He turned to her to stroke back her curls, drawing her eyes to him. “Thank you,” she breathed shakily, as he caressed her cheek.
He gently held her upper arm before he began leading her down the hall and to the bathroom in their rooms.
“Will you be alright on your own?” He asked softly, at the door of the bathroom, and she nodded slowly. He gently kissed her temple in reassurance, before she disappeared.
As soon as she disappeared, he touched his hand to his earpiece again.
“Tyler,” he murmured.
“Yes, Boss,” came a swift reply, and a soft knock sounded on the other door.
Quickly, he let the other man in, before turning off the microphone on his headset. “I need you to strip him and get rid of him,” he stated candidly.
“The oil tycoon?” Tyler questioned.
“The one and same,” Carter responded, and Tyler’s eyes widened as he fully comprehended what Carter was saying.
“Carter—”
“I don’t give a fuck! If you can’t do that, strip him, and drop him in a backwater country’s maximum prison cell if you have to, but he should never be able to touch another woman ever again,” Carter breathed harshly.
Tyler nodded his understanding.
“And get him out of my fucking house!”
Tyler quickly moved to carry out his order, the door closing softly behind him as Carter refocused on his wife.
“Rochelle?”
“Just give me a minute,” she responded, her voice muffled through the thick door.
Carter didn’t need to read her reports just to know who the little fucker had been. And from the fear that had washed over her, he’d known instantly that the little shit had raped her, and hid behind his Nondisclosure Agreement (NDA). He pressed a shaky hand to his face, as anger tore through him. No matter what, he was never going to allow anyone to ever hurt her again, he vowed mentally, before reaching to turn his microphone back on.
It was then that he felt it.
✽✽✽
Rochelle pushed back her fear, as she reapplied some powder to her cheeks while the water ran. She hadn’t expected to ever feel that fear again, knowing how protective her husband was, but blinding fear she had felt. She took a breath, and rubbed her tummy, and felt peace wash over her. It would be hard, but she had to move beyond her past.
With a breath, she tucked some hair behind an ear before exiting the bathroom; Carter quickly fell into step with her, as she headed for the door to return to the great hall.
“I’m sorry about that,” she breathed, as they retook their positions, and Carter raised his hand to allow more people to enter.
He grunted an answer, and she frowned.
“Carter?” She said softly, as the Duchess moved onto to him to receive her kiss. He didn’t turn to her like he usually would, and she reached out to touch his sleeve, to break him out of his deep thoughts.
Her heart slammed to a stop, as a Braxton-Hicks contraction fluttered across her back when he turned to her. Her eyes roved over him, taking in the left-sided hair part, and she just knew, for her husband was a leftie.
“Liam, where is my husband?” She bit out under her breath, as the Jamaican ambassador to Spain reached the front of the line.
He reached up to turn off the microphone that should’ve been her husband’s and her blood ran cold. “I am trying to save his life,” he stated, between clenched teeth, his voice only slightly rougher than his brother’s.
She accepted the ambassador’s kiss, and her hand wavered, hating the fact that she didn’t have an earpiece, and thus, couldn’t alert any security. She hadn’t needed one, because Carter should’ve never left her side. Firm fingers wrapped around her wrist when she moved to raise her hand in the form that Tyler had stated in case Carter’s earpiece had stopped working.
“That would be a grave mistake,” he leaned over to whisper to her roughly, and she swallowed nervously. “Literally,” he finished. He kissed her cheek to cover their little dialogue, as the next set of guests moved into the room.
She shifted on her feet as the next ten minutes passed excruciatingly slow, the ache in her back now down to a dull ache. Liam touched his hand to his earpiece before turning to her.
“Raul said that it’s time for the first course to be served, as the majority of the invited guests are here. We’ll now head to the dining hall after these two.”
Rochelle nodded her understanding, fear still in her gut, but she felt some relief to be able to sit down.
After they moved to the dining room, the pace of things began picking up so that enough time would be left for the grand celebrations to follow. As they sat at the table, Rochelle shifted around in her chair, unable to find a comfortable spot.
“Where is he?” She whispered under her breath to Liam, as soon as he turned away from speaking to Morris.
“Somewhere safe,” he bit out under his breath. “Stop drawing attention to us,” he murmured.
“I’m not the one drawing attention, you are,” she hissed back. “Carter’s a leftie, and his friends are picking up on the differences,” she stated candidly, and he pressed his lips together dispassionately before switching over his knife and fork. “Either way, I need to go and use the restroom; I have eighty pounds on my front that doesn’t belong to me.”
He grimaced slightly, before excusing himself and rising to his feet in order to pull out her chair. She should’ve known better than to think that he’d allow her to wander off on her own.
✽✽✽
Carter blinked unsteadily, and pressed a hand to his brow, trying to remember why the hell he was in his bedroom closet. As memories flooded back to him, he swore savagely and pushed to his feet, swearing again as his head slammed into the shelf above him.
He took in a breath and braced against the wall, before sliding out and standing unsteadily to his feet. He’d been waiting for Rochelle outside the bathrooms, when the pain had stopped his breath briefly, before the needle had pierced his skin. Too bad he’d knocked it away in time and it had fallen with a crash, but it had still been enough to wipe him out.
He checked his watch and swore under his breath, three hours.
Had he taken Rochelle?
Carter’s heart pounded frantically, and he raced to the room to find his cell that he’d locked away in the safe. All cells had been put away before the event to prevent their utilization as an aide to a bomb. He quickly grabbed a burner phone and dialed Tyler’s number for his untraceable phone.
“Tyler, where are you?” He hissed down the line as soon as the other man answered.
He heard the hesitation in the other man’s voice before he answered. “Carter, I just left you in the room with everyone else to answer the phone.”
Carter pressed a shaking hand to his face. Just as he’d suspected. “Tyler, I’m locked in my quarters, that’s Liam,” he breathed and Tyler swore.
✽✽✽
Rochelle felt him stiffen beside her, as Tyler exited the hall with a cell pressed to his ear due to the music. “Why the hell couldn’t your husband stay put?” Liam demanded roughly, his eyes scanning the crowd, but before he could finish, pain laced through her arm, and Liam stepped back, shocked, before he stumbled and fell.
A scream ripped from her throat, as she saw the red spread across the pristine white of his shirt. She immediately fell to her knees, and a red dot fell on the woman before her, before she too crumbled to the floor.
Liam grabbed her arm as she pressed her shaking hands to the wound in his side. “Rochelle, run!” He hissed, as Kwayne crumbled to the ground running towards them, and people began screaming and running for the exits.
“I can’t leave you,” she cried, as blood seeped between her fingers.
He coughed, and tried to pry her hands from him, as people crashed against her, and she hissed out a breath.
“Rochelle, look at me,” he demanded, as shots rang out over the music, the silencer now proving to be needles
s. Rochelle brought her frantic eyes to his paling face. “I am not Carter, there’s no need for you to save me,” he breathed.
“You are his brother!” She snapped.
“Who tried to kill you once!” He spat, but she only pressed harder, because she saw the regret in his eyes.
“You just saved me, twice over,” she murmured, and he groaned in exasperation. “You have nieces and nephews—”
“And a dead wife and child; I did what I could to save them,” he whispered, and her heart squeezed.
They’d blackmailed him. “You can make it right!” She persuaded, as two more people around them fell.
Liam pushed off her hands with what seemed like his last burst of strength. “Run!” He shouted, and she saw the little red dot climb up her stomach and to her chest. “Run,” he breathed.
✽✽✽
Carter and Tyler took out three of the shooters without hesitation, as they made their way into the great hall. People ran passed them, but none of them were Rochelle. His grandfather had already been secured by Antwan after Raul had gone AWOL; no doubt they had wiped him out first.
The music disappeared, and the chanting of a coalition motto rang out over the speakers after a split second of deadly silence. Tyler took out the man at the DJ booth without hesitation, and the room went deadly silent once more, then he heard it: Rochelle’s heartbroken sobs.
He tore through the frantic crowd, and then he saw her, hands pressed to the body of his copy and a large red dot on her forehead. In a split second, he charged across the room, and tackled her to the ground, as a shot rang out, and a burning pain tore through him. He kept on rolling until he was able to drag over the metal table filled with glasses over the three of them to shield them. Glass showered over them as the table crashed to the floor.
A bullet dented the metal near his head, and his brother groaned beside them. He saw Tyler take out another ambassador, while Antwan dragged an unconscious one from the room.
Carter saw, more than heard, Tyler shout to someone, as the blood pounded in his ear. Then all of a sudden, Tyler’s eyes widened, and he too, was on the floor.
Rochelle screamed into his ear from under him and he grimaced, his vision doubling.
✽✽✽
Rochelle pushed him off as his brother groaned loudly beside them again, and before he could stop her, she was kneeling over him, pressing her hands to his wound with all her weight. “Dammit, Liam; hold on!” She muttered under her breath.
She sucked in a breath as the hot metal of a gun pressed against her forehead, and shiny black shoes met her vision. She turned her eyes up to meet Raul’s, never taking her hands off Liam.
Raul laughed coldly, as his fingers flexed over the trigger of the gun. “Thirty-three years in the making; I told my idiot of a father that I would be the one to make this country great, but he hadn’t believed me. Now, he’s not even here to see the rewards.”
“Raul—”
Blood filled her mouth, as he slapped her with the gun, and her hands shifted off the wound.
“Be quiet, bitch, and listen, because there is no one left to tell.”
Rochelle frowned, and cast her eyes downwards, only to see blood where Carter had once lain.
“Spain has wanted to be a democracy for as long as I could remember, but because of the de Silvas, our progress has continuously been stalled. And so I am continuing the work of my father, and his father before him, to wipe out the royals of Spain. Taking them out had been so easy, only Liam was stupid enough not to finish the job right with you and that idiot,” he boasted, indicating to Liam, whom he thought was Carter. “So, I took him and his family out, even though I would’ve had to eventually- no royal blood left and all.”
He pressed the quickly cooling metal more into her skin, and she flinched, as a contraction stabbed its way across her back.
“And so after I put this bullet in your skull, I am going to cut those babies out of you, and slit their throats, one by one, and then take out the king. After all, how could his own trusted guard betray him?” He laughed. He ran the gun down her face and lifted her chin with it, his eyes filled with evil and hatred. A look of contemplation ran across his face as he took in her features. “Word has gotten around that you were a real treat back in the day,” he murmured. “Maybe I can take you as my own if you work for it—”
Surprise widened Raul’s eyes, as blood trickled down his nose and splashed onto her face, when he placed his gun on the edge of the overturned table and reached for her. Another trickle seeped out of the hole that lay neatly between his eyes and he crumbled to the floor, his head banging against the metal of the table as he went.
“Over my dead fucking body,” Carter growled behind her, and Rochelle sagged with relief.
Sirens wailed beyond the palace walls, but Rochelle dared not move her hands. “Carter, he saved us,” she breathed, as he stooped into her line of vision.
“I know, baby; I know,” Carter breathed, as the EMTs burst through the door.
Carter pulled her off of him as the paramedics took over, her legs weak. She frowned as the world spun around her, as she took in the hole in his shirt and the blood trickling down his arm.
“Carter, you’re hurt,” she breathed shakily, and hissed out a breath when she stumbled, and he gripped her upper arms to steady her.
Carter probed her right arm, and his gaze darkened, as her vision doubled again. “So are you,” he bit out, before he called over another medic who was tending to Tyler. “My wife’s been shot,” he stated crisply, and she sucked in another breath, as water splashed to the floor.
“Shit.”
Epilouge
“Let’s be nothing. I heard it lasts forever...”
—Unknown
AS THE RED HUE OF THE sun disappeared behind the ocean line, all the adults sat around the table, children fast asleep, diamonds sparkling under the dim light, and Hannah grinning from ear to ear, as Liam spoke to her under his breath.
Carter looked at his wife beside him, and swallowed, he was a lucky man. If Liam hadn’t been kidnapped as a child, and had remained eavesdropping on the Anti-Royal Coalition’s feed after they had killed his wife, none of them would be right here. Tyler’s son would’ve been without a father, Antwan without his brother, Alisa and Aeri’s existence would’ve been wiped away, and the trips would’ve never seen the light… There would’ve been so much loss, if Raul had gotten the chance to complete his partners’ work.
Every day he counted his lucky stars. Smiling, he leaned back into the chair, as he remembered what Rochelle’s grandmother always said: “Tit fa tat, butta fi butta, nutten fi nutten and very likkle fi summuh.” If the saying was true, he had seemingly gotten too much for the cards that life had dealt him, but who was he to complain?
Yes, it had been a rough four years rebuilding, and ensuring that no one was left from the coalition that had threatened to wipe out a whole kingdom, but looking back now, every second had been worth it; every fucking nanosecond after he had pulled that trigger.
“Thank you,” he breathed against her temple, as laughter rose from around the table, and her sparkling, hazel eyes met his.
“I love you too, my prince,” she whispered back.
“The couples that are meant to be are the ones who go through everything that’s designed to tear them apart, and come out even stronger.”
—Unknown
THE END
Authors’s Notes
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, thank you!!!!!!!! I am forever grateful for all the tremendous support. It was truly worth the struggles of editing, and I hope you thought so too! This one also took a while to write, and I am sorry about that, but I’m grateful to those who were eager to see its completion. Thank you for supporting through your purchase and reads on KU, and I am open to your comments on Amazon, Facebook@ fb.me/AuthorC.A.G.E.Thompson, Twitter @CAGEThompson3, and Goodreads, by searching for the title. I look forward to providing you with more stories soon!!
From A Harlot To A Princess Page 19