Casimir bent his neck and looked down at the girl in his lap. Max wanted to remind him to keep his hands to himself. Casimir said, “Which is all well and good. I’m an entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles, and my wife doesn’t like the cold.”
Dree grinned up at him, and Maxence wanted to guide her chin toward him so he could feel that smile. She said, “I hear that. I don’t even like the winter in Phoenix.”
Maxence continued, “And in the middle seat is Tristan King, who joined Le Rosey when we were in upper school. He does some sort of stock trading with computers. And the other three guys are our friends, too. We’ll meet them later.”
Twist held his hand above her, and Dree reached up to shake. He said, “Call me Twist. I do high-frequency arbitrage trading and venture capital.”
Dree was blinking at him as she shook his hand. “That sounds fascinating.”
Twist raised one dark eyebrow at her and grinned. “And I’m not married.”
Dree giggled at him, her succulent flesh jiggling on all their laps.
Maxence ran his hand up her calf to her knee. “And I’m right here.”
Dree pushed herself up on her elbows to look at Max, and Casimir’s expression turned very nervous for a second until she was solidly braced. “I can’t believe you’re here. I thought I was going to die in there. They kept talking about how they were going to shoot me, and their biggest problem was how and where to dispose of my body, those assholes.”
A faint cold sweat popped out of Max’s pores. “I’ll make sure nothing like that ever happens to you again, I promise.”
Dree tilted her head to the side. “Maxence, honey, it’s not your fault. It’s their faults. They did this, and no one could have protected anyone from it.”
“But I’ll make sure. I’ll make sure you’re safe, no matter what I have to do.”
Casimir leaned over Dree’s head. “Max, we can divert to Nice and go directly to The Hague. Anastasia would relish having the two of you under her roof for as long as necessary.”
Maxence shook his head. “Now that Dree is accounted for, the Crown Council meeting is in less than six hours.”
Casimir frowned. “Monaco isn’t safe for you. You were kidnapped last night in an attempted coup. You can fall back and plan your next move in exile. It would be safer.”
“Like Napoleon exiled on Elba?” Max asked him.
Casimir said gently, “Napoleon regained power.”
“Napoleon was an aggressive little jerk who attacked first and came up with his strategy later.”
“Like walking into the Crown Council meeting unprepared for another kidnapping or assassination attempt?” That was less gentle.
Dammit, Caz was right. “Monaco is in danger. I won’t leave the citizens of Monaco to be ruled by a dictator, because that’s exactly what Prince Jules would do.”
Casimir sat back in his seat, frowning.
Arthur held up his phone, which was flashing red, and waved it at the rest of them sitting in the backseat. “You have a call, Max.”
And he threw it into the rear seat.
Max snagged it out of the air before it bonked Dree’s shins. “Hello?”
A man’s voice, low and accented with an odd combination of French and German, said, “I have some operators on the ground near your location. They are en route to the palace now and can provide security for at least a month. We can provide a rotation after that. We had an operation there last month, and a few of my personnel decided to stick around for a winter vacation.”
Maxence sighed. “Our helicopter will be landing at the palace momentarily.”
“I am notifying them to secure the landing pad first.”
“Thank you, Mr. Schwarz, and please, thank Flicka for me.”
Dieter Schwarz’s voice lowered and became gruff. “She’s right here and demanding to speak with you.”
Fumbling.
Flicka asked him, “Is there anything else I can do?”
“That was amazing. Thank you.”
Her voice cracked. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Yeah, of course. I have to go. I’ll call you later.”
“Sure. Stay safe.”
Maxence raised his hand in Arthur’s general direction. “See? All taken care of.”
Dree laughed, and the helicopter growled through the sky for a few more minutes and landed on the palace’s roof in Monaco.
A small group of men wearing black fatigues with no national insignia waited for them on the roof.
Chapter Fourteen
The Prince’s Palace
Maxence
Maxence pushed open the door of the helicopter while the rotors were still winding down. Fresh sea air rushed into the stale cabin. The other helicopter bearing Micah, Blaze, and Logan diverted to the yacht club’s roof.
Dree struggled to climb off their laps, landing with her high-heeled pumps on the asphalt. Maxence steadied her even as he was stepping out of the helicopter.
The mercenaries standing off to the side didn’t march over in formation, as Maxence had expected them to, but fanned out around the edges of the roof and formed a shielded path for them to walk from the helicopter to the door leading to the helipad reception room of the palace.
One tall, lean mercenary detached from the other commandos and approached them. He wore his black beret at a rakish angle above ice blue eyes, and his black hair was cut military-short. “My name is Commander Magnus Jensen. Rogue Security has been retained to establish a security perimeter and evaluate your future security needs. Do you agree to this operation?”
Arthur leaned around Maxence. “Yes. Yes, he does.”
Magnus Jensen said, “I’m sorry, sir, but I need to hear it from the subject themself. Do you agree to this operation, sir?”
Maxence said, “Yes, and thank you for coming on short notice.”
“Pleased to be of service, Your Highness.” He looked beyond Maxence to Arthur and Casimir. “And my lord, Your Highness, and Mr. King.”
The three of them nodded, and Maxence heard Twist ask Arthur, “Did he tell them our names?”
“Flicka von Hannover is involved with this,” Arthur said back to him. “She probably told them.”
Twist chuckled. “She’s involved in everything.”
Dree stepped toward Maxence, though she kept her chin up and stared Magnus Jensen straight in his face, or at least from under his chin.
Casimir called out something in Dutch, a language that sounded like a cross between Norwegian and English, over Maxence’s shoulder. Some of the words were Korps Commandotroepen.
Magnus Jensen glanced back at Casimir, and a smile lifted one side of his mouth as he replied in the same language.
Casimir laughed.
Magnus Jensen’s smile faded. “In addition to myself, contact points for this operation will be Specialist Aaron Savoie and Specialist Aiden Grier. We have eighteen other operators at your disposal for the duration.”
When he introduced the other two men, Maxence noticed the redhead staring at something behind him.
When he glanced back, Arthur was glaring back at the redhead, but neither of them made a move toward each other.
Maxence asked his three buddies, “Do you guys want guest suites at the palace so you can freshen up? You guys just flew in, right? You guys aren’t in a hotel or something?”
Arthur straightened the leather jacket he wore. “I would appreciate it.”
Casimir nodded. “Yeah, it would be nice to rest for a few minutes before I get back on a helicopter to Nice and then a plane to the Netherlands.”
Twist shrugged. “I’ll just go home. It’s right down there.” He pointed toward the marina and the Monaco Yacht Club at the bottom of the cliff.
Maxence texted Tommaso to secure suites for Arthur and Casimir for the afternoon or a few days, not knowing how long they would be there.
Magnus Jensen gestured to the door. “If you will come this way, sir.”
Maxence set
tled his hand on Dree’s back, his fingers contacting her bare skin because she still wore her shredded ball gown from last night. The mercenaries fell into formation around them. They wore sidearms, Maxence noticed, and other weapons were strapped to their belts.
Magnus Jensen and the Rogue Security operators escorted Maxence and Dree directly to Max’s palace apartment, where they walked through the rooms, pulling aside the drapes and checking in closets, plus examining surfaces with some sort of handheld electronics with a wand before they allowed Max and Dree to enter.
Tommaso met Arthur and Casimir at the door of Maxence’s suite and peeled them off the entourage with a quiet word. Maxence knew Tommaso would take excellent care of them because he always did.
Maxence said to Magnus, “You seem to know your way around the palace.”
Magnus nodded. “What is your schedule for the day, sir?”
“Miss Clark and I will freshen up and rest, and then there is a Crown Council meeting at six o’clock in the palace throne room that I will attend.”
Magnus took notes on his phone. “Is that essential, sir?”
“Yes,” he said. “It’s the most important thing in my life.”
Dree wandered through the room, trailing her fingers over the sumptuous fabric of a chair.
Max corrected himself. “Almost the most important thing, but it’s exceedingly important for today.”
“We will provide security. Can we secure the throne room in advance of your arrival?”
“Absolutely. I’ll call Quen—” Max swallowed. “I’ll call the acting head of my Secret Service to arrange access.”
Magnus nodded. “I’ll have security standing guard outside your door. If there’s anything you need or if you decide you will leave this apartment, please call me on my cell to arrange for your safety.”
Maxence realized the problem with that. “During the kidnapping and rescue this morning, I lost my phone. I’ll need to acquire a new one.”
Dree grinned and exclaimed, “Oh, I have your phone!” She reached into the top of her ball gown up to her wrist, and Maxence stepped between her and Magnus Jensen.
Maxence could enjoy the show, but not the mercenary. And for just a moment, Maxence forgot the horrors of the preceding twelve hours as her curvy, soft breasts jiggled in her bodice while she tried to grab his phone in her bra.
She pulled his phone out of her cleavage like she was finishing a magic trick and handed it to him. “Yep! I’ve got it!”
The phone in his palm was still warm from its time between her breasts, and Max’s dick twitched in his pants.
He turned back to Magnus Jensen, who had absolutely no expression on his face. “I’ll need your phone number.”
Behind him, Dree said, “By the way, I also have the—” but Max was so busy stepping between Magnus Jenson’s greedy eyes and Dree that he didn’t turn around.
After Maxence tapped the commando’s number into his phone, Magnus Jensen placed a button with no wires or power source on the coffee table. “This panic button will send an alert to every operator in the vicinity. There’s another one on your nightstand in the bedroom. You can put them inside drawers, or there is adhesive for concealing them on the undersides of furniture.”
They understood.
He placed two small devices with a ring at one of their ends beside the panic button. “These are key fobs. Keep them on you at all times. If you activate either the panic button or the key fobs, Rogue Security operators will enter your location with guns drawn in a level-five assault. Their assessment of the situation could lead to gunfire and deaths. I need to stress to you that activating these buttons or key fobs is only for the most extreme emergency, like what happened at the Sea Change Gala.”
Maxence and Dree nodded.
Magnus Jensen added, “Cell phone communication is recommended for anything less than a full-frontal assault. You can tell us if you want discreet backup or something more forceful. Cell phone communication is also recommended before you go anywhere within or outside the palace.”
Once again, Dree and Maxence nodded.
Magnus Jensen left the royal apartment, locking the door behind him.
After a deep breath, Maxence was just turning back to Dree, telling her, “You were magnificent. I promise you that I will find those assholes and hold them down while you beat the living—”
As he caught sight of Dree, her blue eyes were enormous on her little elfin face, and tears wobbled on her lower eyelids.
“Oh, no. Oh, chérie.” He crossed the floor in three giant steps and folded her in his arms.
“I’m sorry! Farm girls don’t cry! I never do this, and I’m sorry, and I shouldn’t be crying because everyone’s all right and it’s over and I don’t know why I can’t stop!”
She melted in his arms, slipping downward as he was looking for her in his empty arms, and he found her as a tiny, sad lump on the carpeting, sobbing.
He crouched and placed one hand on her back. “No, no, Dree. You did wonderfully. You were a rock. You saved yourself. I just gave you a ride.”
“They hogtied me like a rodeo calf and were going to shoot me!”
He settled to his knees beside her and stole a glance out of the corner of his eyes at his room around him—the richly upholstered couch and ornately carved coffee table, the thick rug under his shoes, and the centuries-old, French chandelier hanging in the center of the room—because only four hours ago he had assumed he would never see any of this or this fantastically sweet woman again.
She curled into a fetal position and rolled away from him. “Don’t be nice to me. I don’t cry like this, and you shouldn’t be nice to me. Being nice just encourages it.”
Maxence lowered himself to lie beside her on the carpeting and tucked her against his chest. “You were magnificent. If we hadn’t been there to pluck you up and throw you in the helicopter, I’m sure you would have crawled all the way back to the palace and into the front door.”
“Nuh-uh. They were going to kill me. That was the third time I tried to escape, and they were going to blow my head off if they caught me.”
Maxence pulled away to look down at her. “Your third escape attempt?”
She nodded, still tearful. “The first time, I installed malware on their computer that made the screen get stuck on some nasty porn. While they were trying to deal with the computer screaming, I just walked out. I would have made it, too, except the one car that pulled over to pick me up was the sister of the guy who nabbed me, Kir Sokolov.”
Maxence cuddled her more tightly against his chest. “I will hunt them down to the ends of the Earth. I can have Interpol arrest them. If that doesn’t work, I’ll send my military to assassinate them.”
“I can’t believe I was so stupid as to let them get me. I didn’t even know they were in Monaco.”
“What on Earth would the Sokolov bratva want with you?”
“Those are the people my ex-boyfriend, Francis Senft, stole the money from, and then he told them that I had the money. Have you heard of them?”
Maxence shook his head as the information rattled around and connected to the right neurons. “I met Kir Sokolov at the Sea Change Gala last night.” How could it only have been last night? “I’ve known his sister Matryona for years. We were in school together.”
“Matryona! That was the woman in the car, his sister.”
Maxence instantly believed they were capable of it.
Dree looked down. “Oh.” She bit her lip.
“What’s the problem?”
“So, they’re your people. This is awkward.”
Maxence chuckled and tucked her more tightly against his chest. “It’s not ‘awkward.’ They’re not my people. They’re Russian mafia. I’ve always known what the Sokolovs were. They deal drugs here in Monaco. They kidnapped you and threatened to kill you. That’s a crime. It’s not going to be ‘awkward’ because they will go to prison for what they did.”
“I don’t want to come betw
een you and your friends,” she muttered.
“The Sokolovs were never my friends. I don’t befriend criminals. Now tell me about the second time you escaped.”
“Almost escaped. I told Matryona I had to pee, and then I squeezed out the bathroom window and started running. And then some stupid delivery truck turned into the parking lot and saw stupid-me in a fluttery dress sprinting in high heels and yelled at them to catch me, and they did.”
“But that’s excellent! You outsmarted a Russian bratva twice!”
“No, if I’d have outsmarted them, I would’ve gotten away. Evidently, I suck at escaping. But what happened to you? You were being dragged away at the big dance, and then suddenly you were rescuing me. What the heck happened to you?”
Inexplicably, ice misted Maxence’s back and chest. His hands would’ve been shaking, but he curled them into fists. “Nothing.”
“Um, you were obviously fighting them when they were dragging you out, and you shoved me away so I wouldn’t be caught up in it. What was going on?”
Images flashed in his head. Quentin Sault and Michael Rossi’s blasted skull, and trying to throw himself into the sea to drown himself, and the foul darkness of that room they’d thrown him in. “Kidnappers for ransom, as usual.”
“But it didn’t seem like that. They were killing people at the Sea Change Gala. How did you get away?”
“About like you did. They turned their backs for a minute, and I walked away. Luckily, my old school chums Casimir and Arthur were right there to pick me up.”
Dree’s pale eyebrows were lowered, and her skin knotted between her eyes. “Really?”
“I’ve known Casimir and Arthur practically all my life. Arthur and I met on our first day of kindergarten when our parents shipped us off to Le Rosey boarding school. Casimir joined us a year later in first grade.”
Dree shook her head, and Max was so glad to see that while her eyes were a bit red, they were dry. “I think it’s so weird, the way rich people just ship their kids off to boarding school when they’re five. I would never.”
Royal: A Royal Billionaire Novel (Billionaires in Disguise: Maxence Book 6) Page 9
