“Cake? How about some cake?” Jessica pleaded.
“Get in the fucking car,” I snarled, and after I unlocked the doors, I tossed her the keys.
“Please tell me I can count this as a kidnapping. I’ve never been kidnapped before. Pat has, but I haven’t.”
“Get. In. The. Car.”
Jessica squealed and slid into the vehicle. “I’m being kidnapped and I get to be the getaway driver. This is great.”
The engine purred to life, and I thumped onto the leather seat, buckling up while cursing Dylan, cursing the car, cursing his talents, and cursing every clue the bastard had left for me. “Anything else I should know?”
“I had to lie to you about my lawyers. They’re technically his lawyers, and he’s absolutely infuriated. I mean, I’m dealing with the lawyers because he’s so mad he might lose control of his talents, which could be lethal. It wasn’t really a lie. It was a baby lie. A technicality. He pays for them, but they’re my lawyers.” Backing the car out of its spot, she drove it around the parking lot for several circuits, testing its acceleration and braking. “Hold onto your britches. This car wasn’t meant to laze around in a garage.”
She eased it up the ramp to street level, and through the tinted windows, a resigned Geoff shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose while the rest of the RPS agents looked ready to panic.
The engine roared as she stepped on the gas and darted into traffic. I squeaked and clutched at the seatbelt at the car’s desire to mimic a hummingbird. “Jessica!”
“I need one of these. Holy shit. To freedom!”
“It’s not freedom if I’m kidnapping you.”
“I get confused easily.”
I slouched in my seat and covered my eyes. “I’m going to die before I get a chance to kill anyone.”
“Dylan is his middle name. His name is William Dylan Niell. His father’s middle name was Mason. His father and mother died in an accident, and when he went abroad for some fresh air, he used that name. He had his identity sealed in New York, which wasn’t hard to do; he enrolled in a program that let him go abroad without revealing his kingdom of origin while getting experience elsewhere. Some kingdoms do it. New York tries to lure new royals into their family line with their program, but William was not interested in their offering.”
“Sylvia.”
“Correct. He hated her. Empathic leeches are trouble like that. For the record, that’s how you ensnared him. You were genuine from the start. There’s no faster way to catch a leech than to be honest with them.”
“I ensnared him?”
“You did. You had him wrapped around your finger from the start. From my understanding, he meant to stay in New York for a month or two, not three years. He only mentions it in passing, and he just says he was abroad for a while. I’ve suspected he’s Mireya’s father for a while. Maybe she looks like you, but she has some of his mannerisms.”
“That’s impossible.”
“It’s how she analyzes things. That’s all him. You’re smart, but you don’t think the way he does. Mireya does. Once I figured it out, I looked for it. He didn’t waste any time stepping forward when you were in critical condition, either. He hadn’t known your health issues were so severe. Dr. Glaskow is an import from Montana. I couldn’t deny him. Dr. Glaskow’s one of the Montana royal physicians, and he’s specialized in allergies; one of his younger brothers is allergic to bees. Cold urticaria isn’t a far step from an allergy.”
“But Dr. Glaskow doesn’t have an accent.”
“Dr. Glaskow is an illuminator. He can make you believe what he wants, and he usually uses his talent to hide things like that. But, he’s told me you’re rather resistant, so he fakes a Texan accent around you.”
“You’re serious.”
“Very. It’s in your medical record any hospital is to contact Dr. Glaskow if you’re admitted.”
“And he would tell Dylan once he was called.”
“Yeah, he’s a bit of a stalker. He can’t help it. He can’t do anything else right now, not until you decide to take pity on him and acknowledge him one way or the other.”
“I have this urge to slap him so hard he can’t see straight for a week,” I hissed.
“If it matters, he’d let you if it made you feel better.”
I slumped in my seat. “I’m mad because I understand why he did it.”
“It wasn’t easy on him.”
I could believe it; I’d seen his fury in my dreams, although I hadn’t believed it to be real. “My cold urticaria has gotten worse over the years. Before, it was a long shot that an air conditioner would kill me. Now? It’s a guarantee. It’s not his fault he didn’t know. I didn’t tell him the truth of how bad it was until…”
“Until I told him there was a coin flip chance you might not survive. It’s ironic. You were right. The first twenty-four hours are the critical ones. The first hour was bad. Had you been anywhere else, you wouldn’t have made it to the hospital at all. And don’t underestimate Mireya. She knew how bad it was. She knew the instant her father made his presence known.”
“That little devil wants me to make her a princess.”
Jessica snickered. “And she knows full well she already is one. Every time I’ve seen her, I could see the wheels turning. I think she views me as a challenge to overcome.”
“Well, she does have a crush on Adam, and she has this odd belief that I won’t sell her off without her being a princess first.”
“When Adam figures it out, he’s going to go nuts. He adores William. Being able to claim he’s family will make him happy.”
“You knew he was her father when you called him in to witness, didn’t you?”
“I have a second set of papers where he signed off acknowledging he was granting you full parental rights to arrange her betrothal. Then he served as witness on the betrothal, so it’s ironclad. His lawyers drew up the paperwork, including the betrothal agreement.”
I’d have to kick Dylan in the shins before thanking him. “I’m going to have to start calling him William, aren’t I?”
“I’m sure he won’t mind if you call him Dylan in private. We call him Niell in public; it preserves his sense of privacy. I’m pretty sure he won’t care what you call him.”
“Death is too good for him. I’m going to have to prolong his suffering.”
“Now you’re talking. Hold that thought for a few minutes.” Jessica got onto the expressway and stuck to the speed limit, keeping a close eye on her rearview mirror. “Baby recently had a tracker installed but the owner of the tracker happens to live in Montana, so it’ll take the RPS at least an hour to get their ducks in a row and locate us. We’re going to ditch Baby somewhere safe and change vehicles.”
“He’s tracking the car?”
“He’s tracking your phone, too. That’s why it took a while to get it; it’s an import from Montana. I wasn’t interested in having a fight with him over it, so he shipped it over. Mireya has a new phone, too, and it’s tracked as well. That phone is a secret, as Mireya is using it to talk to her father behind your back. She keeps the emergency phone you gave her charged but uses the new one for everyday usage. He’s paying the bill on both lines.”
“I’ve changed my mind. I really will kill him.”
“He’s going to kill me when he finds out I ruined his plans. He coerced me into bidding on the auction so he could make certain Texas won it, all to force you to head the committee. Then he hoodwinked the entirety of congress to make certain you were forced to participate. You must have mouthed off to him in the dreams I will not confirm are shared. If you had, in one of these dreams I absolutely won’t confirm are shared, it explains why he’s become even more determined recently.”
“I told him he had competition. Then I told him there would probably be handsome princes I might pick. That bastard. I even told him maybe I’d consider a king since he wasn’t around anymore. Argh!”
“If you had been thinking about moving on
or considering a father for Mireya, that’d do it. Empathic leech,” she reminded me. “That makes a lot of sense. I couldn’t figure out why he was making moves without, well, directly making a move. He must have guessed you were tired of raising Mireya alone, but he wanted to integrate himself into your life and ease his way in.”
I could see him doing that. Dylan did subtle. Dylan hovered and breathed down my neck to make certain I noticed him.
Dylan did a lot of things to make sure I couldn’t forget about him.
“I’m not going crazy, am I?”
“And you don’t need therapy.”
“No, I’m pretty sure I need therapy.”
“Cake, punching bag, or ponies first?”
“Does the pony bite?”
“Runs Amok doesn’t bite anyone who doesn’t deserve to be bitten.”
I choked on a laugh. “The horse’s name is Runs Amok?”
“Pat should never be allowed to name horses. Runs Amok was running amok when Pat picked him up in the trailer. The poor baby was scared and needed some tender loving care.”
“How old is this horse again?”
“He’s pretty young. Pat thinks he’s two to three. There weren’t any papers. Runs Amok was sold to the auction house for two hundred dollars. Pat paid five hundred to prevent him from going up on auction. He abused his kingly powers to do it. Then he checked the rest of the stalls to make certain there weren’t any other young horses.”
“I’ve never been near a horse before.”
“Ponies first! This must be rectified.”
Jessica’s phone rang, and she laughed. “See who it is.”
I snorted, dug through the queen’s purse, and fetched her phone, checking the display. A Montana area code annoyed a grunt out of me. I told her the number since there was no name.
“Answer it and put it on speaker.”
A wiser woman would’ve declined the call, but I obeyed.
“Why are you calling me from your office phone again, William?”
“My cell had an accident,” the father of my daughter replied.
“What did you do to your phone this time?”
“Dropped it.”
“Did the drop involve a wall?”
My traitorous memories couldn’t associate His Royal Majesty of Montana with Dylan, but I had a hard time caring. I was right.
I couldn’t afford to listen to him talk.
I also should’ve cared more about the implication he had a habit of throwing his phone when upset.
“Surprisingly not. I was being yelled at, and I dropped my phone. It landed on my desk, and the screen shattered. Then the reason I dropped my phone called my office phone because I wasn’t answering my cell. She doesn’t like when I don’t answer her calls. Then one of my agents interrupted to tell me Dr. Glaskow had called.”
I bit my lip and stared out the window.
“Your sperm count shocked Mackenzie so much she fainted. She’s fine.”
“You saw the email.”
“It wasn’t her fault. It was open on her computer when Geoff found her on the floor. Then she demanded I read it, but I saw the subject and ended up on the floor, too. But I was laughing. At you. In bad news, she forwarded the email to Mireya.”
“I’m aware. I’ve been scolded. I was scolded for almost two hours. The only reason she stopped scolding me was because her mother escaped from her detail and ran off. I’ve been informed you might know something about this. That’s why I’m calling you.”
Jessica snickered and gunned the engine, the sound loud enough I had no doubt he could hear the car. “You’ve been busted. She saw the car and started screaming. She kicked her agent’s SUV several times. Fortunately, she aimed for the tires.”
“Shit.”
Jessica’s snickers blossomed into laughter. “She ordered me into the car under threat of death, William. I’m sorry. I’m a hostage now. Gotta do what the infuriated woman wants.”
“She’s listening, isn’t she.”
“I’m driving. Who do you think answered the phone?”
“I think I need to go back to being scolded by the younger Miss Little. She’s more likely to leave me alive.”
“Death is too good of a fate for you, William Dylan Niell,” I announced. “A silver Ferrari. You wanted to get me a silver Ferrari, lure me to Montana, and do what?”
“Thanks, Jessica.”
“Anytime, William. You better answer her. I really don’t want her to take me to a secondary location and kill me. She’s riled up enough she might.”
“Kidnap you and take you home with me. As that car’s a two seater, I was hoping to steal mother and child without any potential interferences. Since you’ve thwarted me, Jessica, I’ll pay handsomely if you bring me the woman in the vehicle with you.”
“I’m listening.”
“What? No!” I fought the desire to fling Jessica’s phone out the window. “No. Absolutely not.”
“Why not?”
I could hear the pout in his voice, and I hated and loved what he did to me, cutting through my fury and replacing it with something equally heated and entirely inappropriate for the situation. “I kidnapped her. She’s driving me around because of the stupid boot I have to wear. And this is my car. Mine.”
“You’re going to make me to work for it, aren’t you, Mackenzie Little?”
“You have a lot of explaining to do, you insufferable…” I screamed my frustration and howled so many curses Jessica cackled.
“Just hang up, Mackenzie. It’s not fun if you’re not coherent enough to yell at him properly.”
“Wait, don’t—”
I enjoyed disconnecting the call. “From this point forward, I refuse to answer any calls that might be from him. If he wants to talk to me, he’ll have to do it to my face, that, that…”
I couldn’t pick the best name to call him, so I screamed again and shoved Jessica’s phone back into her purse. “That jerk!”
“This is going to be so much fun,” Jessica predicted.
Fun for who, I didn’t know, nor did I care. I had a murder to plan, except I couldn’t kill my victim. I’d figure something out. I always did, somehow.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I wanted to drown William Dylan Niell, but Jessica asked if I could swim and derailed my first plan. She then shot down every single one of my half-baked schemes, laughing harder each time I suggested something.
“Puppies,” I blurted.
“How on Earth can you murder someone with puppies?”
“Puppies are cute. If I use enough cute puppies, he’ll be overwhelmed.”
“No, Mackenzie. First, he likes dogs, so you’d be rewarding him. Second, that’s going to backfire because puppies are cute and you’ll fall in love with them, so you’ll end up with a pack of puppies to care for. And since your plan involves you giving the puppies to him, you’ll have to move in with him to keep the puppies, because he will use them to lure you to Montana so he can complete his kidnapping plan.”
“Kittens?”
“The palace in Montana is overrun with cats and dogs. He loves them and encourages the employees to keep pets at the palace. He even pays for them. The only rule is that the employees have to clean up after them and make sure they’re healthy.”
Jessica’s phone rang, and while she was all right with me ignoring calls from Montana, she made me screen the rest of her calls, so I checked the display. “It’s from Pat.”
“Answer that one, please. Don’t put it on speaker, because I’ll start taunting him with your car, then he’ll get upset, and there’ll be more screaming. I think we have reached our quota on screaming for today.”
I answered, “Hello, Your Majesty.”
“Hello, Mackenzie. I have a pack of angry RPS agents in my office claiming my wife kidnapped you. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. In reality, I kidnapped her. I ordered her into the car, and she did what I wanted. Please tell Geoff I’m sorry I kicked hi
s SUV.”
“You kicked his SUV?”
“Just the tires.”
“I’m sure it’s fine. Are you all right?”
I squelched my anger, packed it away, and vowed to ignore it until later. “I’m fine, thank you. I’m going to go eat cake and meet a pony.”
“I would be much more comfortable if I could send some anxious RPS agents your way. Geoff is going to pace a hole in the carpet. Where is this pony you’re meeting?”
I lifted my chin. “His name is Runs Amok, he’s mine, and you can’t have him.”
“I’ll have cake sent to the ranch. Would you like yams and chicken for dinner?”
Did he believe I’d say no to heaven on a plate? “Yes, please.”
“I can be at the ranch in an hour.” He hung up.
“Pat’s going to the ranch and will be there in an hour. He’s also going to send us cake.”
Jessica laughed. “In Pat language, he’s worried and wants me where he can easily find me. Anything else?”
“He asked if I wanted yams and chicken for dinner.”
“He genuinely believes all problems can be solved with yams and chicken.”
“He’s weird.”
“That he is. William probably called.”
I really needed to kill him. “Am I wrong for wanting to strangle him right now?”
“I think you have good reason to be angry, but I do think you should give him a chance to earn your forgiveness.”
“I understand why he did it.” I did, too. Had he made an appearance, I would have focused all my attention trying to prove I could be a good mother rather than fighting for the right to keep my child. “He wasn’t wrong.”
“But you feel like a tool now.”
I frowned. “No, it’s not that.”
“No?” Jessica changed lanes and took the next exit, leaving Dallas for quiet farmland. I stared out the window, wondering what was wrong with me.
“No,” I confirmed. “I worked too hard to be just a tool.”
“That you have. And that’s just it. He had to watch and wait. You were working too hard for him to stride in and ruin everything you were fighting for. It’s probably been just as hard for him as it has been for you. He loves children.”
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