by Maria Luis
Damien Priest may very well be the devil incarnate but with his hand locked around my neck, and his breath hot on my cheek, he felt like the savior I never knew I needed instead.
Fuck me.
Forcing my hand down by my side, I mutter, “Were you expecting to find me dead?”
“You went dark for days. Honestly, I began to think the worst.”
I’m pretty sure that our versions of “the worst” exist on two polar axes. “I was held up.”
“You’re never held up.”
“Well, there’s a first time for everything because, oh, that’s right”—I snap my fingers—“Buckingham Palace caught on fire.”
A tiny pause precedes a rather disgruntled, “Sarcasm doesn’t become you, Rowan.”
Nothing becomes me.
Biting back the hot retort, I turn around slowly. Move forward, expecting to hit a stray piece of furniture, but I’ve had this flat for so long that the darkness doesn’t eviscerate muscle memory. Thank God. Four steps take me to the closest sofa, and, without any show of grace, I drop to the cushions in a heap of exhaustion.
“I told you this would happen—didn’t I?”
Ignoring the snide comment, I let my head fall back. Then drag in a heavy breath that doesn’t do me any bit of good in relieving the coiled tension from my body. “You failed to mention the fire.”
“Well, I didn’t know there would be a fire.”
“Isn’t that why I pay you?” I ask, my face still turned up to the ceiling. “To find out everything that I need to know, so—oh, I don’t know—maybe I won’t end up blind?”
A strangled noise erupts, followed by the quick pounding of a fist on a hard chest. “Sorry, I could have sworn that you said . . . Did you just say—”
“Turn the light on.”
“Rowan, I think that—”
“I know that you get a kick out of waiting for me in the dark.”
“It’s less of a kick, really, and more that it’s bleeding hard to catch you off guard.”
“The light. Turn it on.”
The sofa’s springs whine with the release of weight, and then heavy feet pad across the herringbone wood floor. Tonight will be the last time I use this flat, and I can’t help but feel a tug of regret about being forced to give it up. It’s not the least bit posh but it’s mine. Mine when I fled Father’s home ten years ago, and mine in all these years since—a safe haven, and then, later, a place of secrecy to gather round when we needed a change of scenery.
My heart beats in time with the antique clock on the fireplace mantle. Ticktock. Ticktock. Ticktock. The switch audibly clicks, signaling the arrival of light that I can’t see, and then those footsteps return, momentarily pausing beside me before continuing.
The sofa creaks again.
And then I sit forward, elbows propped on my parted knees. “Take a good look,” I murmur, “at what happens when you don’t follow through on bloody intel.”
“Good God.”
I raise my brows, and promptly ignore how the skin on my forehead pulls uncomfortably tight. “Anything else you want to add?”
“You look—” A hard swallow that I couldn’t miss, not even if I lived halfway across the world in the States. "Well, that’s to say . . . You’ve . . . looked better.”
A harsh laugh climbs my throat. “I liked your brother more.”
The ensuring silence is punctured by the audible grinding of teeth. “I’ve never thought otherwise, Rowan.”
I refuse to feel guilty for saying what’s in my heart. For speaking up when, for years, I swallowed the truth until I choked on it. “I almost died,” I growl, pointing at my face, at my ribs that are covered by the same loose swing of fabric that I’ve worn for three days now. “She almost died. And Clarke—fuck.”
“He’s not one of us.”
“Does it matter?” I pinch the bridge of my nose, then smooth my palm over my shorn hair. Gone, all of it. I won’t mourn something that’ll grow back in a matter of months, but still, it feels like yet another loss that’s stripped something from me that I didn’t willingly give. “He’s dead,” I say sharply. “He’s dead, just like Margaret almost died, and all because you—”
“Kidnapping, Rowan. I had word that she was going to be kidnapped, not that the entire place was going to bloody blow up! I wouldn’t have sent you in there alone if I’d known.”
“Well, you did,” I grit out, leashing my temper before it unravels completely, “and now the Priests have the queen. We have one job. One job and so far, we are spectacularly cocking it up.”
“It’s not . . . Bloody hell. They’re impossible to kill!”
I think of rough hands on my back. A big body pushing me into a cool, glass window and stealing the very air from my lungs. Broad features and the softest pair of lips I’ve ever touched. It ought to be illegal for a man to have lips that soft, particularly when they belong to someone like him.
The villain.
The enemy.
“They’re flesh and bone,” I utter softly, “which means they’re just as fallible as the rest of humanity.”
“I don’t like the look on your face, Rowan. The last time you looked like that, I ended up knee deep in a pile of shite. Metaphorical shite, obviously. Not literal.”
“Coney.”
“It’s goddamn eerie.” I hear him shift around awkwardly. “Your stare, I mean. Are you really blind?”
“Hugh.”
“Sorry, sorry. I’ll stop talking. Please—continue.”
Goddamn, I miss Ian something fierce. Unlike his younger brother, Ian Coney was magnificent to watch in the field. A fighter. A peacemaker when he needed to quiet the always present hum of rebellion amongst our members. A friend to me as much as Margaret has always felt like a sister.
And now I’ve lost both Ian and Mags to the Priests.
Damien can tell me all he wants that Father had it out for Ian, but I know the truth. Jack, the arse who worked for the Priests at The Bell & Hand, watched it all unfold from the upper galleries at The Octagon. It was that woman Isla Quinn who strangled Ian, and Saxon Priest who killed my other men before sweeping her away to safety. And now Margaret . . . Margaret is in their so-called Palace, a place she begged me to bring her, without me realizing who they really were until Damien revealed himself.
How can she be so naïve?
This Holyrood . . . this vision they have of themselves is nothing but a lie.
Swallowing the lick of worry that rises swiftly, I dig my fingers into my thighs. “We took an oath, Hugh. Repeat it for me.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
“I think . . .” He clears his throat. “Well, I’ll be honest, Rowan. I don’t remember it.”
My hands ball into fists and I grit my teeth so hard that I’m surprised my molars don’t turn to ash. What I did to lose Ian and be stuck with his brother for all eternity, I don’t know. Penance, maybe.
Pressing my fingers into my pounding temples, I exhale slowly. “In the king we trust,” I say slowly, emphatically, “for the king we obey.”
“Ah, yes. I was missing the trust bit.”
“Hugh?”
He hums noncommittally, a sound that sets my teeth on edge.
“If you ever send me into another mission without gathering all the facts, I’m going to hand you over to Gregory and wash my hands clean of you. Understood?”
The gurgling sound that comes from Hugh Coney tells me everything I need to know. “I hear you,” he says. “Trust me, I hear you loud and clear.”
“Brilliant. Now get the hell out of my flat.”
He beats a hasty exit, only stopping long enough to ask, “Lights on or off? Does it matter one way or another if you can’t see?”
I turn my head toward him, and I like to think that whatever registers in my expression, Hugh notices it immediately. He flees a second later, the door clanking shut behind him.
It’s only then that I sink to the floor.
&n
bsp; My head falls to my bent knees and a single tear slips free. It burns over my blisters, a small fire of heat that doesn’t even compare to the hell that I experienced four nights ago. A kidnapping, Hugh had learned. We’d expected Margaret to be kidnapped and, yes, we’d suspected the Priests. But never could have I predicted everything that happened then, and everything that’s happened since.
The sob that’s been begging for release scratches at my throat once again.
Ian is dead, and his killer walks free. Margaret thinks I’ve betrayed her, that I’m untrustworthy, when it’s always been the opposite.
The king chose me, and that’s my curse to bear.
Kill the Priests, he said.
Protect my daughter at all cost, he told me.
In the span of four nights, I’ve failed them both.
And just for tonight, I crack open the dam and allow myself to feel.
Broken.
Defeated.
A shadow of misery that follows me like the worst kind of living nightmare.
14
Damien
The sweetened scent of cloves permeates the intel room.
Elbow on the desk, the heel of my hand supporting my forehead, I take another drag of the cigarette and let my eyes slide shut.
Jesus.
I’ve given up alcohol and women and every other thing that could ruin me for good, but this . . . Smoking is my last vice to purge.
Soon.
The motto of my life, that. Soon, I’ll have Carrigan and Guthram begging for mercy. Soon, we’ll wrangle the anti-loyalists back under control. Soon, I’ll be—
“Don’t go there.”
The words are muffled by the cigarette. Jaw clenching, I pluck the fag from my mouth and stick it on the ashtray near my elbow, then turn my attention to the computer. Backlit against the otherwise dim room, the script on the monitor gleams with untold secrets.
Edward Carrigan’s email account.
It’s not the first time I’ve invited myself to his inbox. In the last seven months, I’ve made it my personal mission to comb through every email that comes or goes—but the prime minister is no fool. I’ve hacked his government accounts, his personal ones too. Email addresses that date back twenty years and haven’t been touched in nearly as long. I’ll give him that, at least. The man cleans up his messes and erases every trail before there’s even a remote chance of gaining ground.
Still . . .
Pressing a hand flat on the now crinkled paper that I stole from the Jewel Tower, I skim it again:
Stay away from my daughter
50,000 pounds or I’ll
Or what?
Timestamped to five weeks ago, the email offers no other information. There’s no reply from Coney and no follow-up on Carrigan’s end to finish the threat. Hell, there’s nothing to even indicate that the two men ever interacted before Carrigan hit SEND.
For the third time in as many minutes, I tab over to the Queen Mary University website and stare at the ERROR message glaring back at me. Less than a month after Isla strangled him to death, Ian Coney’s administrative account is already gone. No amount of hacking can resurface what’s been deleted, not after the university’s tech team clearly went through the hassle of permanently erasing every trace of the professor from their databases.
It’s a literal dead end.
Clasping the base of my skull with both hands, I dig into the stiff muscles there with a low curse. Four days after questioning Rowena and I’m no closer to figuring out her connection to Ian Coney.
He was her friend, maybe, or a mentor.
Or maybe they were lovers.
The unbidden thought goes down as smoothly as swallowing barbed wire.
And this time when the beast inside me rears its ugly head, I don’t bind him into submission.
No, I pinch the still-lit cigarette between my fingers and bring it to my lips, because it’s the only thing that settles the destructive chaos thrumming to life in my veins. I’ve barely managed a single pull when the door cracks open behind me and footsteps enter the room.
“I thought you were quitting.”
The rampant disapproval in my brother’s voice is as familiar to me as breathing, which I do now, sucking the nicotine into my system like the addict I’ve always sworn that I wouldn’t become.
A grim smile touches my lips. “I am.”
“Yeah?” Guy scoffs. “When? Before or after you—”
“I’m not in the mood for a lecture.” Smoke curls in fine wisps as I exhale. Stabbing out the cherry on the ash tray, I glance over my shoulder. “Any updates from Benji?”
“No movement yet.” Guy leans against the massive desk that dwarfs half the room, his arms coming up to fold over his chest. Steely blue eyes zero in on my face. “You really think she’ll leave the flat when she’s as roughed up as she is?”
If I’ve learned anything about Rowena Carrigan in the last eight days, it’s that she’s relentlessly stubborn—and far too cunning for her own good. “She won’t let blindness keep her from making a move.” No, she’ll use it to her advantage. A disability that she’ll play against anyone who might ever make the mistake of underestimating her.
Like you did.
The visceral memory of her tracing the lines of my face settles like burning bricks in my gut. Oh, I’d underestimated her, all right. Had she heard the battered breath caught in my lungs? Seen, without actually seeing, the sudden craving for softness that had infiltrated my bones, down to my marrow?
The burning bricks turn to toxic lead.
Meanwhile, my brother’s astute gaze flicks to the computer before returning sharply. “You’re banking on her making a move, which we don’t know if she will.”
She will.
She was too quick to run out of here, without even a backwards glance at the queen. There’s no doubt in my mind that Rowena’s hidden motives will reveal themselves—it’s just a matter of how and when.
Lucky for me, patience is a virtue that I’ve been spoon-fed since birth.
I reach over the ashtray for the discarded notepad. Tossing it in my brother’s direction, I point to my messy script at the top of the page. “That’s what she said to me the other day. Goodbye for now. She was baiting me.”
Guy studies my hastily written scrawl, his brows knitted. “You’re overthinking things.”
“We’re in the business of overthinking everything,” I counter sardonically. In thirty-one years, I’ve never had the luxury of taking a gesture of goodwill at face-value. Friend or foe, greed is indiscriminatory and everyone wants something—power, love, hope . . . vengeance.
It’s just a matter of knowing where to look to pull back the layers of deceit.
“Here’s what we do know,” I say, clicking through a series of files on the monitor. “Coney was involved in that cult with Jack.” An image of the brown-haired professor loads on the screen, and then I flip to a picture of him standing, arms slung across another bloke’s shoulders, with the other men who Saxon killed at The Octagon. “They’ve all come to The Bell & Hand.”
Dropping his hands to the desk, Guy angles his head closer to the computer. “You’re sure? I don’t recognize them.”
“I’m sure.” With three clicks of the mouse, I bring up another series of images. Unlike the first set, these are all black and white stills captured from the security cameras within The Bell & Hand. “I ran their names and coordinated credit card purchases to within minutes of them entering the pub. Amateur mistake on their end but a boon for us. They were coming in for months, and look”—I point to the next frame—“they always took this seat by the window. God knows how many times you and Saxon saw them there without thinking twice.” A rough laugh itches to fly free. “They disguised themselves well enough, but you can clearly still see—”
“Their features,” Guy murmurs, catching on without me having to elaborate. Reaching out, he taps the screen to zoom in. “They walked right in, just like Ian Coney, and we never sus
pected a thing.” He cuts a hard look my way. “What does this have to do with Rowena Carrigan?”
Stay away from my daughter.
Those are the words of a man with something to lose.
“I couldn’t find any direct ties linking any of the men with Coney. Even the two uni kids weren’t actually his students at Queen Mary. Which means that however Coney handled recruitment, it wasn’t through some obvious connection.”
“Nothing ever is,” my brother mutters, shaking his head.
“And there’s nothing tying any of them to Rowena, either, but something . . .” I thread my fingers through my hair, tugging on the strands. “Carrigan wanted Coney away from her, which means one of two things: he caught wind of the operation, which she was maybe a part of, and he wanted his daughter safe, or he was—”
“Possibly running it all himself,” Guy finishes, “and he wanted to make sure she was out of the picture.”
I nod slowly. “It’s the only logical explanation, but it still doesn’t make any sense.”
“Hence the fag.” Guy jerks his chin toward the abandoned cigarette.
The muscles in my back coil tightly.
Averting my gaze from the disappointment lurking in his expression, I drop my hand to the desk. “Coney wanted us dead because he thought Saxon killed the king. Carrigan wanted me to kill the king. Their motives don’t line up, but it’s the only thing that might link them together with Rowe—”
An ear-splitting siren rips through the room, shattering the quiet into a thousand shards of dread.
Dread that propels me forward, fingers landing on the keyboard.
Dread that whips Guy’s head toward the flashing alarm bolted to the wall, his knuckles turning white where he grips the desk.
“Damien, which place—”
“I’m looking.”
The dread manifests into something far more sinister when the map of Holyrood’s properties finally loads, and I see a flashing dot hovering over The Bell & Hand like a calling card for doom.