by Millie Adams
“I carry out missions assigned to me. And often that results in the deaths of men who would kill countless others. Countless innocents.”
“You and the government then decide who is good and who is bad? What is that, if not an exercise in power? Playing God. Playing God with public opinion, playing God with life. Do not tell me you don’t wish for power. I am not stupid, me.”
She wondered, for a moment, if she had gone too far. He did not frighten her, not really. But she was very aware of the fact that if she pushed him too far, she would not get what she wanted, and that did frighten her. For she had no other plan. No other idea for how she might bail her country out of the disaster it found itself in.
“What other enticements have you to offer?”
She fortified herself with a breath. For she had been prepared for this moment. “Me. My body.”
He looked her up and down. “Please do not take this the wrong way, but I have no need.”
She narrowed her eyes, feeling insulted. “What does that mean?”
“I do not need to take a woman in trade for anything. If I want a woman, I simply have her.”
“Not me.”
“And that is supposed to be of particular enticement to me?”
She lifted a shoulder. “No man has had me. A shock, I would think, given that I have been kept prisoner for so long. But I think it was quite a game, right? To keep me untouched. For future leverage. Virginity is valuable.”
His gaze flickered dispassionately over her again. “Is it? Here it is quite disposable. Something to throw away at the earliest of conveniences.”
“Well, not for me. For every indignity I have suffered, for all that has been taken, not that. But I will give it to you.”
“I don’t have a need of your virginity, Princess. I didn’t even need my own. It’s been gone for twenty years and I haven’t missed it.”
“Money, then. What I have is a land rich with minerals. Gold and oil. Untapped. The dictators, they were not so smart, I think. But I learned a great many things, because I had nothing but time. So, I read. And what I discovered is that there is much unexplored in my country. But I need the investment to see it done. And I need to live. I need to keep living, or none of it matters. And for that I need you.”
“You think you can buy me?”
“You are bought. Repeatedly. Do not pretend to be a man of great principle now. If you are a man of great principle, then you would perform your task for free, but you do not.”
“No one works for free.”
“Yes, see? That is what I’m saying. No one works for free, and I do not expect you to. You protect me, and I will reward you in the end. Consider it a new mission, but this time you fix what it is you broke.”
“You believe you need a guard? That you are in danger? And for how long do you foresee needing this?”
“I am to be crowned Queen soon, and I think...some time. It has been held off by the council, my coronation, to see if I am fit after my time as prisoner. And I worry the neighboring countries...lie in wait. It will take time.”
“How much time?” he asked, impatient now.
“My neighbors in Lackland are a threat to me,” she said. “I have intelligence that says they will overthrow me.”
“From where?”
“Your government,” she said, waving a hand. “Such a help they were, ridding us of dictator extraordinaire Pierre Doucet, and such aid was given! For all of three months and now I am threatened and on my own. So you see, I get insurance of my own. Protection of my own. And it is fair I confiscate one of their resources to do it.”
“The resource being me?”
“Oui.”
“You’re trying to play the victim here, Annick, and yet you lead with a threat to my family?”
“You lead with a gun. So, seems fair.”
She steeled herself, for she knew what was coming. She knew what she had to do. She had planned for this. She had prepared for it.
“We will be quite close in the palace, while you protect me. I am ready to give you a preview of what we might share.”
“Really?”
He stared at her stone-faced, and she took a step toward him. She had practiced this. Her hips swaying with each movement, eye contact with him never wavering. Of course, eye contact with herself in a mirror was a damn sight different than contact with the man himself. His eyes were blue. It was shocking on one with such dark hair. They were piercing, as if they could see into her soul. But he did not move.
His face was like rock. And his undoing would be that he underestimated her. His undoing would be that he did not think her an enemy.
She sighed, reached into her pocket and leaned in as if to kiss him.
Then she pulled the handkerchief out of her pocket and clapped it over his face. He removed her hand immediately, but it was too late. She had anticipated that. That he would be stronger. That his reflexes would be faster. That she would have to overdose him.
He growled and lunged toward her, knocking her back, and he came down on top of her, his hard body a heavy weight she could scarcely wiggle free of, until...
Until his muscles relaxed. Until it was clear that the chloroform had done its job.
“It is good that I planned for this.”
But a one-woman kidnapping job of a very large man was not easy. Again, she had anticipated that and had brought with her a hospital gurney. In addition to a van she could load him in.
By the time she had driven to the airfield and unloaded him onto the private plane, she was feeling nearly cheerful. Had she known kidnapping her personal assassin would be quite so simple, she would have done it many years ago.
Now all that was left to do was...wait.
CHAPTER TWO
MAXIMUS WOKE READY to kill. He reached for his gun and found it wasn’t there.
“I took it, obviously,” came a now familiar voice.
Annick.
He immediately remembered everything that had transpired. And he had...
He was a fool. One of the most beautiful women in all the world had attempted to seduce him earlier tonight, and he had brushed her off without so much as a second glance. Annick looked at him with her round, pale eyes and had begun to walk toward him after offering her virginity, and he had stood still. He had told himself it was to see simply what she would do next, but the fact of the matter was, he had let his guard down. Which was not something he had done in his life. Not ever.
If he had, he would be dead.
No. He had done it once before. And a woman was dead because of it. But never since.
Until now.
“What the hell did you do?”
“Chloroform,” she said, as if he were very stupid. “An old, but effective method to subdue. And now you are on my private plane.”
“I thought you had no money.”
“Not exactly. We have a limited economy in bad need of overhauling. And if selling a private plane would fix the problems I have, I would. This was obviously left over from the previous regime. The regime that no longer exists. Thank you for that. But like I said, you made this problem. I am pressed on all sides. It is not just Lackland who seeks to take advantage of my weaknesses.”
“This is kidnapping,” he said.
She spread her hands. “So it is. But I find I had no choice.”
“I hate to tell you this, Princess, but you can’t make me do what you want me to. I don’t answer to anyone.” He leaned back in his chair. “I’m no one’s bitch. Least of all yours.”
“What does this mean? Bitch? I do not wish you to be my ‘bitch.’ I wish you to be my guard and my counselor. Very clever of me. You can be all these things.”
“Why me?”
“You know why. You are sent out by your government to depose men. Bad men. You have never onc
e carried out an operation against the innocent, and that is not a credit to any nation, but to you.”
“No,” he said. “I leave the atrocities to others.”
“But you don’t. You don’t leave atrocities. You handle them. You are Maximus King, this famous consultant and maker of social darlings. And you are The King, the military operative who has performed the most clean and precise removals of barbaric governments in modern history, whispered about and yet never really seen. Part of a branch of the military that may not truly exist. So many cover-ups, and coincidences, yes? And so you, specifically, are perfect for me. You will take a public position as my adviser, and given that I spent many years in a dungeon, it is perfect sense that I take an adviser. Adviser in public, guard in private. You are scary.”
“Not to you, it seems.”
“No, but,” she said, “you are to others. And anyway, don’t take it personally that you don’t scare me. I am not scared by much.”
She should be. She was small. Thin.
Her cheeks were round, but only because she was young. If he hadn’t known about her history, then he wouldn’t be able to guess. He knew about the royal family in Aillette. Their murders had been highly publicized at the time. Killed by a man who had their trust. An adviser to the King. That Princess Annick had been spared had been headline news. He had done even more digging into the royal family before he had gone to handle that bastard of a dictator last year. He knew that Annick was only twenty-two.
She was very pretty. Owed to a fine, aristocratic bone structure, and impossibly pale features. Her nose was small and pointed, her lips pale like the rest of her. Her lashes were nearly white, her eyes the softest of robin’s-egg blue. She looked fragile in every way. Like contact with the sun would make her burst into flame. And she was telling him that she did not fear him.
“I lost my whole family. I lost my way of living. I was a prisoner, knowing that my only hope in all the world was, someday, for someone with more power than I to change things. Now I have power. I have a plane. I have a title. That means something. I will not sit back. Not ever again. And if I must die for my actions, then I will. But I will not wait. Not anymore. I am not a coward. And I am very angry that I have had to act the coward in order to wait until I might be most effective. You, I do not fear. I fear a life spent free where I still behave as if I am in a dungeon. That is what I fear.”
He found the most grudging respect burned inside of him for Annick. Grown men feared him. As well they should. And this little Princess had kidnapped him. Something stirred inside of him, and the reaction gave him pause.
For he was not immune to feeling here.
Though for years now he had been.
Like tonight. Nothing, not a single thing, had stirred inside of him when Arianna had touched him. He couldn’t get a thrill out of the job he did in the public eye. He could not even get an adrenaline rush out of pulling a gun on anyone. But this, this was interesting. This was something new.
What angered him was the fact that she thought she was in control.
“If we are to work together,” he said, “you do not get the control. You cannot force me to do anything.”
“Eh, but I can,” she said. “With chloroform.”
“You cannot possibly lug me around to every event you have planned.”
She nodded her head slightly. “It is impractical, yes.”
“At a certain point you will need my cooperation. And let us dispense with your threats to my family. I don’t believe that you would do anything to put innocent lives in danger.”
She looked regretful. “I would not want to.”
“I don’t think you will. Because that would be the real tragedy, wouldn’t it? That they were able to make you into a monster such as them. Monsters who care only for their own goals.”
“My goals are the welfare of my people.”
“Every villain thinks they’re a hero.”
“Unfair,” she said.
“I didn’t realize we were playing fair.”
“We are not playing at all,” she said.
“I lie to the public to protect the images of shallow, silly people. I work in secret to rid the world of the truly vile,” he said. “So the bottom line is, I’ll do pretty much anything to line my pockets.”
She looked at him, her eyes glittering.
“Not true,” she said. “Or you would kill a bit more indiscriminately.”
“I follow orders, but I make sure that I am fighting for the good of humanity. I’m not loyal to any one country, but to freedom. Human freedom. Human dignity.”
“And that is what I want. Bring that to Aillette. Bring it to my people. And I will give you money.”
A chance to liberate an entire country in this way was an interesting one. And in truth... He was getting tired. He was getting tired of all of it. Of the farce that he ran every day of his life. Of the wars he was waging behind the scenes.
Of seeking out atonement when he knew he could never have it.
When it came to dealing with the military, his tenure with them was much more on his own terms now than it had been in the beginning. And the unit he was part of didn’t exist in an official capacity.
It was up to him what missions he did and did not take. If he wished to make Annick his mission for a time, that was up to him.
After all, if he left Annick in peril, everything he’d done up until now was a lie.
“There was an attempt on my life,” she said softly. “I worry. And coming up is my coronation. I am to become Queen, not just a Princess. What will happen then, I do not know.”
“You’re worried they’ll try again.” Instantly, all of his instincts sharpened.
An attempt on her life, he could not allow. Not because he had—as she’d said—played God and upset the balance without ensuring she had adequate protection. But because if he did, then what would the point of any of it be?
To spend a life avenging one woman, while causing the harm of another.
It was everything he despised. Powerful men playing games with the world and women falling victim to them. Not because they weren’t important, or smart, or strong at their core. But for want of that elusive power granted by society and the physical strength needed to fight off an enemy.
Annick needed muscle.
It could easily be him.
“Yes. The question is who do I trust, eh? I am left with a military, but who is loyal to me, really? I do not think I have the skills to ferret that out.”
She didn’t. Not like he did. She was small and pale and determined as hell, but she was not a military tactician. But he couldn’t help her like she truly needed him to. Not with limited power.
There was a path forward that seemed clear to him, immediately.
“You might have yourself a deal,” he said. “But I will have conditions.”
“Yes,” she said, waving a hand. “You would not be a good mercenary if you didn’t have conditions.”
“I’m not a mercenary,” he said. “Not technically. And anyway, aren’t you mercenary?” he asked.
“Clearly. To an extent. Would you like a drink?” She maneuvered around the cabin of the plane, the white outfit she was wearing flowing around her body, revealing curves that he had not realized were there. She had a generous behind, and her breasts were nicely rounded.
But that didn’t mean he’d take her up on her offer. There were always women.
He did not need this one.
“How do I know you won’t poison it?”
“I have already proven I have a willingness to poison you. It is whether or not you decide to trust me that I can help you with. I’m willing to do what I must to get you back to my country. You are already on the plane. So, why would I bother to do anything extreme now?”
“Whiskey.”
“That is this?” She held up a bottle with amber liquid inside.
“Yes.”
“I have never been allowed to drink,” she said. “It would not do. For I had to maintain a visage of...purity. That’s what it is. Pure, snow-white Princess.” She indicated her outfit. “The symbol of the spirit of Aillette.” She made a tutting sound. “Such lies.”
“Why did they do that?”
“Why? Because the people were restless with the monarchy, but it was not ever popular to kill my family, even in the name of a revolution. It was not that my father was such a great King, but tradition matters. And so demonstrating that I was still there, and keeping me as some kind of symbol, I think it was to give people a good feeling. Limited though my outings were. I am far too talkative.”
“Shocking.”
“And I suppose sometimes it worked. Though now the people are convinced I’m fragile. Even though I outlived the men who took over the country. So, who is fragile?”
“You’re not fragile,” he said. “Clearly.”
That pleased her, he could tell. Though she tried not to smile, she fairly beamed from the inside out.
“I’m not,” she agreed. “I’m quite ruthless.”
“That is apparent.”
“I do what I must. I am what I’ve had to become to survive. You understand.” The creature thought she was a sight more frightening than she was, that was obvious.
Though he did understand her. That was the problem he could understand all too well. What happened when you were left behind.
When a bullet meant for him had instead struck the woman he loved, everything had shifted. He had not been able to save Stella.
He looked at Annick. And he felt a grudging tug in his chest. As if Stella were there asking if all he could do was kill for her.
It’s so easy, isn’t it? To take out bad men and imagine the face of her killer every time. But that’s revenge. This is a chance to actually save someone.
A vulnerable woman.
“I think we can help each other,” he said.