Road To Fire: Broken Crown Trilogy, Book 1

by Luis, Maria

  Old equipment. Dated tech.

  The older agents, men like Pa, relied on their fists and wits to uncover information. Our return from Paris, almost six years after Henry Godwin was murdered, changed all that.

  Or rather, Damien changed all that.

  With a soft cap pulled down over his ears, my brother clicks through a series of pages on the monitor, so fast that I’m unable to keep up. Doesn’t help that we’ve dimmed the overhead lights to the barest glow, so Barker, in the interrogation room, won’t realize that he has company stalking his every move.

  “I sent Jude to follow his family this afternoon,” Damien says, extending a hand to tap the computer screen. Pinching his fingers, he glides them apart and the picture he’s uploaded grows larger. It’s a blurry shot, taken at a park somewhere in the City, by the looks of it, but there’s no mistaking the two little girls that a nanny is corralling toward a swing set.

  Damien pauses, his fingers falling to the mouse. “Cute kids.”

  “Don’t get attached.”

  If I’m the frozen tundra, then my brother is a volcano. At first glance, he’s just another figure in the Holyrood landscape but with the added potential to destroy everything in his path with a single touch of a button.

  Not that he would.

  “You sent Jude?” I ask slowly, running my gaze over his frame. “Or you went out on your own?”

  Damien’s shoulders visibly tense. “I sent Jude, like I said.”

  “You’ve fresh dirt caking your trainers.”

  “Get your head out of your fucking ass, Saxon,” he hisses, spinning his chair around to face me. Blue eyes, a mirror image of Guy’s, stare me down. “I’m not Jude, not Hamish. You don’t get to run my life and bark out orders. I’m not some bloody animal and I won’t be confined to this goddamned place just because—”

  “We’re not the one who’s wanted.”

  “And whose fault is that?” His gaze, usually so clinically impersonal, burns with mirthless fury. “Not mine.”

  “I know.”

  “You say that like it’s been you stuck in this house for months on end. Except that luxury belongs to me.” He shoves a finger into his chest. “And, to make it worse, you won’t let me rip his fucking heart out.”

  “You can’t kill the police commissioner. There’ll be questions.”

  “As if that’s ever stopped us before.”

  I don’t move away from the desk. Arms still crossed, I shoot a quick glance over to Barker, who’s yet to realize that the key for the handcuffs sits beneath the cup of tea we offered him. Intimidation is not always about brute strength. Sometimes it’s subtle, a game of deceit, the sinister process of removing a person’s options, one by one, without him realizing it at all.

  The key may unlock the cuffs, but the door leading from the room is barred shut.

  Blinding hope leads to crushing disappointment, which leads to further desperation.

  I turn my attention back to my brother, picking my words with care. In all my life, they’ve never come easily. I go mute when I should speak, then speak out of turn when silence would be best. I suppose a therapist might place the blame squarely on what happened at St. James’s Palace, how my terror yielded to nothing but more violence and death and tragedy.

  I blame the world we live in where words are meaningless.

  People lie, people cheat—but not with them—my brothers.

  Quietly, I say, “You’re seen as a terrorist. You can erase every article that pops up online about you, but it still won’t change the facts.”

  Damien’s lips tighten. “I was doing my fucking job.”

  “I know.”

  On the desk, his hand clenches into a fist. “How long do we let the world see me as the Mad Priest, then? The man responsible for breeching parliament’s security. A year? Five? The rest of my goddamn life?”

  In the other room, Barker’s head snaps up, as though he’s heard Damien’s escalating frustration. I bite out a curse beneath my breath.

  “Keep your voice down,” I growl, pushing off the desk to head for the outlet on the wall. I dim the lights even further, until we’re nearly encased in darkness. Only when Barker’s returned to uselessly trying to pick the handcuff’s lock with his fingernail do I continue, “You don’t punch out at this job. There are no exit points.” Against my better judgment, I reach up to skim the branding behind my ear. The king destroyed the nerve endings when he scarred me, and although I’ve told my brothers that I can still feel the slightest touch, it’s yet another lie that I’ve given to keep up appearances. The skin there is numb, much like the rest of me. “This job takes, brother, and it rarely gives back. You either accept it for what it is, or you fight against a tidal wave that you won’t survive.”

  “And you?” he asks, so softly I nearly miss the question.

  “What about me?”

  Damien tips his head back, his gaze locked on my face. Unbidden, a memory from our youth pushes its way to the surface—the first time my younger brother spotted my scarred mouth. It was worse, then, bloody and horrifying, before the doctor did what he could. And since we were poor and ensconced in Paris, like criminals, the doctor we could afford couldn’t do much at all. At the sight of me, Damien burst into tears. He was young then, maybe eight to my ten, but was unable to smother his emotions and beat them into submission.

  The boy genius with a heart of gold.

  These days, he’s changing. Turning into someone I hardly recognize. Bitterness and anger bleed from him. Although I’ll never admit it out loud, keeping him here is starting to feel necessary to protect him from himself.

  I lied to Isla tonight—if I knew my brothers needed me, I would give my own life for them. And I would do it, with no consideration of my own.

  “What about me?” I prompt again.

  He runs his palm over the back of his skull, ripping the cap off his head and tossing it on the desk. “Would you fight the tidal wave? If it meant freedom and peace of mind, would you do it?”

  “No.”

  “No?” he demands, never once tearing his gaze away from my face. “Just no? That’s it? You wouldn’t even try—”

  The sound of fists pummeling a door jerks my head up, and cuts Damien off.

  “Looks like the bastard finally drank his tea,” my brother mutters, turning back to the computer. His fingers fly across the keyboard and, seconds later, a projector lowers from the ceiling in the interrogation room. Against the opposite wall, a video that Damien—not Jude—captured earlier today begins to play.

  Barker’s little girls running in the park, blond ponytails swinging as they hop from the swings to the seesaw to the sandpit. They look innocent, happy . . . free.

  I move to the one-sided mirror, hands in the front pockets of my trousers, and watch the reel of emotions unravel across Barker’s face. The elation at seeing his daughters, followed swiftly by the shattering realization that we not only know exactly who he is, but have access to those he cares about most. Fury combats horror as he stumbles backward, his hands clapped over his mouth, the blood on his nose now dried and flaking.

  “Tell me what you want!” he shouts, spinning on his heel as though he can find us hiding in the crevices of the empty room. “Tell me what you fuckin’ want!”

  I press a finger to the intercom button to the left of the mirror. And then I give him the last ultimatum he’ll ever hear: “The names of your co-conspirators, Mr. Barker. All of them.”

  I don’t need to bring up the obvious: no cooperation and his daughters will suffer the consequences. He knows what the exchange is, what it’s worth, and when he crashes to his knees on the floor, helpless in his grief, the montage of his daughters still playing out on the wall, I sift through my soul to find remorse.

  The inner self-loathing of what I’ve become versus the boy I once was.

  I find nothing.

  Wordlessly, I turn to leave the room, only to find myself pausing at Damien’s side. “I used to
think that I’d survive if only I could manage to ride the crest of the wave,” I tell him, my voice low. “Save the Crown, protect the status quo, do my job. But it doesn’t work like that—you know it just as well as I do. Holyrood is like quicksand, where one bad deed leads to sinking deeper, until everything that once made you you is destroyed.”

  Damien remains silent, and I wrench the words from what’s left of my beating heart to drop them at his feet, humbling and raw. “I fought the wave, brother. I fought it and I lost.”

  I don’t wait for his response.

  Instead, I slip from the room and grab a pair of brass knuckles from the box outside the interrogation room.

  Life in Holyrood—in this chaotic world that’s swallowed us all—is easier when you’ve accepted fate. Death comes for everyone.

  It’s only a matter of how soon.

  10

  Isla

  Twenty-four hours after my first meeting with Saxon Priest, déjà vu hits me like a boulder upside the head as I cross Fournier Street toward The Bell & Hand. The flower boxes are the same. The bloke seated at the window with his newspaper—I swear it’s the same man from yesterday, too. And when I go to open the glossy front door, a patron steps out and we commence with an identical awkward shuffle-shuffle-shuffle.

  The dark hair. The tweed flat cap. Even this man is the same, though today he doesn’t offer a smile before taking off down the street. Even so, my gut still churns . . .

  Pure déjà vu. It’s uncanny.

  Fighting off a wave of nerves, I step into the pub and take in the familiar scent of coffee and pastries. Seconds later, a familiar figure comes barreling to a stop at the sight of me.

  “You again?” Jack, the cranky server, demands irritably. “How many times do I have to tell ya? We ain’t fuckin’ interested.”

  “Saxon asked me to meet him here.”

  “Saxon now, is it?” His bushy brows furrow as he inches toward me, a half-step that seems to span the distance of ten. “You think you can just waltz in here, and what? We’ll bend over backward to cater to y’er every whim—”

  “Jack.”

  The tiny hairs on my nape stand tall at the terse voice that cracks like a whip through the pub—Saxon’s voice. Last night, after I crawled into bed, I was unable to stop replaying the entire evening in my head. Like a hot brand to the skin, I felt his muscular frame straddling my thighs . . . but instead of holding me captive, my traitorous brain turned me down a different path.

  A path where he did use me: his scarred mouth devouring mine and his calloused hands pinning my wrists to the soft earth, so I had no choice but to accept the pressure of his weight, his feral kiss. In my dream—a nightmare, really—he hadn’t released me, and fear mingled with lust to create an addictive concoction that felt like it would be the very death of me.

  Now, as I watch him stride purposefully toward Jack and me, I feel heat rise to my cheeks.

  Please don’t let him notice.

  When he’s an arm’s width away, he kicks his chin toward the bar. “Leave us.”

  Jack does a double take, volleying his gaze from me to Saxon and then back again. “You takin’ the fucking piss, Priest? Don’t tell me you’re actually hirin’ her?”

  But I could use you.

  As if composed from stone, Saxon’s expression reveals nothing. “If I wanted your opinion, I’d ask for it.”

  Jack’s shoulders square off. He opens his mouth, clearly prepared to fire off a comeback, before seemingly thinking better of it. Nostrils flaring, he glowers at me before storming off toward the bar.

  Silence closes in and I fight the urge to turn tail, which is a shock all on its own. I’ve never been one to run from my problems. Even after my parents died, I stepped up and did what needed to be done without hesitation. But standing here now, under the cold stare of Saxon Priest, my fight is dwindling fast.

  Flight seems like a much better option for getting out of this alive.

  Discreetly, I run my gaze over him, taking in his black leather loafers and the crisp black trousers that cling to his thighs and the charcoal-gray pullover that hugs his brawny torso. Even his thick hair is combed over, lightly styled. Unlike last night, he looks the part of perfect gentleman—except for his knuckles, I notice, which are bruised and scraped raw.

  Did he get into a fight once he dropped me off at my flat?

  The thought leaves me rattled, but I raise my chin, anyway, and adopt a nonchalance I don’t feel. “Well, I’m here.” I splay my hands out, as though bowing to his infinite greatness—insert all the sarcasm. “As was demanded of me.”

  Saxon doesn’t take the bait. Those pale eyes of his dip south, charting a slow path from the black choker encircling my neck all the way down to the black, lace-up boots on my feet. I made a concerted effort this morning to ditch all pretenses with my wardrobe. If he wants me here, then he’ll get me as I am. Blunt. Badass. Me.

  Pulse racing faster than I’d like to admit, I wait for a reaction—anything at all.

  Rather predictably, he doesn’t give me one. Only says, “Walk with me,” before striding toward the pub’s front door. Not a request but a command that practically begs me to defy him.

  I don’t.

  This morning, I spent thirty minutes lecturing Peter on the idiocy of not thinking for himself. The rest of the world may be content to fall into line like a flock of sheep, but we Quinns are smarter, better, than that. Wolves, never sheep. And yet, here I am, not two hours later, proving myself to be, once again, the worst kind of liar.

  When we cross Fournier, I finally find my voice. “Where are you taking me?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Five seconds later, he cracks open a wooden door on the eastern side of Christ Church Spitalfields and ushers me to enter. I pause on the threshold, my feet locked in place. “I’m Catholic.”

  Saxon’s eyes narrow at my bluff. “Go in, Isla.”

  I don’t move. “This is a partnership. I have something that works for you and you have a plan that involves me. Ordering me around is not inspiring a bout of goodwill, just so you know.”

  He plants a hand on the door frame, his forearm grazing the back of my head. “If I wanted to kill you, I would have done so last night. I sure as hell wouldn’t need to lure you into a church to get the job done.” His arm drops south, and I feel the pressure, the very heat of him, against my shoulder blades in a not so subtle reminder that he’s blocked my only exit. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it? A chance to strike back at the Crown. A place to work where people understand you.”

  I turn in place, so that we’re chest to chest. Or rather, chin to chest. “If you understood where I was coming from, you wouldn’t feel the need to mock me,” I hiss, locking my fingers around his arm to use as leverage when I stand on my toes and shove my face close to his.

  His muscles flex beneath my grip, and for a second, I’m half-convinced he might throw me to the side. Restraint renders him motionless. But his mouth flattens, and the hollows of his stubbled cheeks seem only that much more pronounced as he stares, unflinching. “If I were mocking you, you would know.” His mouth brushes my ear, and a harsh breath fans out over my lips. “I don’t play games, Isla. Now, walk your ass inside or go the hell home.”

  Against my better judgment, I walk my arse inside.

  You’re doing it for the money.

  The lie sits like a ton in my belly, and I force myself to take in my surroundings before I do the smart thing—the right thing—and leave exactly the way I came in, to hell with Saxon Priest.

  The soles of my boots echo on the marble flooring, a quiet staccato amplified by the near silence of the church. Wooden pews line the length of the nave. White Corinthian columns stretch tall, extending north to barrel-vaulted archways that draw the eye up, up, up, to an intricately carved ceiling. Early morning light filters in from the massive windows, splashing sunshine on the detailed lines of a centuries-old organ in the west gallery.

  Saxon�
��s large hand brushes my back before yanking away just as abruptly. “Come.”

  I tear my gaze from the awe-inspiring organ and follow Saxon down the nave’s left flank. With each step toward the unknown, my pulse drives a little faster. Unease quickens my breathing, and the sensation of being watched doesn’t fade—especially when Saxon stops beside a confessional and cracks open the wooden door.

  My jaw falls open. “Absolutely not.”

  “Get in.”

  “This is the third time in less than twenty-four hours you’ve told me that, and each time I’m struck with the resounding realization that you’ve taken my good sense and tossed it into a blender of utter destruction. First, the car and now—”

  Movement snags my attention and I turn, just in time, to see the heavy, black robes of a priest swish around the corner. Gray-haired and balding at the crown, the man keeps his head down, eyes rooted to the floor. And yet, there’s no denying the small, telling pause he gives us before slipping silently into the confessional.

  I haven’t been inside a church in nearly a decade but even I know this is highly irregular. Nor can I recall the last time that I saw a confessional booth inside an Anglican church, if I ever have.

  Something isn’t right.

  Adrenaline turns my palms clammy as I back up, guided by instinct alone.

  A solid male hand collides with the center of my spine. Then, in a voice carved from devilry itself, Saxon orders, “In, Isla.”

  Damn him, I go in.

  And he—Saxon—follows right after before promptly clicking the door closed.

  Oh, bollocks.

  His left thigh is plastered to my right, his elbow digging into my side. His massive frame seems that much larger, that more brutish, when confined to a small place meant for only one. Not that he makes an effort to keep to his side of the bench. I’m sandwiched between a stationary wall and the mountain of a man that is Saxon Priest. Even if I tried to escape, I’d be forced to climb over his lap, and where would I be then?