by Kim Karr
Sighing, he throws his head back. “Who knows, maybe he did go off the grid to get away from the paparazzi.”
Now I have to wonder if Hunter is trying to convince me or himself. Either way, it’s not working.
Not at all.
STILL MIA
The Casanovia Conquest
Breaking News
WHERE IS HE?
By Ian Wesley
The Prince of Casanovia is still missing.
I’ll leave it at that.
TROJAN HORSE
The mirror on the wall is grimy and cracked, but I can still see my reflection well enough.
There is dried blood on my forehead.
My jacket is gone.
The white shirt I’m wearing stained with drops of red crimson—my own blood.
Blinking out of my drugged haze, I glance around. To the right of the bed is a closed window, covered with old gauzy curtains.
Rain splatters the glass.
There’s a nightstand on the other side of a worn, bare mattress with what I’d guess is years’ worth of dust covering it, and one drop.
A single drop of water from the ceiling. Glancing up, I spot cracks and a water stain. An upstairs bathroom or a roof leak from the rain?
Could be either.
Another drop, and then another indicate a leak of some kind.
Shifting my slow gaze, I find cameras. Two of them. Shiny and new. Professional grade, mounted to both the left and right of me. The light is blinking. It’s on—they’re watching me. Taping me, too, I’d guess.
This was planned.
From Gabriel to Kendra.
But how? Why?
My aunt hired Kendra for the position at Bombshell near the end of the summer. Then again, it wasn’t really my aunt who did the hiring. She used a service. Still, it must have been legitimate, so Kendra had to have gotten the job on her own merits.
And Gabriel, he was hired around the same time by the same exclusive service—when I was exiled to Newport after my brother’s wedding. Then fired by me. And rehired by me.
What a dumbass move on my part. Should have stuck to my gut instinct about him.
Yes, this was planned. A plan that must have been flexible, even though the end goal (whatever it is) has probably remained static the entire time. Just what is the end goal?
Money?
Revenge?
Attention?
Notoriety?
My captures need to get the hell in here and tell me what the fuck is going on.
Sharpening my attention, I glance out the window. I think it’s late afternoon, but with all the clouds in the sky, I’m really only guessing.
In truth, I have no fucking idea, really. Could be morning, noon, or close to night. It feels like someone has torn open the minutes between the time I dropped Gigi off and now.
Oh hell, Gigi.
I close my eyes.
Thank fuck they didn’t take her, too. Fuck, I hate that I can’t tell how long I’ve been out.
Hours?
Days?
I glance down at my lap. I haven’t pissed myself, so my guess is not days. Hours then. And it’s light out. So the next day, for sure.
Where am I?
Opening my eyes, I glance through the curtain and strain my eyes a bit, but all I can see are trees and hills through the rain.
Trees and hills.
And rain.
That’s when I realize I must be in the French countryside or better put—the middle of fucking nowhere.
Shit.
No gag alerts me that no one must be around.
Still, I’m duct-taped to a chair at my wrists. Flimsy tape, that if I have enough time, I can probably work my hands out of, but not with eyes on me. I need a distraction. For them to stop watching me. “Hey, asshole,” I yell. “Show your balls.”
That got their attention. The door swings open, and Gabriel comes striding in with a knife in his hand. “Glad to see you finally decided to wake the fuck up.”
Kendra is behind him, my phone in one hand and a gun in the other. “Tick tock, Mr. Montgomery,” she grins, repeating what I told her when I fired her and she tried to argue.
Gabriel comes close. Closer, still until he’s right in my face. “Do what we tell you and you’ll be back in Paris by morning. Don’t, and you’ll be dead in an hour.”
“Tough choice,” I spit at him.
He backhands me across the mouth, and I can feel the copper sting of my blood on my tongue immediately.
“Fuck you,” I spit again, this time tinged red.
Pissed as hell, he gets up even closer in my face. “Listen, Prince, this isn’t a game.”
“Just have him make the call,” Kendra says, staring stonily at me.
He glances at her then me. She’s in charge. Interesting. “This is how things are going to go. You’ll make a call to your father and tell him he’s to sign that bill on gambling that Parliament has had in their possession for almost two years.”
“Gambling. This is over gambling? You have to be fucking kidding me!” I instigate.
“Tell him to sign the bill.”
“He’ll never do it.”
Another slap.
More blood.
“Did I ask for your opinion?” he hisses.
I glare at him.
“Once you tell him if he doesn’t, he’ll lose another would-be king, I think he will.”
Another?
“And then what?” I ask, still trying to understand what the hell their angle is.
“Then you tell him to get two million dollars together. When he does that, he’s to call back on your number. I’ll tell him where to have it dropped and then I’ll give him the address of where to find you.”
“Royals don’t negotiate,” I remind him. It’s something he already knows from his training.
“The King is an old man. His wife lost his only chance at another heir when he announced his refusal to allow gambling to enter Casanovia. Now, he can’t have any more legitimate children. The Heir Apparent is going to die. You’re the sole heir to the monarchy. I think he’ll do whatever I tell him to.”
Another?
Another.
He knows Genevieve was with child when the assassination attempt on my father’s life was made.
How? That was kept quiet as all royal pregnancies are until they reach the three-month status.
Fuck, maybe my father never was the target? Maybe the baby was? Sick fuck.
“Why do you care if gambling is legalized?” I ask.
“Stop asking questions. The only thing I want you to do is make the call.”
I see another drop of water fall on the table beside the bed and then another. “I need to take a piss first.”
Another slap. “You aren’t in a position to make demands.”
My head falls back, and that’s when I notice the bloom of color on the plaster getting darker. My eyes fall, and I can see the dripping from the ceiling is now coming at a steady fall.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Neither of them seems to notice. Kendra sighs. “Gabriel, just take him to the bathroom and then let’s get this going.”
With the knife close to my skin, he cuts one side free. “Make one wrong move and she’ll shoot you. She’s a really good marksman, so don’t think she won’t.”
I flex my fingers, working the stiffness from my knuckles, and follow him to the dingy bathroom.
Quickly shifting my eyes to the ceiling, once again, I see the ever-growing darkening spot and know what I need to do.
In the bathroom, I don’t bother asking Gabriel to close the door. Instead, I turn the sink water on first and then take a piss and flush, once, twice, three, four times.
“What the hell are you—” he calls out just before I hear the boom in the bedroom on the other side of him.
When he turns to see what it is, I make my move. Lunging for his legs, I bring him down.
A satisfying howl of pain escapes his throat as I connect my fist with his face. In the midst of the scuffle, his knee jabs me in the balls, knocking the wind from me. Struggling for air, I manage to deliver a second blow.
But when his hard dark eyes glitter up at me with mirth, I can’t help but wonder why. I stop wondering when I realize he’s still got the knife in his hand and plunging it into my body.
I feel the warm trickle of blood, followed by the burning sting of a cut on my side almost instantaneously.
Fuck.
He’s sliced me once, but he won’t do it again. Taking his hand, I slam it down on the floor, once, twice, three times, until the knife clatters to the ground. Then I drag my fist back and pound his jaw over and over.
His hands find my face, and he uses his thumbs to claw at my eyes. Scratching my skin, blood spills down my cheeks, stinging my nose and dazing me momentarily.
“What’s your end game?” I wheeze as we roll around the floor.
“Money,” he hisses. “What else is there?” Then he says something that changes everything. “If I were you, I’d stop now. Gigi is our back up plan.”
Gigi.
“Lay a hand on her head, and you’re dead,” I hiss.
His laughter is wicked. “Or she is.”
Rage unlike anything I’ve ever felt emanates from every pore in my body as I grab him by the collar and ram his head into the ground as many times as it takes to knock him out.
Just as the torrent of water hits us, carrying chunks of plaster from the ceiling in a great whoosh, Gabriel stops moving.
Knocked out?
Dead?
I don’t have time to worry about which. Acting fast, I grab the knife from the floor and jump to my feet.
In the bedroom, Kendra is buried by the avalanche, but my phone is floating in its waterproof case between her and me. Unable to find the gun, I grab the phone and run out the old front door as fast as I can.
It’s colder than fuck when I step from the front porch and hurry to the car parked on the grass. Soaking wet, I throw open the door to the driver’s side and slide behind the wheel. Searching for the keys everywhere, I can’t find them anywhere.
Fuck.
Using the phone, I turn it on. No signal.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Through the window in the bedroom, I can clearly see two bodies moving around. Gabriel and Kendra might be injured, but they are not dead.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I pound the steering wheel. I have a choice to make—go back in for the keys or run?
ENGLISH PLEASE
Max has been missing for forty-four hours. Royalty or not, France doesn’t seem to want to change the rules. Or maybe they don’t care to.
I push away my untouched plate of food and glance around the hotel restaurant. Time is passing so slowly.
Two hours and counting and then we can go to the police and report him as missing and finally get action.
The three of us left the Four Seasons yesterday and returned to the HÔTEL DE CRILLON in case Max shows up.
Hunter’s phone is on the table, the app for find-a-phone is open, but Max’s cell still hasn’t lit up.
I’m glancing down at the screen, frowning when a green dot starts blinking. “Hunter,” I point. “Look!”
Just as he’s reaching for his phone, it rings. He grabs it from the table without even looking at the caller id. “Max?”
My spine goes rigid.
There’s a short pause and then his face goes pale. “I’ll make sure she’s safe, but right now, you need to talk to me. Where are you?”
My chest heaves, and I start to panic. I’m she. I know I am. Why wouldn’t I be safe? Is he safe?
“Focus, Max. Talk to me. It sounds like you’re fading.”
“Hunter,” Ava whispers, “What is it?”
Roughing a hand down his face, he gives us both a grave look and gets to his feet. “He’s been kidnapped but has escaped.”
Already in the process of rising as well, I freeze, my blood turning to ice in my veins right where I stand, and my knees bucking beneath me.
One second.
Two.
I wait.
Look.
Watch.
Then I know by the forlorn look on Hunter’s face that even though Max has escaped, something is wrong. Very wrong.
“Tell me, where are you?” Hunter asks, dropping a hundred dollar bill to the table.
Both Ava and I are leaning forward, fingers gripping the table’s edge, desperate to hear any part of the conversation.
Hunter motions for us to follow him. “Don’t worry about her. I promise I won’t let her out of my sight. Okay, okay.”
He puts the phone to my ear. “Tell Max you’re fine, Gigi, please.”
The world spins around me. A circuit of torment. An avalanche of hell. I inhale, blink, my words barely a whisper. “Max, baby, I’m fine. I love you.”
It just comes out.
I say it because it’s how I feel.
“Gigi,” Max rasps, his breathing heavy. I gulp around the agony I’m feeling as an arrow of pain strikes me right in the heart.
The phone is gone, and Hunter is talking to Max before I can steady myself. “See, she’s fine. Now tell me, how badly are you hurt?”
There’s silence. I feel utterly numb with shock, and I shake my head in an effort to dispel the fog and confusion surrounding me.
“Max,” I whisper.
He has to survive.
Ava grabs my hand, and we follow Hunter. He stops just outside the restaurant at the reception desk and grabs a pen and sheet of paper, shoving it into the pocket of his black slacks.
“Okay,” he says, leaning against the counter and running a hand through his dark hair. “I have you on the tracking device. Hang on, let me see how far away you are.”
Tapping on the screen, he squints his eyes, narrows them, then puts the phone back to his ear. “You’re in the town of Lourmarin. It’s six hours from Paris, buddy.”
Tears spring to my eyes at the fear I see in Hunter’s. This is some kind of messed-up dream—nightmare—I’m trapped in.
“Use your GPS to get yourself to the closest town, and I’ll call Palace security right now and tell them where you are.”
While he listens, he looks at Ava and mouths, “Call the police. Tell them what has happened and to get someone over here right now.”
Nodding, she pulls her phone from her purse.
“Get the fuck away from there any way you have to,” Hunter says into the phone in a furious voice.
I want to ask what has happened to Max. Where exactly he is. How I can get to him. But I know it’s best for Hunter to handle this. Still, I have to do something. Steely determination grips me and I take the phone from Ava. “Let me do it, please.”
She hands me the device just as the call connects. The language barrier is an issue until I start to cry, and then finally someone comes on the line that speaks English.
Saying the words, “The Prince of Casanovia has been kidnapped—” puts everything in my life into perspective.
This missing man might be a Prince, but he’s also the man I love. And I can’t live without him.
That has become very clear.
TROJAN HORSE
Rolling down the hill, I glance behind me. Pain throbs at my side. Blinding. Excruciating. I fight past it, swallow the nausea I’m feeling and force myself to climb to my knees and get the fuck out of here.
Wherever here is.
Stumbling through the dense forest, I can hear branches breaking and the sound of their voices.
They’re definitely behind me.
How far, I don’t have a fucking clue.
Looking for a signal on my cell, I have none. The top of the hills is the only place it seems to pick up, and I don’t see another one to climb anywhere around me.
On the positive side, though, is the fact that Gabriel and Kendra have no idea I have the phone. That I’ve
made contact with the world. That Palace security is most definitely in route as well as the local police.
I just have to stay hidden long enough.
I run.
Fall.
Get back up.
Jog this time.
Over and over and over.
Time passes so slowly, but then it’s dark. I can’t see. I’m being hunted by two deranged people with a gun, and I can’t see.
The pain becomes too much. I stop. Grab my side. Yes, I’m hurt but I have to keep going.
It’s all I can do.
When my shoes make a heavy noise as they hit something hard, I know I’m standing on asphalt, and I groan a sigh of relief. I’m out of the woods and closer to freedom.
Just not there yet.
The voices behind me seem louder. They’re getting closer to me. I pick up my pace. While jogging along the empty road, I glance up at the sky. No moon or stars. The rain is still coming down, and it doesn’t look anywhere close to stopping.
Shivering.
Freezing.
I try to warm myself with my hands.
My feet pound against the pavement. Adrenaline and fear becoming a thunder that stampedes through my veins and whooshes in my ears. I start to worry I’m not going to make it.
That I’m going to collapse right here and they’ll find me. Kill me most likely because we all know I was never going home. I knew who they were. They weren’t going to let me go.
As my legs go numb and I feel myself drifting away, my father’s voice whispers from the shadows into my ears. “Get up, son. You’re a royal. Royals never give up.” Also, my Mom’s voice telling me to, soldier on.
Disoriented, I force myself to keep going.
Running.
Jogging.
Walking.
Stumbling.
When a mailbox sprouts at the side of the road, I find an imposing stone wall just beyond it and climb over it seeking refuge.
Lights from a far off distance cast a sliver of visibility. I don’t know what it is. I can’t see anything but the single light.
Using this spot, I take cover. Slumping to the ground, I put my back against the wall and pull out my phone. Fuck, I still don’t have service. The dense trees all around are blocking the signal.