Crown of Solana

by Susan Sheehey

  “Where are we going?”

  “The bar.”

  She raised a brow. “At noon?”

  His jaw twitched. “I don’t want to walk into that house sober.”

  “Good idea.”

  A few miles later, they pulled into the town’s only watering hole, Primrock Bar. Original.

  The gravel lot was empty, but the red Open sign flickered in the window. Gemma appreciated that off to the side it still had a water trough and hitching post to tie up horses like in old westerns.

  Not that she had any horses left. They were all murdered, too.

  A cold rage drizzled down her spine. She steeled her back and forced the thought to a far corner in her brain.

  Before Stefano had the chance to round the car and open her door, Gemma got out and bee-lined for the bar entrance. She knew he was still in bodyguard mode, but she wouldn’t let him dote on her like he had André for the last God-knew-how-many years.

  Crossing the bar, their feet crunched over the peanut shells scattered across the floor. The stale cigarette smell permeated from the walls, but they weren’t here for ambiance. They took a table in the far corner, Stefano’s back to the wall.

  Old habits certainly die hard.

  They both ordered beers and dug into a bowl of peanuts, dropping the shells on the floor. Clearly, an acceptable practice here.

  She hadn’t been in this bar in years. But she remembered the counter’s old wood smell, though it was more muted than in her memories. Too many cigarettes and a mildewed floor from spills and half-assed cleanings. She scowled over her beer, recalling dragging her father out of this bar a time or two when she was eleven or twelve. The stools and chairs were still as worn and rickety as the bartender. The tiny television screens perched on corner shelves were the only things that had been dusted over the years.

  The silence dragged on between them. After five minutes, she just couldn’t take it anymore. “What are you doing here? Where’s André?”

  He stretched his neck, hiding a scowl. “Back on Solana.” He sipped his beer, refusing to meet her gaze.

  “You decided now was a good time to take a vacation? Only to bail me outta jail?”

  He took a deep breath and twirled his bottle. “Early retirement.”

  She stopped, her beer halfway to her mouth. “What the fuck?”

  He grimaced. “You are so much better than that kind of language.”

  “He fired you?” She slammed the bottle on the table.

  “It was inevitable.” He took another long sip. “I disobeyed a direct order from the royal family.”

  Gemma dropped her hands in her lap. “By helping me leave.” She pursed her lips. “All you did was arrange a car to the airport.”

  Stefano finally looked her in the eyes. “And didn’t inform him you were leaving.”

  She took a deep breath to calm the building anger. “Funny. I didn’t know I was a prisoner in that palace.”

  “If you were, then I wasn’t a very good jailer.”

  Gemma bit the inside of her cheek. After all the years of service Stefano devoted to him, André still had the audacity to fire the man who’d saved his life. Who’d sacrificed so much for his charge. “Over something so damn trivial. The son of a bitch.”

  “Don’t,” Stefano growled at her. “As upset as you are, he is still my country’s prince and is under a great deal of stress.” He grimaced over the table and stuck his hand in his pocket. “Besides, when it comes to matters of you, I doubt he would consider it trivial.”

  He motioned for another beer, allowing his words to absorb in Gemma’s mind, which churned the substantial guilt in her stomach. As if there isn’t enough to digest already.

  “What about Cataline?” she murmured. Anything to get her mind off the man she loved. She couldn’t handle the image of him wallowing in his room; alone, heartbroken, and rejected.

  “She’ll join me when she can. In a few weeks, perhaps. Gives me time to assist you in your legal troubles and clean up Tia’s ranch.”

  The bartender dropped off two more beers, one for each of them. Stefano avoided her gaze as he guzzled half of it.

  My legal troubles. She studied the trail of condensation down the bottle. “Tell me this isn’t some ploy.”

  Stefano eyed her and popped a peanut in his mouth. “Ploy for what?”

  “Over my last fight with André. I told him I was going after Vasco no matter what. Since he couldn’t force me to stay, he sent you to protect me.”

  The corner of his mouth lifted. “Do you need protection?”

  She smirked and sipped her beer. “Do I look like I need it?”

  “That thought never crossed my mind.”

  “But it crossed André’s.”

  “I’m sure it did.”

  “So, instead of protecting me—”

  “I’m not here to—”

  “Why don’t you help me?”

  He half smiled. “What would Gemma Westfall need help with?”

  She leaned forward and crossed her arms over the table. “You said this bastard was a former royal guardsman. That’s got to sting a little.”

  Stefano’s jaw clenched.

  “Tell me what you know about him.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “So I can kill him.”

  Despite his sigh of doubt, his eyes flashed with promise. The promise of retribution. Revenge. Revenge for killing Reyna. “What makes you so confident he’ll return here?”

  Gemma took a long, slow drag on the bitter beer, then pulled out the paper from inside her bra. She unfolded Vasco’s picture that she’d snatched from André’s pocket and pointed to the last line on the back.

  “He’s coming after me…here. I’m the kickboxer.”

  Stefano glanced at the paper but didn’t touch it. Obviously, he’d seen it before. As Head Royal Guardsman, he would’ve been one of the first to see it. Former guard.

  “With only a few exceptions, everyone in the world still thinks you’re back on Solana. He has no reason to believe you’d return here.”

  She shook her head. “If he’s as good as you all say he is, then it’s only a matter of time before he’ll find out I’ve come back here.”

  Stefano’s hesitation sent goosebumps up her arms. This job will be hard enough as it is. I can really use his help. But if he refuses, I’ll do it alone.

  “Put your trusty arsenal in the back of that Jeep to good use.” She cocked her head to the door. He’d always carried at least ten weapons with him.

  He smirked at that but shook his head. “I’m here to clean up the ranch and settle her estate. Nothing more.”

  “What else do you have to do, now that you’re retired?” she asked, trying any method she could to sway him. “Sign up for an AARP card?”

  He leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms. “You have no idea what you’re getting into. The first attack was child’s play for him. The whole world is after this lunatic now. Do you really think he’d make the mistake of coming after you? Forgive me, Gemma. But you’re small tomatoes to him.”

  He meant small potatoes, but English wasn’t his first language, and even attempting colloquialisms was impressive, even with the unintended insult. But it was his tell. The rare indicator that she was getting to him.

  Time for desperate measures. “Reyna.”

  The badass bodyguard sat stoic in the chair, the glare across the table freezing her nerves. He looked as though he’d stopped breathing.

  “She’s the reason I made it through my life,” she urged further. “Help me do this. For her.”

  “Madre de Dios, ayudame,” he muttered. “I can see why you drive him so crazy.”

  ANDRÉ SLAMMED HIS KNEE INTO the bag over and over. His legs ached and his lungs burned. He welcomed the pain. Anything to drown the agony from the shredded pieces of his heart.

  “Switch,” his sparring partner, Jason, called over the blaring heavy metal music. He adjusted the handheld punching
bag. Sweat dripped off the man’s forehead, and his shirt was soaking wet. Just like André’s.

  He adjusted his stance and mercilessly pummeled the bag with his left knee.

  The image of Gemma’s side of the bed, vacant the previous morning, flashed in his mind, followed by the empty drawer where she’d kept her jeans, negligees, and Lil’ Pete. She’d left the gowns, the shoes, the jewelry. Everything he’d ever bought her. Gemma had done exactly what he’d begged her not to.

  He growled through another vicious kick, and after ten more thrashes, he realized the roaring of the music in his ears was him screaming. This isn’t working. Nothing’s working.

  “Stop, para, stop!” Jason bellowed and backed off. He shook off the bag and rubbed his shoulder. “Take a break.”

  André’s legs shook. He forced himself to walk to the side of the room and sit on the bench. When he checked his phone, and saw no missed calls or voicemails from the one that plagued his thoughts, he braced his elbows on his knees and ducked his head. Jason switched off the music.

  “When did you take up kickboxing?” a soft voice asked.

  Alanna waited at the entrance of the room, her hands clasped in front of her waist. Her voice was full of sympathy, but her face wasn’t. Great, another lecture.

  Jason bowed his head at her presence.

  “Today.” André hid his grimace behind sucking on a water bottle.

  “You missed a security briefing this morning.”

  All he could do was nod, and a drop of sweat fell from his forehead onto the black mat between his bare feet.

  She grabbed a towel from a stack by the door and handed it to him. “I’m sorry about Gemma.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I do.”

  “Why?” he barked.

  “If you’ll excuse us, Jason.” Her sweet, polite voice commanded obedience from his sparring partner. He left without a word.

  “I said I don’t want to talk about it.” André wiped his face with the towel, more of a lame attempt to hide.

  “You don’t get a choice.”

  He snorted, though it did nothing more than cover a growl.

  “You are not going to force yourself through this cycle again, André.”

  “What cycle?”

  “She rejected you, and now you start—”

  “I wasn’t rejected,” he snapped.

  “Whatever. Some negative trigger, and you spin into a downward spiral of self-loathing, leading to destructive behavior and hiding from the world.”

  André swallowed back a retort because he knew whatever he said would be a lie. Alanna’s assessment was spot-on, but he refused to admit it out loud.

  “We don’t have the luxury to wallow in our grief right now,” she urged. “There’s too much to do. Our people need us to be their support, their symbol of perseverance. So get up.”

  “Leave me alone.” To hell with perseverance.

  “I did that once. And you ended up exiled. I won’t do it again.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because your mistake has cost us our Head Royal Guardsman.”

  “Oh, that’s why you’re here. You’re worried about a staffing issue.”

  “Staffing?” Her eyes flared. Only one other person had that same threatening look that froze him in his feet when they were really pissed off. Their father. “How could you?” she hissed. “After everything that man has done for our family, for you. Everything he’s sacrificed, and you have the audacity to let him go.”

  “I didn’t. It was his choice.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “He chose early retirement.”

  “I’m getting a significantly different story from Cataline.”

  He bit his tongue, hard.

  “She’s hardly said more than ten words since Stefano was released. I had to nearly hound it out of her.”

  He took a deep breath to calm his rising fury. “Stefano disobeyed a direct order from the royal family.”

  “Why? Because he wouldn’t physically restrain Gemma from leaving?”

  “No, because he didn’t tell me. He didn’t bother informing me she’d left, and then I found out he helped her leave behind my back.”

  “She wasn’t a prisoner here, André. Given the horrible media coverage with Vivette at the State Dinner, I’m sure Gemma was tormented with self-consciousness, not to mention jealousy.”

  “This had nothing to do with Vivette Soto.”

  “Well, she left for one reason or another. I seriously doubt Stefano would ever choose early retirement because of it. What did you say to him?”

  André shot to his feet, every muscle flexing in agony. “I said to go after her and bring her back, or early retirement. Those were his options. He chose retirement.”

  Alanna slumped. “Those weren’t choices at all.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “What did you expect him to do? Physically tie her up and drag her back here? You can’t force someone to stay with you.”

  “That’s not it.”

  “Then what? Out with it.”

  “She’s going to get herself killed!”

  His sister paused at that, but her eyebrows crinkled. “What do you mean?”

  “Gemma is going after Vasco.”

  Her lips parted.

  “Your justice complex is nothing compared to hers!” He tossed the damp towel to the side, and it slapped against the wall. “Ever since she found Vasco’s picture in my pocket, her judgment has been skewed by vengeance. She has it in her head that Vasco is looking for her at the ranch, and she’s gone back there to finish him off herself.”

  Alanna blubbered for a few seconds. “How would she know…what could…that’s rid—”

  “Ridiculous, I know! But Stefano wouldn’t see it that way. He just let her go.” André’s voice cracked. “He let her ride off into the sunrise towards death without a second glance.”

  After a long moment, she sighed. “It was her choice, however misguided. But you sent the wrong person after her.”

  He eyed her. “Who?”

  “You, moron!”

  “I can’t leave right now. You of all people know that. We’re the symbol of perseverance, remember?”

  “To bring back Solana’s national hero, I think the people would understand a brief hold on royal solidarity.”

  He shook his head and ground his teeth. “No.”

  Her eyes widened. “Oh, I see. This has nothing to do with duty to country. This is all about your pride.”

  He scoffed. “Enough.”

  “She injured your image or your confidence—whatever. And now you’ve dug in your heels like an over-righteous toddler trying to pull off martyrdom.”

  André flung his water bottle across the room, cracking it against the wall and spewing water everywhere.

  The princess didn’t even flinch. “I see we’ve picked up exactly where you left off eight years ago.”

  He glared at his sister. “Leave!”

  She glared right back. With her resolute stance and unwavering face, she could’ve been a statue.

  He turned his back, choking down the last bit of self-control he had. Everything was crumbling around him. Alanna was right. He was exactly in the same position from eight years ago. Nothing had changed. No matter what he did, he couldn’t win. He couldn’t make things right.

  “The reconstruction meeting with the bankers is in an hour, followed by a visit to the Red Cross station. Don’t miss it.” Her voice was low and vicious. “It’s the last thing we need with several vulture-politicians circling for the dissolution of the Royal Family all together.”

  “I’ll be there,” he nipped.

  After she left, he snatched his cell phone from the chair and dialed a friend. Time for a game of poker. Anything to distract me from this hell.

  FLYNN WIPED THE SWEAT FROM his brow. The sun beat down on his back harsher than yesterday. The new engine for this fisherm
an’s boat was giving him problems. Or maybe his focus wasn’t there today. More insomnia had sucked his energy nearly dry. Especially with the tension between he and Alanna.

  “Take a break,” Marcus called from the dock. “It’ll still be there in an hour.” He held a wrapped sandwich and bottled water in his hand. They’d both volunteered to rebuild boats and the marina alongside the military and civil engineers. Seemed the right thing to do, given so many around them needed help. And he was good at fixing things. Some proved easier than others.

  He stared at the infernal engine parts he’d been working on for three hours. Leaving a project unfinished grated along his brain. But even he had his limits before fatigue and dehydration took over. He threw the greasy rag in the boat and climbed out. He took the offered lunch and downed the water.

  The ice cold permeated down his throat and through his body. A welcome relief. Which was when he noticed his stomach rumbling. The pair scarfed the food in silence under an expansive palm tree on the edge of the marina. The main lounge inside the yacht club had been destroyed in the first attack by the cartel, and the few picnic areas around them were full of other construction workers taking their breaks or news reporters trying to get interviews, thankfully held back by more royal guards and Solanian soldiers.

  On Royal orders.

  Being the princess’s boyfriend had its advantages.

  “I overheard a guard say that André broke up with Gemma yesterday after the receiving line fiasco. Is that true?” Marcus guzzled his water, leaning up against the palm tree and balancing his elbows on his knees. They rarely made eye contact, which was one reason Flynn and he got along so well. That, and the Thai deckhand had saved his life the week before—both him and Alanna—on the yacht that had been overtaken by Lozano’s thugs.

  Flynn shook his head. “You know I can’t talk about that.” He hated gossip. He’d signed one of those nondisclosure agreements when he first arrived to prove it. Gladly. “But from personal experience, rumor is hardly ever accurate. At least, not in my case.”

  “I’m not one for rumors either. I only ask because the prince just texted me, asking to join a poker game tonight. Did you get an invite?”

  “Haven’t checked my phone.”