King’s Captive

by Amber Bardan

  I step forward, so close we almost touch but don’t. “What did they do?”

  “We had Thomas.” He pauses and all I can do is stare at the back of his head. “We tried to get out—we ran.” He places the bobbin back in the tub. “But there’s no running from people like that. They hunt you down eventually.”

  He turns to me. It’s almost too much to look at his face—it’s twisted with hurt I’d never have fathomed could exist if it wasn’t searing my vision.

  An ache spreads from my biting teeth into my jaw and neck.

  “They caught us driving. Ran us off the road.”

  Screeching tires scream in my mind. That part I almost see.

  “You’d hit your head but they dragged you from the car anyway. Thomas too.”

  My chest explodes with pain and I cup both hands over my nose and mouth. It’s my ears I want to cover, though.

  “They tied me to the driver’s seat, so I’d have to watch them hurt you.” His fist presses to his mouth for an instant, then falls away. “Then they set the car on fire and took you both away.”

  Moisture burns a path from my eyes over my hands and trickles down my wrists. I suck breaths in through my cupped hands.

  Julius’s eyes shut and he leans against the wall.

  I swipe my fingers under my eyes, then reach out my hand to touch him. For an instant there’s density to the air, and it’s like moving my arm through gel to place my palm on his chest. “What happened then?”

  His eyelids fly open. “I swore I’d get you both back and never let anything like that happen again.”

  The hairs all up my arms prickle. There’s something else. The reason he had to take me no matter the cost. The reason my own family was a threat. “If the Connellys took us, how’d we get back to Dad?”

  “Don’t you see, baby?”

  I hold my breath, because I do. Everything terrible that’s happened has been because of me. “He made a deal with the Connellys. He double-crossed Uncle Pietro to save me.”

  He stares at me, and his eyes are so deep, and everything between us so vast, I can’t comprehend how this didn’t come out before now.

  “They were coming for you. Running didn’t work before. There was only one way to protect you and Tom.”

  My organs seem to drop to my feet.

  I cover my face. Julius’s embrace engulfs me, and the pressure offers such an irresistible temptation. The temptation to just slip under the waves of all of this. Let myself be consumed by everything I’ve learned, and trust Julius to hold my head above water.

  But even though my head swims, and my skin feels swollen with knowledge, I hold on to myself. “You’re stockpiling weapons... You can’t kill them all.” I hold on to his wrists.

  His arms unwind from me. “I never wanted to kill anyone. That was never part of the plan.”

  “What is the plan?”

  A sound drones through the open door, over the amplified roar of ocean. I know the sound of aircraft, but the Connellys aren’t due until much later, and they’re coming by boat.

  “Who’s that?”

  His expression clears, and his jaw sets in such certainty that it’s me realizing all this time I’m the one who completely underestimated him.

  “That, baby, is the sound of an international crime task force.”

  I stare at him. International crime what, now? I glance at the open door. Did he just say alien robots? I think he did. Aliens, robots and pirates, they kinda go together, they kind of make sense.

  “By the time this day is done, the entire diseased weapons trade network is going to come crashing down.” His chin notches, and any trace of what was broken before is crushed and remade into something whole and sure. “It ends tonight.”

  Julius steps backward away from me. For some reason, I find my hand reaching out for him. A rushing sensation sweeps me like falling down a tunnel.

  “I’m sorry...” He reaches the doorway. “But I will make it all okay.”

  My knees lock. Sorry?

  “You’ll be free.” His top lip stiffens. “Really free, just like you’ve been fighting for.”

  I rush forward. The door swings shut. The heavy metallic thud of a bolt shudders through my palms as they smack against the silver door.

  I scream, and bang my fists. “What are you doing?”

  “Try and remember—” his muffled voice reaches me through inches of solid door “—how much I always loved you.”

  Him

  Her screams boom from inside the panic room. Like everything about Sarah, her screams are loud and boisterous. Like everything about her, they tear me apart.

  I lay my hands on the cool surface between us and picture her on the other side, picturing her fists swinging with every vibration rattling the bolts.

  I should open this door.

  I should open this door and let her beat those fists on me.

  Three years I’ve prayed she’d remember. I’ve prayed she’d see the truth—that she’d have the strength for it. Now she has and it’s too late. But at least I had her love one last time. Hope is such a seductive vice. Even now my conviction trembles under the wish that we might both survive.

  “Let me out.” Her wail stabs at me, and there’s not metal or stone or substance on earth that can insulate me from her cry.

  It doesn’t matter if I pay the price for my crimes and deception, today she and I will be square. We’ll be even. If I die, she still survives.

  I drag myself from the door. I can’t be sure what Jack has figured out, but with a man missing they’ll be on edge. The risk is magnified. I’m prepared for how this is bound to end. The knife strapped to my leg burns against my calf.

  Since the day Pa found me in that hospital and helped me onto this path, there’ve been times I’ve questioned my faith when nothing seems to have purpose—I’ve prayed and I’ve prayed, and I found mine. I make my way to the tunnel out. There’s a task force assembling on my island, waiting for me to fulfill the bargain I made.

  This can’t be stopped.

  It’s too late.

  Her shouts follow after me, and every step I take, the quieter they grow, the more they ring in my ears.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Pain spikes into my knuckles and up my elbows. I pound the door.

  “I meant every vow I ever made to you.” Memories fall over me. “I’m yours until I die.” The sense in them has been altered. They no longer mean the same thing. “This is the only way you’ll ever be free of me.”

  The pieces fit, and I can’t see the exact picture they make but every flicker of instinct I have shows me that if I can’t get out of here, Julius is going to die. He promised my freedom and the cost is his life.

  He never planned past today. Everything has led up to this moment. I run across the room to grab the chair, then slam it into the door. Wood splinters. I smash the chair against the barred exit, and the legs keep breaking apart—just like my heart.

  Julius has been playing a part. He’s been undercover. He’s played the bad guy he needed to be known as, but never has been.

  I drop the shattered chair and follow it to the ground.

  If I’d just opened that fucking safe, everything might not have had to play out this way. He’d have had what he needed without having to do all of this.

  He saved me.

  He saved me from the people who’d have killed me for what my father did. From the people who’d have killed me for my family’s empire and the channels they control. He loved me in this life like just as he loved me in my last—selflessly.

  Chill seeps up through the concrete and penetrates my flesh.

  I wrap my arms around my middle and scream.

  Scream and cry. The sounds push off the walls and return t
o me in waves. Tears roll over me and through me until the rage bleeds out and I lie in a burnt-out heap.

  Numb to the core.

  * * *

  My eyes drift open. Fragments of broken wood surround me. I lift my head and an ache burns through the muscles in my neck. I force my lead-filled bones into a sitting position. My knuckles glare an angry red under grazed skin, and my palms burn. I turn my hands over. A wood chip protrudes from under my life line. It’s big for a splinter, and wedged deep.

  Julius.

  I glance at the still-sealed door. The love hasn’t been broken, even though I’ve hardly known the real him. All the time I fought him here, that was my heart fighting for what it knew, and what my wounded mind thought it did. But that truth was there, in the flutter of heat that happened whenever he was close.

  I look back down at my hands and squeeze the skin around the splinter.

  The way he looked at me, I’d seen his love there, and thought he was the crazy one. Because how could something like this possibly be true?

  The wood chip emerges from my palm, and I pick it out. Blood wells around the hole left behind. I swallow a mouthful of metallic-tasting spit, and get back up on my feet.

  There’s a small box on the wall next to the door. I flip open the lid and stare at a keypad. A red light flashes above the keys.

  Have to get out of here.

  I stare at the keypad, then do something I’ve never done before—close my eyes and pray. My husband believes in God, maybe that counts for something. I throw all my pleas, all my hope and all my pain out into the universe and beg for something to stick. The picture from our wedding day fills my mind, and I want to believe it’s memory but it’s more like a feeling.

  I punch four keys that could be random or could be recalled.

  Our anniversary.

  The light flicks green. A low thud drops and grinds. The door pops open an inch.

  Energy surges up from my toes and pumps through my heart.

  Holy crap, it worked. Thank you, God. Maybe the churchgoing thing could work out for me one day.

  I tug the door open and creep out of the panic room. Shadows fall along the outside of the walls. Wherever the sun sat in the sky earlier illuminating the cave, it’s dropped significantly. I glance around, and make my way through the crates to the tunnel Julius led me here from. Dull light globes dangle from a cord, disappearing into the now-black tunnel. It’s not worth the time or risk to figure out turning them on.

  I descend the darkness.

  My fingertips trail the jagged tunnel wall, until jets of light wash stripes onto the ground in front of me.

  Voices waft from the grate.

  Hushed, unfamiliar voices.

  I freeze and listen. Footsteps scrape and shuffle. It’s the cops waiting in the shed, I’m sure of it. There’s no way they’ll let me through.

  This is a sting. They’re not here for Julius, they’re here to catch the criminals—no matter the cost.

  I back away from the grate and ladder.

  Well, I’ve lost enough. I won’t lose Julius. This time it’ll be me standing between him and whatever is coming at him. I run back down the tunnel, into the cave, then to the crate I opened earlier.

  The handguns gleam blacker than before. I take one off the top, then open a box of ammunition, take a cartridge and slot it into the handgun. I run my fingers over the side. I’ve never actually used one of these before, but I’ve seen how it’s done.

  My father made sure I knew how to wield a shotgun, and this little thing—well, I bet it hardly even delivers a kick.

  I glance down at myself, there’s absolutely nowhere to put the gun. Not unless I fancy clutching it behind my back. I push open a few more crates, then search around the floor and find a thick roll of packing tape. I tear off a section, hold it between my teeth, then hike up my dress and wrap tape around the highest part of my leg, pausing halfway to wind the broken piece from between my teeth around a section on the outside of my thigh, then wrap the tape the rest of the way around.

  I pat the tape down, then wedge the handgun in the gap. The gun wobbles when I move. I wiggle and adjust it until the sticky edges lift a little and mold to the gun, holding it in place. Weapon secure, I lower my dress, then follow the light for that other entrance Julius talked about. A large tunnel glows from an alcove.

  I follow the tunnel around a bend and down a gentle decline. Pink light floods my vision. The ground squelches under my shoes. I glance down. Water trickles inside the tunnel. I run to the end, water flicking up against the back of my calves.

  Branches form a cocoon around the cave entrance.

  The mangroves.

  That’s how they got in and out, and why I never noticed this place before. I step out of the cave and under the canopy of branches. Water creeps around my ankles.

  High tide.

  The ground around me is a mirror of darkening water. My breaths speed up. Voices drift close by. The Connellys are here.

  It’s all happening without me.

  An obvious path cut into the mangroves winds to the right, but I have no idea how deep the water gets. I hold on to branches and take it a step at a time. Muddy sand drags at my shoes. I toe them off and leave them behind. Water rises up my legs to my knees. My heart hammers. I swallow down the panic and keep walking, sharp edges of branches snagging my palms as I grab at them. The maze of trees thins, and the water sinks back to ankle deep. I make it through the mangroves and find myself standing right behind the big cop-filled shed.

  I hunch low and run around the shed to the path down to the back dock. There’s a ship moored at the pier. Not a fancy one. Faded writing grazes the rusted bow.

  Five Connellys face Julius, Leo, Dan and Pa.

  For once it’s not even, but I’ll fix that.

  “You’re a man short.” Julius’s words drift to me and I inch closer. “I thought I said all of you. You going back on your word, Jackie?” Julius’s shoulders bunch and everything about him projects power.

  “I’m afraid Neil couldn’t make it.” Julius and Dan block the view, but there’s no mistaking Jack’s voice. “I see you’re two down yourself?”

  “Sarah is unwell, and we had to let Ash go.”

  I make my way onto the pier, then lay my hand on Julius’s back, sliding myself between the bulk of Julius and Dan.

  One glance at Jack and the words I’d rehearsed stick. I’d played cards with these men who’d tried to kill my husband. Blackmailed my father into his own death.

  Men who’d hurt me. Stolen my memory and my life.

  They’d looked me in the eye, knowing what they’d done to me, and I’d had no idea.

  “Sorry for my terrible hospitality,” I manage to spit out.

  And Julius—Julius had stood right behind me, and they’d never seen the man he used to be. So I guess, in a way we’re even in our exchanges of deceit.

  I turn to Julius. “Morning sickness, you know, it’s not really all about the mornings.”

  Julius’s face doesn’t move, but everything under my hand does. I don’t know why I came up with that particular excuse. I stare at him. His eyes, hidden as usual beneath transitional glasses, give nothing away, yet I can almost smell the change in his scent—a rush of protective masculine energy vibrating through my palm. Maybe the comment wasn’t innocent. He needs to hear that, he needs a reminder of all the possibilities our life could have again if he doesn’t give up.

  “You don’t say...”

  My focus drifts to Jack Connelly. The curious expression in his eyes. Maybe that was sliding too close to the truth, but I’ve seen the looks every time they’re here.

  Maybe they don’t know who Julius is. Maybe they’ve assumed I’m his captive. But they all know who I belong to. They all know I’m his.
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  Julius’s fingers tighten around my side, and his chin turns toward me. “You should be in bed, getting your rest.”

  “Aww you’re sweet but I feel better now.” I smile and make it wide. “Let’s just get to business so you can come with me.” I lay my free hand on Julius’s chest, then glance at Jack.

  Wind whips hair around Jack’s forehead. “She’s right, let’s get to it, we don’t have time to make this a social visit.”

  Julius looks over me and holds his hand out to Dan. Dan passes a tablet computer. Julius slides a finger over the screen, then presents the device to Jack.

  “You’ll find the funds in order.”

  “I never doubted you’d be good for the money.” Jack’s attention flicks over the tablet. “Right, boys, start unloading.”

  Men drift back to the boat and boxes begin thudding onto the pier.

  Dan and Leo lift a crate, and start toward the sheds.

  “Give us a hand.” Julius takes one side of a crate. As usual it’s not a question, and as usual there’s no protest.

  Jack returns the tablet. Julius tucks it into the back of his pants. They lift the box in unison. The men haul crates and boxes toward the sheds, Julius and Jack heading up the rear. I trail behind Julius. The gun trembles on my thigh. It takes all my will not to put my hand over it.

  Dan and Leo set down their load, slide the doors open, then carry the box inside. Complete and total darkness looms inside the open shed.

  Jack and Julius slow as they reach the entrance, and I find myself shoulder to shoulder with my husband at the threshold. Julius slides off his glasses, they dangle from his hand for an instant before slipping from his fingers onto the sandy earth.

  Jack glances from the shed, then his narrow gaze fixes on Julius.

  Light and voices explode around us.

  Movement flies toward me, and the world pitches.

  I fall to the ground, face scraping on gravel. Gunfire shakes the air. My head spins. The tin walls of the shed scream and boom with violent impact. I cough. Dirt and sand grind between my teeth. I tilt my throbbing cheek against the ground. Blood trickles out the doorway right next to my hand. I lift myself up, and my gaze meets an empty soulless stare.