use it, from the inside.” I shrug and wince at the movement. “Just like you said. The kind of info Santiago can gather…”

  “I can’t do it alone. I need your help.”

  “I’m out.”

  Rose squeezes my hand.

  “If you help me, I’ll help you,” Lily says. “I’ll keep them off your back. I’ll start there. You won’t have to look over your shoulder.”

  I sigh. “You want me to help you use Santiago’s resources and connections to start dismantling criminal conspiracies and saving innocent people.”

  “Yes. If we keep up a front as criminals they’ll never…”

  “Fine, I’m sold.”

  “I’ll be in contact,” Lily says, rising. She stuffs the mask in her pocket. “We can be more than killers, Quentin.”

  She leaves, and Rose locks the door behind her. She sits down next to me and rests her hand on my chest.

  “You already are,” Rose says, and rests her h
ead on my shoulder.

  She slips her arms around me.

  I don’t say anything for a while. I like the feeling of her breathing against me.

  Karen finally emerges and sits on the couch beside me, on the other end. She rubs her hands together.

  “Are you going to leave us?”

  “Not a chance in hell.”

  “Language,” Rose mumbles.

  Guy could get used to this.

  22

  Rose

  I pace the lobby, hugging myself. I’m in my best skirt-suit and pumps, made up as professionally as I can get. The girls are in their Sunday best, so to speak.

  Quentin cleans up nicely. He looks sharp in a suit that hides all those lovely tattoos, and with his hair cut and cleanly shaved he looks like he could be a lawyer himself, if he stopped slouching.

  Then Russ slimes his way down the hallway, his pretty little trophy wife in tow. He walks up to me and looks at the girls.

  “Hello, Rose. I’m really sorry about all this.”

  “No you’re not,” Quentin sighs.

  “What’s he doing here?”

  I unfold my arms and lift up my left hand, proudly displaying the engagement ring on my finger. Quentin splurged. I can see the jealousy in his wife’s eyes. Russ’s face turns red.

  “It doesn’t matter. You’re not keeping custody of my children.”

  “Keep telling yourself that. Come on, girls, it’s time.”

  As they take my hands, the girls look at Russ. Kelly sticks her tongue out at him. Karen huffs and turns away sharply.

  Quentin rises behind us and sticks his hands in his pockets, shrugs, and follows me into the courtroom.

  My lawyer rushes to meet us. I’m just finishing up my bachelor’s, after all. I’m not quite ready to defend myself. An older, portly man, he beckons for us to sit down at the table next to him.

  Russ sits next to his lawyer; his wife takes a seat back in the gallery. It might look impolitic if he brings his bimbo to the custody hearing.