Bad for the Billionaires: A Bad Boy Billionaire Bundle

by Penelope Bloom

  “You surprised your husband,” I say quietly. “I think your son is going to surprise you.”

  14

  Roark

  I close the door to Dirk’s room, clenching my fists. Dead. They fucking killed him and they took my princess. I clench my fists, standing outside in the center of the only contingent of men in the city willing to die to help me. I see none of them. All I see is black.

  I close my eyes. My mother always complained that I could have been more, that I sat by while opportunity waited, letting others step up to take it from me. My brother liked to boast about how he was the better of us and I never cared enough to take him to task on it. But now? Now I can only see one thing: Elizabeth’s face. I see her waiting for me, scared and alone. I can practically feel her calling out for my help, and so help me God, I will break anything that stands in the way of getting back to her. I’ll fight for her until my fucking hands are raw and bloody, until my breath hitches and my body gives out.

  “With me!” I shout, storming through the group of thirty men who have gathered to help me.

  The sounds of heavy boots clatter behind me. I lead the men to a lesser-known pathway that leads beneath the kitchens and winds up to a bedroom in the royal quarters that used to belong to the king’s uncle. My tutors said rumors were the uncle was either paranoid or having an affair with a lesser noble. Either way, I’m sure Titus doesn’t know of it because he skipped lessons that day in favor of practicing his Blade.

  “The main contingent of guards will be waiting in the main entrance of the palace,” I call back to my men. “When we make first contact, they will come straight for us. Once they’re upon us, we’ll have no chance. But if we can detain Titus or rescue Elizabeth before that happens, we’ll have a hope of turning their hearts.”

  “You’re sure she was being held in my mother’s rooms, Kato?” I ask.

  The senior guardsman jogs to catch up with me. “Yes, sir. They could move her any minute, but I just saw her less than twenty minutes ago. She should be there”

  “Good. The hallways near the royal chambers are narrow. The doorways are even more narrow. If we can establish a position inside her rooms, we’ll be able to buy a great deal of time before their numbers overwhelm us.”

  “Yes, sir,” says Kato, who falls back into the group.

  We reach a small staircase that leads to a trap door. I punch it open, Blade drawn as I ascend into the bedroom. I swivel quickly, find the room to be empty, and motion for the men to follow me up.

  “Quiet footsteps,” I say in a hushed voice. “My mother’s room is nearby. If we can make it inside her room before we’re discovered, our chances are very good.”

  I open the door to the main hallway and peer out just in time to see a guard turn a corner in the distance and vanish from sight. “Come,” I whisper.

  Just as the last of my men have exited the room into the doorway, one of my men shouts as loudly as he can. “Traitors in the hallways! Thirty armed m--”

  My gun shudders in my hand as I squeeze the trigger. A hole opens in the man’s forehead. His knees crumple beneath him. “A fucking mole,” I growl. “One of Titus’ or my mother’s. Move!” I shout.

  Raised voices ring out through the hallway from every direction as we clamber around the corner and up the stairs toward my mother’s room. I stop short outside her door, where five men spot us, fanning out and raising their guns. I squeeze off two shots before anyone else shoots, dropping two of them before my men bring down the other three. I hear a body hit the floor behind me--one of my men down. That puts us at twenty-nine, including myself.

  “Elizabeth!” I shout. I hear nothing, though. I kick in my mother’s door, knocking it into the room and completely off the hinges. I look quickly around her waiting chamber, finding a broken glass on the ground and two closed doors. “Check them!” I shout, kicking down another door while some of my men check the other door.

  At the same time, gunfire erupts from the hallway outside. I hear my own men shouting and a scream of pain.

  “They’re on us! You three, go help them. You two, go check that room with them. Kato, with me!”

  We move into the main bedroom and I feel a chill as I look at the bed. The last time I was in this room was on the day they found my father’s body. I remember coming because I heard the servant’s screams. But I swallow down the old memories, scanning for any sign of Elizabeth. I run to check the closets and restrooms, finding nothing. “Fuck!” I shout, kicking aside a huge dresser.

  It lands hard, smashing up the wood below and to my surprise, falling straight through the floor. I frown, looking down into the broken floor, where a passageway seems to lead beneath the room. I kick aside the carpet at the foot of the bed and find a trap door. “Let’s go,” I say, motioning for Kato to follow me.

  We jump down into the corridor, landing on hard stone that muffles the sound of the gunfight raging behind us. I move quickly through the tunnel, weapon at the ready as I take every twist and turn. We reach a dead end after a short time, but I see the faint outline of light above me. I push up and meet resistance, but the ceiling moves up a fraction. Another trap door.

  “Help me,” I call to Kato, who joins me in pushing.

  We shove with all our might and a large weight shifts above us, allowing us to open the trapdoor fully now. I jump up through the opening into a room I instantly recognize. My brother’s room.

  “Prince!” calls Kato.

  I flinch back instinctively as I roll into the room, narrowly dodging the steel that slices the air just by my face.

  Titus.

  Two elite royal guards--marked by the insignias on their high collars--stand guard on the door to his guest chambers. My heart pounds when I realize what they must be guarding.

  “Give her to me,” I shout, standing up and knocking aside a furious overhead strike from Titus.

  “You fucked my bride,” he growls, spinning into another series of blows.

  I parry each, but have to step back closer and closer to the wall to avoid catching his steel in my skin. I notice Kato rising from the hatch behind Titus, but the two elite guards advance on him. He’s not so prideful that he tries to use his edge, instead he aims his gun and fires, catching one of the guards in the shoulder.

  I lose track of the fight when I realize what Titus is setting up for. He only ever advances. He pushes his opponents, fighting for ground until there’s none left to take, and when he has them jammed he makes his finishing blow. That’s his strategy--it always has been, but for the first time I’ve ever seen, he gives up ground, making a few sloppy attacks that leave him exposed for fractions of a second too long. I nearly attack out of reflex when he presents his back to me or overextends a leg, practically begging to be cut, but I wait, sensing something else.

  He’s baiting me. He wants me to lunge for him and maybe give up my balance. He wants me to think he’s so prideful that he wouldn’t bring bullets to an edged fight, but he’s planning to shoot me when I least expect it. He knows it’s the only way he can win. So I take his bait, watching the barrel of his Blade and not the edge. He pretends to lose his own balance from my attack, narrowly avoiding ten inches of steel in his belly, but falling to the ground. As he rolls down, I notice his barrel angling toward my head.

  I dodge to the side, raising my own weapon and firing. I expect to see a spray of blood as my bullet catches him in the head, but instead there’s an explosion at his hands. His gun was raised in front of his face, and my bullet must have gone straight down its barrel, blowing the weapon up from the inside.

  He screams, falling to his back and holding his bloody, trembling hands up to his face.

  “You fucking shot me,” he says, voice riddled with disbelief. “You fucking shot me. You coward.”

  I ignore him, squeezing off a round to finish the elite guard who is grappling for control over Kato’s weapon.

  “Elizabeth!” I call, kneeling down just long enough to knock Titus unconsciou
s as I pass him on the way to the guest room.

  15

  Elizabeth

  Elizabeth!” cries Roark from the other side of the door. My heart leaps. I heard the gunshots and his voice, but Queen Korinthia holds a blade up to my face and threatened to end me if I so much as made a sound.

  She must figure Titus was killed, and when she turns to me, the look on her face is pure venom. “This is your fault. You fucking whore,” she hisses.

  I see what she’s about to do a split second before it happens. Just like Roark said, she pulls her arm back to run me through with the steel of her weapon. My execution of the movement is sloppy, but I sidestep her thrust, pinning her arm to my side and adding my own flavor by punching her in the throat. I was aiming for her face, but the way her gun clatters to the ground and she gasps for air with bulging eyes makes me glad I missed.

  A second later, the door bursts open and Roark steps in, looking more handsome than should be possible. His hair is slicked to the side with sweat and his chest heaves. He looks down at his wheezing mother with contempt, but forgets her long enough to pull me into a hug so tight I think I might suffocate.

  “My princess,” he breathes. “I thought I lost you.”

  “You never will,” I whisper.

  “I need you to do me a favor,” he says, pulling back. “I won’t hit my own mother, but someone needs to.”

  “You didn’t even have to ask,” I say, slapping Korinthia as hard across the face as I possibly can. The impact stings my hand, but the way her head jerks to the side is worth the pain.

  I feel a little guilty. As much as she deserves it, it feels bad to hit someone defenseless, even if--

  Korinthia pulls something metal from her dress and lunges for me with a feral look in her eyes.

  Quicker than I can even flinch, Roark steps toward her and punches her so hard she is literally tossed to the side with the force of the blow, hitting the ground hard enough to knock her unconscious.

  “Shit,” he says. “Maybe I could have left a little off that punch.”

  “I thought it was fine,” I say, still catching my breath from the surprise of her attack.

  He moves back to the main bedroom and pulls something from his pocket that he uses to tie Titus’ hands.

  “What did you do to Titus?” I ask.

  “I taught him not to fuck with my princess. But we need to hurry. Titus and Korinthia still have control of the royal guards. I had a handful of men fighting to buy us time, but we need to move. The main force of the guard could be here any minute, and I have an idea. Come on.”

  Roark tells Kato to stay back and barricade himself inside the guest bedroom with Titus and Korinthia until we come back.

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  Roark puts his back to the door leading to the main hallway, raising his Blade. “We’re going to talk to the priest.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “About what?”

  Roark grins, dropping to one knee. “This isn’t exactly how I planned for this to happen, but... Elizabeth. Will you marry me?”

  It feels like the wind is knocked from my lungs. My knees go weak, but I stay standing somehow. “I expected a bigger ring,” I joke.

  Roark laughs. “Me too.”

  I lean down, gripping his face and kissing him. “I will. God, yes. I’ll marry you.”

  “Good, because I think you are going to have to if we want to make it out of here alive.”

  I glare at him. “You make it sound like you’re only asking me because you have to.”

  “I was going to wait until tomorrow, to tell the truth. But nothing about this is fake. The way I feel when I’m around you. That’s real. That’s something I never want to let go of.”

  I chew my lip. “Why’s it so hard to be mad at you?”

  “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll think of a way. We’re going to have a long time to figure it out. Come on. Stay behind me.”

  I take a deep breath as he opens the door and sticks his torso out, gripping the doorframe with one hand and pointing his gun down the hall before motioning for me to follow. My heart is thundering in my chest and I feel like I can’t catch my breath, and I don’t know if it’s because the man of my dreams just asked me to marry him or if it’s because I’m not sure if we’ll survive long enough for it to happen.

  We pass through several hallways without running into any resistance, and just as we’re about to turn the corner back to the main stairwell that leads down to the lobby, the sound of gunfire explodes nearby. Roark turns, shielding me with his body, then realizes no one is firing at us.

  “Shit,” he says. “The fight is on the stairwell. We’ll go the back way. Come on.”

  I follow him through a bedroom and down a hidden trap door. We travel with no sound but for our footsteps and the occasional pop of gunfire in the distance or the echoing ghost of a scream.

  “I always thought rain would ruin my wedding day, not gunfights,” I say.

  Roark turns toward me, face serious. “I’m going to give you the wedding you deserve as soon as this is over. People will talk about it for centuries. But first I’m going to make sure we’re alive to get there.”

  “I wasn’t…” I say quietly. “I was just joking.”

  “I know,” he says. “But I don’t want you to think this is it. You’re my princess, and soon you’ll be my queen. Our wedding will be a memory you cherish.”

  “I’ll cherish it because it’s with you, Roark,” I say.

  “And because it’s going to be amazing,” he says, smirking and continuing down the tunnel.

  I smile at his back. Well, I would be happy either way, but having some spectacular royal wedding isn’t a point I plan to fight--I am a princess after all.

  We emerge in another bedroom, and somehow manage to reach the in-palace cathedral without running into anyone except for scared, fleeing nobles.

  Three priests are gathered around the altar on their knees, praying. “Up,” calls Roark, voice echoing in the large cathedral. The men stand, raising their hands when they see who it is.

  “Please,” says the oldest man with the biggest hat--based on what little I know about churches, I assume the bigger the hat, the more important the guy is.

  “No one is going to get hurt,” says Roark. “But one of you is going to marry me to my princess, and you’re going to give me an abbreviated version of the royal coronation ceremony. Am I clear?”

  “Abbreviated?” asks Mr. Big Hat. “There’s no such procedure, my prince.”

  “Now there is. Come on, we don’t have long.”

  “I can’t abide by--”

  Roark fires his gun, blasting out a section of stained glass a few feet behind the lead priest. The men flinch, covering their heads.

  “You said no one would be hurt,” snaps one of the priests.

  “And I said one of you is going to marry us.”

  “I’ll do it,” says the tallest of the three with the smallest hat.

  “Thomas,” snaps the lead priest. “Prince Titus promised us--”

  Roark aims his gun at the man’s head. “Promised you what? Money? Promotions? Guess what? Prince Titus is bloody and tied up right now, whimpering for his mother. And once one of you fucking priests marries us, he’s going to be rotting in the dungeons, where I think he’ll have a hard time delivering on whatever he promised you.”

  The tall man steps forward, opening the book on the altar.

  “Good. You two are our witnesses. Do a good job and I won’t have your heads off when I become king.”

  They nod sheepishly now.

  The tall priest, Thomas, motions for us to stand on either side of the altar, facing each other.

  “Abbreviated ceremony as well?” he asks Roark.

  “Very,” says Roark. “We’ll have a do-over once we’ve planned a proper wedding.”

  “Very well,” says Thomas. “You may kiss the bride.”

  Roark quirks an eyebrow. “That counts?”


  He nods. “The marriage pact is sealed with the kiss. The rest is just a formality.”

  I stand on my tippy toes and Roark leans down so I can kiss him. I close my eyes, forgetting where we are and why we’re here for a moment, long enough to let it sink in. Roark Burkewood is my husband now. My king. And I’m his queen, at least I will be when they do the coronation ceremony. I have to admit, I would feel a twinge of sadness right now if I didn’t know the real wedding was still coming. A silly part of me wants to be the bride everyone envies, just for an evening, to wear the big puffy dress and the shoes, to have someone carry my veil and to have my moment--to finally have my moment when everything aligns and I couldn’t be happier. Except it’s not just going to be my moment. It’s going to be ours, and that makes it all the sweeter.

  The doors to the cathedral burst open, revealing a squadron of at least fifty armed guards.

  “In the name of Prince Titus, stand down!” shouts the captain at the front of the group.

  “Coronation,” hisses Roark. “Now. Very abbreviated.”

  Thomas reaches inside the altar, bringing out a golden scepter and two crowns--one gold and thick while the other is a ring of delicate silver swirls lined with glistening diamonds. He places the scepter on Roark’s shoulder, eyes darting to the group of men approaching with guns.

  “The church recognizes this holy union of king and queen. I crown thee King Roark Burkewood,” he says, placing the crown on Roark’s head with trembling hands. “And Queen Elizabeth Burkewood,” he says, placing the surprisingly heavy crown on my own head.

  Roark turns toward the men, who are so close now I can see the stains on their clothing. “Stop!” he shouts, voice booming through the building. “In the name of your king, stand down!”

  The men hesitate, and it’s enough. Heads turn and the men talk in low tones, arguing amongst themselves until their captain shouts for silence, raising his arms high. “Quiet!” he turns to the priests. “Tell me, priests. Is this true? Is he our king?”