by Nora Flite
That was why, when I walked into his study and saw him hunched forward in his wing-backed chair, I instantly knew something was wrong. His head was low enough that I could see the faint thinning of his dark hair on his scalp. His wide legs looked unstable, as if he couldn’t have stood up if he tried.
In his fingers he clutched his phone. He rubbed the edge of it over and over. The blue-blooded bastard who’d scowled at me since I’d been able to form memories—judging me, berating me to be a better man—now looked like a strong wind could knock him over. He’d never seemed old, but here, in the orange glow of the lamps studding the wide room, Maverick was frail beyond his years.
What the hell had happened?
I started forward, my shoes brushing over the expensive carpet. My approach stirred him; his blue eyes locked on me, the edges red. Had he been crying? That set my mind spinning.
My father scanned my face; he saw my open concern. Reaching up, he drew a wide palm over his features. It reset him somewhat, enough that when he looked at me again, I didn’t think he was on the verge of falling apart. “Thorne,” he said, tucking his phone away. “Come in. We need to talk.”
“What is it?” I asked, letting a nervous laugh break free. “You look like someone just died.”
He didn’t correct me.
“Shit,” I whispered.
My father sighed. “I received a phone call an hour ago.”
He’s been sitting here like this for an hour?
His eyes drifted away, then back to me. Some of the fierceness I knew too well was back in his stare. “The call was about Torino.”
It was a name I’d heard so rarely I could count the times on one hand. Torino was the country my father had grown up in. The place he would have ruled as king—and my brothers and I as princes—if he hadn’t abandoned the crown and come to the States before any of us were even born.
I’d never been to Torino. I knew very little about the place. Dad spoke grandly of our heritage, but when it came down to the details, he seemed fine with leaving it all in the past.
“Okay,” I said, sitting on the chaise across from him. “You have my full attention.”
His fingers twitched, like he was imagining he was still holding his phone. “I don’t know how much this will mean to you, Hawthorne. Even your mother doesn’t seem to know how to react to this news.” He studied the mantel over the cold fireplace. I wondered what he was seeing. “I’ll skip to the important bit,” he said, not meeting my curious eyes. “The king of Torino has passed away. My brother is dead.” I didn’t know how much that should mean to me, either. I’d never met my uncle. Never seen a photo of him. If I was wondering anything, it was how someone had known how to reach Maverick from across the ocean. Was I wrong, was he still in touch with his home country?
Maverick’s eyes darted to me. I swear he was reading my mind. “I haven’t talked to anyone from Torino since the day I boarded that plane and left. One of my men has been keeping tabs online for any mention of the place. When news broke about my brother’s death . . . he called me.”
Agitation controlled my limbs. I rubbed the velvety chaise, then, once I noticed I was doing it, forced myself to hold still. “I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say. How did I even try to comfort my father over this?
Air slid loudly through his nose. “I’m flying out to attend the funeral. I want you to come with me.”
“Me?” I asked, startled. “Why?”
Grunting, he pushed himself to his feet; I watched him circle around to stand over me. The weakness was gone. This was the lion of a father I’d grown up with. “Because I said so.”
I crinkled my nose. “I feel like I’d be your last choice. Did you already ask Kain, or Frannie? Is everyone you’d rather take too busy to drop their lives and go with you?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Are you going to come or do you have something more important to attend to?”
Of course he knew I had nothing going on. Biting back a sarcastic response, I caught motion from the corner of my eye. My mother was hovering in the doorway. She was wearing a flowing dress crafted from lilac silk, and her expression was built from sorrow. She didn’t need to speak for me to know her thoughts; I’d always been close with her. She wants me to go with him.
“All right,” I sighed, shrugging sharply. “When do we fly out?”
Satisfied—and like he’d expected to win this debate—he slid his phone into the open once more. “Pack your things right now. We’re leaving in the morning.”
- CHAPTER THREE -
HAWTHORNE
Dad had already reserved the seats. He’d been positive I’d go with him; I should have been more sour about that. It was hard to be pissed off, though, when I came face-to-face with my mother the next day. The cool blue of the morning turned her tan skin lifeless. Disturbingly, she reminded me of why I was flying to Torino. “Be patient with him,” she said, pulling me into a hug. Her nose rubbed in my hair the way it always did when she held me close. “He’s lost his brother, Thorne.”
“A brother he hasn’t seen since before he met you.”
Her arms tightened around me. “Would you feel nothing if one of your siblings died?”
I started to answer. Then I breathed out, returning her hug. “You don’t have to convince me, I’m going with him. Even if it’s just to be the shoulder he needs to rub his tears and snot into.” She pulled away, trying to whack me in the arm, but I just hugged her again so she couldn’t. “Relax, Ma. It’ll be fine. Are you sure you don’t want to come along?”
She chanced a look over her shoulder at the car, where my father and our driver were waiting for me. “Maverick wants me to continue to entertain my family. We were hoping to strengthen our connections with them. We really need their help, especially with all the extra security we’ve had to hire, and, oh, don’t get me started on how many of our business partners have abandoned us to go work with the Valentines!”
It made sense. We’d lost most of our hold over this city. New faces were rolling into our territory every day. Our enemies—even the smaller ones—were happy to take advantage of our weak spots. If my mother’s father, the head of the Cassava family, could help us out, it would be a great relief. Never let anyone tell you it doesn’t pay to marry into the local Mafia.
I lifted my suitcase. “I’ll see you soon.”
“Take lots of photos,” she said, following me out the door.
“Aren’t you going to say bye to Dad?”
“I already did. If I do it again, I’ll just start bawling.” She clutched her hands to her bosom. “Remember the pictures. And no getting into trouble, okay?”
“Mom—”
“Promise me!”
Laughing, I tossed my bags into the trunk of the parked black Mercedes. “I promise I won’t get into any trouble that isn’t worth it.”
With my phone loaded with music, I was able to relax through the first hour of the flight. Dad sat next to me in relative silence. He flipped through the movie screen on his chair, never settling on any one video. He left each half-finished.
We should talk. It was obvious and that made it painful. I’d never talked for long stretches with Maverick, not unless it was about money. Business talk. Nothing deeper. What if he gives me the cold shoulder when I try to make conversation? But even as I wondered this, I was already sliding my earbuds aside.
We were as alone as possible in first class. The white noise of the engines and air filling the cabin ensured us privacy. Shifting, I stretched a bit, doing my best with my body language to tell him, If you want to talk, now is the time. I yawned once—twice. He didn’t bite.
Drumming my fingers on my thighs, I took a long breath to steady myself. Just ask him! I glanced askew; he met my gaze. “Uh, hey,” I said. “I’ll just come right out and say it. Are you all right?”
His thick eyebrows inched lower. “I’m fine.”
“Sure. But, well, come on.” Laughing uneasily, I sat deeper in my
chair. The ceiling was suddenly very interesting. “Don’t make this hard for me.”
“You think this is hard for you?” he whispered.
Cold, then heat, slid up my spine. I knew that tone the way I knew the fit of an old pair of jeans. He’d done a spectacular job searing fear into my neurons since before I could walk. As much as I didn’t want to feel nervous, as much as I mentally knew I was a full-grown man and not a child he could bully, there was an automatic response in my psyche I could never shake.
“Listen,” I said warily.
Maverick hesitated, purple tinting around his eyes, like the blood vessels there were doing all they could to keep his anger at bay. Amazingly, he deflated back into his seat. It was so fast I felt whiplash. “This isn’t easy. I’m still trying to figure out how to handle this. But you sitting there, pretending you want to help, isn’t going to fix my mood. All right?”
My nod was curt. “Loud and clear.”
We sat in a long, suffocating quiet. The pressure in my skull was immense; I knew it wasn’t just from being thousands of feet in the air. This thick, suffering silence was familiar for us both. I’d been ridiculous to think I could talk to him about his feelings.
I heard his seat belt’s buckle clink. He was turning toward me, and with the window outside showing an endless blue world, his irises leached the color from the sky. “I do have something I want to talk about.”
My pulse climbed. “Okay. I’m all ears.”
“Hester and I didn’t part on good terms.”
The laughter that exploded from me was born from startled relief. I’d predicted something worse; it was good to be wrong. “I could have guessed that. You’ve never mentioned his name before.”
He faltered, like he was checking his own memory. “No. I guess I never told you.”
Never told YOU. As in he’d told someone else, and forgotten it wasn’t me. Probably Costello, then. He’d been our father’s perfect pet for a very long time. After their relationship had soured, Maverick hadn’t played favorites any longer. We were all equal fuckups.
“You’ve never explained why you left Torino. Just that it wasn’t safe there for you any longer.”
Sinking deeper into the airline seat, my father shut his eyes. I noticed all the fine lines that crept toward his temples. “I was twenty when the king—when my father fell ill. As the oldest, everyone expected me to be crowned once he passed. It was how it was done.”
How it would be done if we all lived there, I thought. I imagined my older brother; he was stiff, humorless, and often frightening. He’d have made a perfect king. Even Kain, my younger brother, had a sort of air to him that felt regal. Either of them would have been fit to rule. Far better than I could have hoped to be—not that I’d have ever wanted such a job on my shoulders.
Maverick sighed through tight lips. “Hester came to me in private. He’d always had a jealous streak, but I didn’t expect him to bluntly lay out his threat. The boy I’d taught marksmanship, or slipped away with to hunt deer in the forest . . . That same boy told me what he would do if I dared to accept my rightful claim to the throne. Can you guess?”
I’d been holding my breath; I let it out, clearing my throat. “Let him have the crown, or he’d kill you.”
My father’s chuckle held no joy. “That’s right.”
“I know this story ends with you running off to cozy little Rhode Island, meeting Mom, making a bunch of babies, and all that jazz . . . but I have to know. Why didn’t you stand up to your brother?” I’d never known my father to back down from a bully.
He looked at me with such disdain that I leaned backward. “His threat was treason, Thorne. If I’d told anyone, they’d have killed him. How could I choose the crown over my own kin?”
Greed makes people do all sorts of awful things. But I didn’t say it.
“What happened between my brother and me,” he said, “it’s not something siblings should ever suffer. Family is worth more than wealth or power.” After a moment he said very softly, “I never wanted him to die. But now it’s happened anyway, and I don’t have a damn idea how.”
“Your inside man, he has no details?”
He shook his head. “None.” Hesitating, he fixed me with a hard look. “Thorne, I have no clue what we’re about to walk into. It’s been almost forty years since I was last in Torino. My country and its people will be different. I don’t know who will remember me—or if I should want them to. You have to be cautious.”
My smile tugged upward at an angle. “Come on, I’m always careful.”
He looked out the small window at the empty sky and didn’t reply.
As we descended the escalator toward the luggage area, I spotted a man holding a sign with the name MAVERICK B on it. My father waved, then the mustached stranger helped us gather our things and cart them into the trunk of a massive black town car.
When we were inside, the doors slamming shut, I said under my breath, “Are we not going by either of our surnames here?”
His jaw tensed. “Don’t be stupid, son. I’m not announcing to the world that we’re here. Not until I know more about the situation.”
“Okay, and who’s going to give us all the details?”
He pulled out his phone and started to type. “An old friend. Hopefully they’re still a friend, anyway. It’s possible he won’t even take the message I sent ahead of us and want to meet me. Or he will, and he’ll plan an ambush.”
Lolling my head back, I spread my knees. “I sure feel comfortable about all our weapons being dismantled in cases in the trunk right now.”
“Relax. Rush and Donnie are armed and waiting at our hotel.”
That made my head snap forward. “They’re here? Are you planning to keep all the details of our little trip to yourself?”
“It wasn’t an important detail.”
“I want my gun back in my hands as soon as we get to our rooms.”
He turned off his phone. “Fine. Anything else?”
“If you’re taking requests, I’d also like a stiff drink after that flight.”
“It’s nine in the morning, Thorne.”
“Sure, here. I’m still on East Coast time.”
“Is everything a damn joke to you?” he growled, facing me in the suddenly small car.
Our driver had closed the partition between him and us. I glanced at it, then back to my dad. “I’m just trying to ease the tension.”
“Maybe you should try to take this more seriously instead.” Shoving his phone into his pants, he draped a thick arm over the back of the seat next to him. “After everything that went down last winter with the Valentines, I was starting to think you could be trusted with more responsibility. You’re proving me wrong with your little games.”
“Yeah?” I laughed. “It’s like you forgot you were the one who asked me to come on this trip. I never asked to be a part of your reunion.”
The car slowed to a halt, we’d arrived at the hotel. “You forget your place, son.”
“My place is back home with two girls in my lap and some whiskey in my stomach.” I shoved my way out of the car, slamming the door behind me. Why the hell had I agreed to torture myself by spending so much time alone with my dad? In my sympathy over his loss of his brother, I’d forgotten how good he was at getting under my skin.
Seconds after we checked into the Rizenburgh, Donnie—our longest-employed bodyguard—hustled to my father’s side. “Upstairs,” he whispered, handing us a key card. “He’s waiting for you in my room.”
“He?” Maverick asked. “You don’t mean he came alone?”
Donnie shrugged. “I was surprised, too. He said he didn’t need anyone to protect him from you, though.”
A rare smile spread on my dad’s lips. “Of course he said that. Crazy asshole.” Glancing at me, he motioned to follow him to the elevator. Quick enough, the doors parted back open with a crystal clear ring of a bell, depositing us on the fourth floor.
The hallway was long, th
e rugs green and yellow, the doors solid metal. The Rizenburgh Hotel was a mix of contemporary and old school, like they’d made upgrades on top of the fading pieces but never actually replaced them. New polish was apparently good enough.
I could see, at the end of the hall, a door with two men standing outside. Both watched us approach. I knew these men—they were all ours. Dad had brought plenty of backup. Maybe too much, if there was only one man inside the room waiting for us.
Using Donnie’s card, my father opened the door. It was a small room—harder to hide people. A smart precaution. Big windows faced the city of Maurine below, the sun turning all the wallpaper a washed-out white.
Standing beside the queen bed, making it look like a twin in comparison, was a huge man with a reddish beard. It faded into hair darker by a shade or two, the thick pieces cropped tight by his ears.
He was dressed in tan pants, heavy boots, and a dark blue shirt with the top three buttons clasped shut. It covered his arms, straining to hold his muscles in. He came close, sizing me up. “I’ll be damned. He looks just like you, Mav.”
I knotted my eyebrows. “Usually people say compliments when they first meet. Helps them get along.”
He stared, then his huge chest swelled as he laughed. “No doubt about it, same sharp tongue as you, too.” He thrust his hand at me. “I’m Glen Finbar, head of the royal guard. Your dad and I grew up together.”
Maverick leaned out into the hall, said something to the men, then shut us inside. “It’s good to see you, Glen.”
He faced my father, his green eyes flashing. “Damn near forty years, Mav. I didn’t know if you were dead or if you’d abandoned the throne like Hester claimed. You know how hard it was guarding over him, staring at the back of his vulnerable neck, wondering every day if he’d killed you and—”
“No,” Maverick said, cutting him off. “He never harmed a hair on my head. I won’t have his memory tarnished.”
It was a chore not to speak up. Was my father still covering for Hester, even when it no longer mattered? Glen had a doubtful squint crunching his forehead into deep grooves. He sighed, looking around at the men in the hotel suite. “We’ll need to prepare an entourage. The people closest to the former king and current queen will want to be informed that Maverick Fredricson has returned.”
