by Maria Luis
“Go!” the taller one argues, the panicked command carrying on the damp breeze.
“Me? Are you mad? I’ve been on the job for two bloody days!”
“Does it look like I care? As your superior, I’m telling you to investigate.”
Without remorse, I tap my watch again and go for round two.
Ra-ta-ta-ta!
The guards leap in unison, helmets swiveling toward the paved path that leads to The Cloisters. They stand there, hands gripping their rifles, booted feet rooted in place.
“Bugger all,” the superior finally says, “I’ll go, okay? I’ll go.”
I wait until he’s disappeared around the corner before I slide a finger under the Velcro flap of my military-grade vest and pull out a palm-sized ball. Keeping my eyes firmly locked on the remaining guard, I activate the device with a shallow push of a button and hurl it across the lawn.
It lands with a heavy thud in the grass.
Three.
The guard whirls around, rifle raised.
Two.
“Oi!” he calls, fear rampant in his voice. “Who’s there?”
One.
A flash of blue coincides with a startling crack! that has the guard throwing himself to the pavement, his arms curled over his head.
I narrow my eyes. Snarl “get up” under my breath, as if that’ll force the man to grow a pair of bollocks and do his blasted job. Jesus. Where the hell did Carrigan find these two bellends?
Finally, finally, he belly-crawls forward on his elbows and knees.
Not ideal, but it’ll have to do.
Marking his position by the glint of his helmet under the sparse moonlight, I stalk toward him on silent feet, already reaching into my vest again.
He grunts something unintelligible.
My fingertips graze a coil of hard wire.
“What the hell—” Cutting himself off, he shifts onto his knees and taps the modified flashbang with a single finger, clearly wary of it exploding all over again.
Which it will. Fifteen seconds, if that.
Scooping the device into one palm, he turns it over in his hands. He’s so focused on the weapon that he doesn’t notice my approach until it’s too late.
The flashbang implodes and he releases a garbled shout and I hook the wire over his throat, each end looped around my knuckles to keep the pressure tight on his airway.
He gurgles and he thrashes, the SA80 falling from his chest to hang under his armpit while he grapples with my fists.
I drag him deeper into the shadows.
With each meter, he loses another sign of consciousness. His feet stop kicking; his legs go slack; and then, finally, his hands fall from mine to the damp grass. When his breathing slips into a shallow rhythm that barely expands his chest, I pause to stuff the wire back into its designated pocket.
Then, with my hands locked around his biceps, I pull his limp frame all the way to the Jewel Tower’s arched oak door.
Quickly, I pluck the body camera off his chest and shove it into the front pocket of my trousers. Then cast my gaze to the security scanner that’s bolted into the stone beside the door.
It’s an unfamiliar model.
“You’ve been busy, Carrigan,” I mutter. Not that I’m surprised.
He knew I’d come. I don’t know how, and I don’t know who could have warned him—especially since Rowena is currently locked away in the Palace—but it’s a feeling deep in my gut that just won’t quit. One look at the scanner and it’s easy to deduce that he built it with me in mind: the back paneling is so deeply lodged into the ancient stone that I can’t access the wiring.
I lower my chin to look at the guard.
Time for drastic measures.
Hooking my hands under his armpits, I haul him onto his feet and lean him against the Tower, careful to keep my hip against his thighs so that his unconscious body won’t topple over. I rip off his glove, yank up his hand, and press the pad of his forefinger to the scanner.
It doesn’t register.
Fuck.
Hastily, I pull up my coordinates again on my watch, then set off another round of gunfire within one of the enclaves of Westminster Abbey. My ears prick a second later when I hear the echoing charge of fake bullets firing, and then I’m back in the game.
I pat down the guard, searching for a badge, and come up with absolutely nothing. I shove all ten fingers on the scanner, one by one. When all that fails, I tear off his helmet, shove his face against the screen, and grunt, “Smile for the camera, mate.”
My thumb lifts his thin, fragile eyelid.
The scanner awakens with a soft beep-beep, a half-second before the door audibly unlocks.
Without preamble, I plant the heel of my boot against heavy oak and step inside, dropping the guard’s body just within the entrance and nabbing the helmet off the pavement before the arched door swings closed. I jam it on my head—it would be just like Carrigan to install cameras all over this place—and prowl up the spiral stairwell.
I haven’t stepped foot in the Jewel Tower in years, but its stone interior hasn’t changed. Carved into the curved ceiling are the grotesque faces of animal heads with their twisted grins, bared teeth, and taloned fingers. All of which would look more at home if they were sheathed in blood.
The helmet muffles the clip of my footsteps, but it doesn’t hide the double doors that come into view when I hit the landing of the second floor. They yield without trouble, as I figured they would—because if Edward Carrigan is hiding anything here, it’s in the turret room.
A room that’s blockaded by an iron door.
I move swiftly, noting 1621 embossed in the iron—marking the year King James I began using the Tower—and dart a glance at the vaulted ceiling . . . and at the security camera I knew would be waiting.
Predictable.
Yanking the grenade off my vest, I pull the fuse and toss it toward the corner of the room. It activates with a soft pop and, almost immediately, wisps of smoke become thick and impenetrable plumes that shield me from view as I crack the lock on the iron door and step inside.
All over the room, papers are piled atop desks and tables, even on the floor. Backed into one corner is a bronze bust of King James I himself—and I laugh. Low and dark and gritty, because only Edward Carrigan would convert this room to be exactly what it was under James I’s reign. A place to hold secret documents. A place fit for only a king.
Turning on the overhead light, I move from desk to desk, tearing through paperwork, searching for the one thing we’ll need to pin Carrigan’s ass to the wall. The thought of finally catching him . . . of forcing him to suffer the way he’s made me suffer . . .
Death shouldn’t make me smile.
It shouldn’t make me feel this alive.
But it does.
Fuck, it does, to the point that my pulse races like I’ve taken a hit of the most potent drug.
I was never innocent; life in Holyrood strips naivety early on, until it’s forever erased, never to be resurrected from the broken fragments at your feet. But I was hopeful, once. Dedicated to the cause and the Crown and my brothers. Determined to one day find happiness outside the death and the bloodshed and the never-ending battle of keeping the royal family alive.
And then it was gone.
A rasp of movement behind me; darkness shoved down over my head.
An unfamiliar hand pressing a taser to my spine, its voltage sharp and painful. But not nearly as painful as the knife that plunged into my right shoulder a moment later—then twisted.
Fire engulfed my body. My voice gave away to a groan. And my hands, always accustomed to building and deconstructing, went limp as I hit the pavement. Carrigan’s men had dragged me into the alley behind Christ Church Spitalfields. If they’d been smart, they would have stabbed me again, just to make sure that I wouldn’t come back from the grave to tear them each limb from limb.
Except they’d done nothing but lean over my paralyzed body, dig the knife deeper i
nto my flesh, and laugh.
Guy found me. Matthews saved me.
Rowena can say all she wants that her father and the king were best mates, but if that were true, John would have told Carrigan about Holyrood, about us. He would have stayed lenient with Parliament, allowing MPs the autonomy they’ve had for centuries. He wouldn’t have sent me to the House of Commons at Westminster because he suspected the prime minister of foul play.
And I never would have been left for dead.
Rage blurs my periphery, and, for a moment, I allow myself to sink into its embrace.
Its claws grate down my spine and its heat wraps like a vice around my heart and I breathe the anger in, swallowing it deep into my lungs until I’m forced to grit my teeth to smother the furious scream demanding release.
Reaching out, I snatch the next sheet of paper from the desk and press it flat before me.
Force my eyes on the words, and stop, dead-cold, at the mention of a name I recognize. A name that, as of a month ago, anyone in London would recognize from the news.
Ian Coney.
12
Damien
“Back so soon?” comes an accented voice.
Stopping in front of Rowena’s door, I spare Hamish a sharp glance. With his mobile in one hand and a tumbler of whisky clasped in the other, the Scot peers up at me from the plush armchair he clearly commandeered from the library. “Ye can’t tell me to leave, ye know. Guy assigned me.”
As if I need another reminder that my brother’s word is law around here. “I’m aware.”
Looking contemplative, Hamish idly taps the corner of his mobile against his thigh. “I’ve lost count. Is this yer second visit with her? Third?”
“It’s not a—” Realizing that he sounds a little too cheerful, I narrow my eyes and fight the urge to flip over the armchair, just to wipe that godawful smirk from his face. “This isn’t a social visit.”
“’Course it isn’t.”
“She’s a prisoner,” I edge out thinly. “I’m interrogating her.” Hamish only makes a dramatic show of drinking his whisky, which has me praying for some bloody patience. “Spit it out, MacDonald.”
Clearly recognizing that I’m this close to introducing my fist to his face, Hamish sets the tumbler down on the flat armrest. Then, like a proper wanker, he steeples his fingers and taps his knuckles against his mouth. “All I’m saying is, fuck a woman isn’t generally something I bring up in interrogations. New tactics of yers, maybe. Keep me updated on how they work, yeah?”
“Were you eavesdropping?”
He doesn’t even have the good grace to look sheepish. Rolling one shoulder in a lazy shrug, he props up his feet on a matching ottoman. “I’ve a lot of time on my hands now that Guy’s promoted me to nanny duty. Can’t say I miss being out in the field when the alternative is this.” As if to make his point, he waves a hand at the elaborate setup—the armchair, the telly he’s brought in from God-knows-where, and the magazine featuring a naked woman on the front. The latter he tosses onto the ottoman, out of my line of sight, when he catches my hard stare.
“Hamish?”
He doesn’t even blink. “Yeah?”
“You have five seconds to leave or I’m going to murder you.”
“So defensive,” he tsks. “Keep that up and I’d almost think that ye didn’t like me anymore. Which would be a bloody shame, really, because who else will watch tennis with me if not—”
“Four,” I growl.
“Ye’re really counting down? My heart is broken, Priest. Ye’ve gone and shattered it.”
“Three.”
“I suppose this means that ye don’t want to hear about Miss Carrigan’s latest visitor?” When my mouth promptly snaps shut, his curves in a grin that toes the damn line at gleeful. Clearly intent on testing the threadbare limits of my patience, the bastard offers a silent toast of his whisky. “That’s what I thought,” he murmurs with an infuriating wink.
Jesus.
“Now, I could make ye guess or I could quit playing coy and just say—”
“Get on with it.”
Unfazed, Hamish gestures at the door with his tumbler. “He’s inside.”
There’s no need to ask him to elaborate.
We both know there’s only one he who would be interested in talking to Rowena—who even knows that she’s here, save for me and Matthews.
I don’t waste another second with the Scot.
Wrenching the door open, I step inside, my gaze moving swiftly past the floor-to-ceiling tapestries detailing William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings to the diamond-paned window that I cornered Rowena against yesterday morning. Her fractured breathing had fogged the ancient window while her ass ground against me in a dance that’s only rhythm was blatant defiance. She’d made me hard and she’d made me crave, and even then, with her body weak and defenseless, I knew that giving in would mean letting her sink her claws into my hide.
A she-wolf out to make me her prey.
“Come for another visit, brother?” comes Guy’s dark drawl.
Palm flat against the wood, I shut the door slowly and allow myself a second to breathe in the irritation, and let it run free, before turning around to find my brother seated in the alcove that was used for prayer centuries ago. Intricate artwork details the plasterwork with blooming flowers and winding vines, as if to sit within means entering the Garden of Eden.
The irony. Guy Godwin doesn’t do temptation.
“We were just discussing how you’ve acted rather . . .” Guy turns to Rowena, who sits opposite him at a table that wasn’t here yesterday. Another commandeered piece from the library, by the looks of it. “What’s the word you used for Damien again, Miss Carrigan?”
Rowena doesn’t even hesitate: “A bastard.”
The wry grin he offers doesn’t reach his eyes. “Ah, my mistake. Two words.” With his long legs sprawled out before him and his hands clasped over his stomach, he meets my stare straight-on as though he expects me to drop to my knees and beg forgiveness. “You’ve been bad, brother.”
My expression stays neutral. My breathing never alters.
But inside . . . my emotions are in riot.
The irritation flares and it devours and it fucking drowns me whole.
Bad. Such a mild word for an entire lifetime of doing very evil things to achieve extraordinary ends. I felt the prick of guilt, once. A long time ago when I returned to Paris and the cemetery where we buried Mum. It took twelve years for her body to decompose and only three hours in the dead of night to dig up her remains. Fragile bones. Dirt caked between skeletal joints. And a precious silver chain that I snatched from her neck and buried in my pocket.
You’ve been very, very bad, Damien.
Anger skates a ravaged finger down the length of my spine, reminding me that I’m a man with war in my blood and hate in my heart, and I never had much hope of being good. But to hear my brother repeat the same words that have haunted me for years . . . I feel the dirt from my mother’s coffin like mud in my veins.
Poison.
Desperation.
Soiled, down to the roots of my battered soul.
Smothering the turmoil, before it crests the surface, I hold my brother’s gaze. “Do you have a point?”
“I couldn’t find you last night,” he replies, his tone deceptively pleasant, “so imagine my surprise when I learned from Paul that he saw you leaving the Palace.” Propping one forearm on the table, he inclines his head toward Rowena. “He isn’t supposed to do that, you know.”
Her violet eyes remain fixed on the wall. “You mentioned.”
“So I did,” Guy murmurs, never once looking away from my face. “It wasn’t nice of you to leave Miss Carrigan wondering what side of the war we’re on.” His blue stare sparks fire, and I know, even though he won’t say so out loud, that he’s furious with me. Furious enough to air out all of our dirty laundry, audience be damned. “You locked her up, brother. You put her in handcuffs. And then, like th
at wasn’t enough, you made her think that we might actually kill—”
“Get up.”
At my brusque order, his brows snap together. “What did you say?”
“Don’t make me repeat myself, brother.” Prowling forward, I reach into the back pocket of my trousers for the slip of paper that I nabbed from the Jewel Tower. “Rowena and I are going to have a little talk.” The smile I give him stretches unnaturally wide. Predatory. The look of a madman. “Feel free to stay. But that”—I nod toward his seat—“is about to be mine.”
Then, as if he weighs nothing at all, I haul Guy off the chair and take his place. Spread my long legs wide, locking them on either side of Rowena’s bare feet, and drop my elbows onto the compact table. The antique wood trembles beneath her clasped hands while dark satisfaction threads like silk through my body.
“Hello, Rowena.”
A muscle works in her jaw, but to her credit, she doesn’t turn and run. “Damien,” she greets, her tongue rolling over the syllables of my name like she’d prefer nothing more than to see me dead and buried. “Always a pleasure.”
“How much did it pain you to say that?”
“On a scale of one to ten? Only a five, maybe even a four.” Had she any hair, I’m sure she’d flip the strands over her shoulder. As it is, she props her chin on an upturned palm and parts her lips in a cool, dismissive smile. “You’d actually have to mean something to me to rank any higher.”
Rowena Carrigan is a liar, possibly even a fraud, but the armor she wears is weathered with dents and holes. For better or worse, I’m already in her head. Driving her mad. Pushing her closer and closer to the edge of no return. And maybe I’m as bad as all of England believes because instead of smoothing the waters, I lean forward and trace the back of her hand, directly over a delicate blue-green vein, just to shatter her ramshackle emotional shield.
A tiny gasp slips past her lips.
“Only a four?” I drawl, my gaze trained on her flushed cheeks when she tugs away, severing contact. “Rowena, I’m so far under your skin—”
“Like a nasty infection that won’t go away.”