by Mary Buckham
"You've what?"
For the first time, Jane felt sorry for the king. This was more convoluted than some of the soap operas she sometimes caught before work.
The younger Tarkioff ignored his brother's outrage as he continued. "There never was any intention of Elena marrying you."
So did that mean Jane was pretending to be a pretend fiancée, she wondered, feeling a little of the hysteria she'd experienced weeks ago when this whole mess had first started. It was a measure of how far she'd come that she could very definitely recognize the symptoms.
Tarkioff stepped forward, his face the color of ripe tomatoes. "This is outrageous. I don't believe you for a moment."
"Believe him." Lucius's words slashed through the room. "I'm sure your brother is very serious about what he's saying."
"That's a wise move." Eustace Tarkioff smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. Funny she hadn't noticed before how cold they were. Cold and determined.
"But why have Elena become engaged to me? Why plan for a wedding if there was to be none? It makes no sense."
Jane thought the king was sounding a little hysterical himself until Lucius's next words seeped into his awareness. "Why? Because by your engagement to Miss Rostov you legitimized her right to co-rule Vendari."
"The right to what?"
"That's right, Elena, isn't it?" Lucius stepped closer to the other woman, leaving Jane to feel abandoned and still in the dark. "The people of Vendari have accepted you as their king's new wife, have taken you into their hearts, have even rallied around your bravery despite the threats to your life."
"That was a nice touch, wasn't it?" Elena's brows arched, her gaze remaining firm on Lucius. "And you helped with it, protecting your little pretender here with such solicitous care. It was touching, very touching, but absolutely pointless."
"So while you were safe until whoever made the first attempt on your life was found, Jane continued your charade to ingratiate the brave Elena into the hearts and minds of the people of Vendari."
"Something like that." Elena did not sound quite as assured as she had seconds ago. Jane wondered if it was Lucius's proximity, or his tone that disturbed her.
"And Eustace kept up the pretense closer to home when it wasn't your life that was in danger at all."
"Explain yourself." The king uttered the words Jane wanted to, but couldn't get around the lump in her throat.
"Simple, Your Highness." Lucius paused, closer to where the other three stood now than he was to Jane. She couldn't see his expression but could guess at his harshness. He'd been used, royally used by the sound of things, and she held no doubt it did not sit well. "We have been working under the assumption that the ultimate threat all along was to Elena's life. That if she died before your wedding, the country could become destabilized enough to result in an attempt to overthrow Vendari by Rostov's people."
"Yes, but—"
"But the real threat has been to you, not your fiancée."
"But how?"
"If you were assassinated right before the wedding, or perhaps on the day of it," Lucius glanced at Elena as if for confirmation, which she gave with the slightest of nods before he continued, "then it would be natural for the woman who has won the hearts of so many these past weeks to step in and rule in your stead."
"A woman? It wouldn't happen. They'd never accept a woman as ruler."
"Perhaps. But there was a contingency plan. Your brother."
"Eustace?"
"If Elena needed a puppet husband, what better man than your brother, your Head of Security? The people would rally behind the two of them. It's very simple and straightforward."
And might have worked, too, Jane realized glancing from one face to another in the room. It very easily might have worked.
It was Tarkioff who asked the question hovering on the edge of her awareness.
"What happens now?"
As if invisible strings had been pulled, Jane felt the tension in the room escalate. No one moved. No one spoke. But the fear became palpable.
She wanted to hide. To scream at Lucius to hide. To do something, anything to break the tautness of vibrating nerves. Then she saw the gun. A long-nosed, blunt, ugly weapon gripped in Elena Rostov's hand.
And it was pointed straight at her.
Chapter 13
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Like the day the gunshots had rung out in the town square, Jane felt that stretching of time, the slowing of everything in the room as if movement happened one frame at a time. Even the voices became painfully drawn out. The gasp of breath she heard sucked in—hers, she thought. The harsh bite of Lucius's tone, angry almost, but only one syllable released. A very clear, unrelenting, "No."
"Too late, darling."
The gun wavered but never shifted. It was Lucius who moved, sidestepped until he was right beside her.
The man was using himself as a shield to protect her, and all Jane could do was remain rooted to the floor. As if her brain impulses were not connecting to her muscles, she could hear herself screaming inside to push him out of the way. To save himself. But nothing happened. She couldn't make anything happen.
"A gallant but wasted gesture, Major." Elena's words slid into the stretched silence.
"This was not what we planned," Eustace said.
"Plans have changed, darling. But only slightly."
"But why kill her?" It was the king, sounding more perplexed than concerned, as if it didn't matter that her life hung in the balance as long as he made sense of why she was about to be shot in cold blood.
"She is unimportant." Elena gave a shrug, as if they were discussing exterminating a bug rather than a person. "You've known that all along."
Jane wished they would stop talking around her as if she couldn't hear their words. Such cold, callous words.
"If we change the plans now, there could be problems." Eustace said, though no one turned to look his way. Not when the gun remained steady.
"Listen to him, Elena." Now it was Lucius speaking. It sounded so reassuring, so matter of fact, Jane wondered if he'd forgotten that he, too, stood in the line of fire. How could he be so calm when she couldn't even breathe? "Eustace knows what he's talking about."
Did Lucius know about the plan? Was he working in cahoots with Elena and the king's brother? Why else was he talking this way?
"It's not too late to go back."
Elena glanced at Eustace, then dismissed Lucius's words.
"It is too late. It's time for a new plan and she's a liability."
Hadn't that always been her role in life? Jane felt surprise at the anger the realization brought. Anger that gave her enough clarity of thought to move, not away from the gun but toward it. She doubted she could outrun a bullet, but she'd discovered there was something she could do. She could make sure Lucius wasn't hurt in the process.
His hand snagged her arm, grasping so tightly it hurt. His expression told her he knew exactly what she was doing, and he wasn't going to have any part of it.
But this time she wasn't going to let him have his way. Not this time.
"Don't worry, Miss Richards." It was Elena's voice that stopped the struggle of wills between her and Lucius. "We still have need of the major. He will not be hurt."
She might have liked the other woman better if she knew she'd spoken out of compassion, but from her expression it was clear that wasn't the motivating factor. Not when her whole attention was riveted on Lucius like a cat on a bowl of fresh cream.
Now the power struggle was between them, with Jane on the outside, watching heated gazes clash.
"This is ridiculous." The king sounded petulant and put-upon. "Eustace, you and I will discuss this matter. Now."
No one moved.
The king spoke again. "I tell you this has gone on long enough. I demand a resolution."
He received one.
Jane, her gaze glued on the face of the woman before her, waiting for that last second when the gun would jerk, was the first to see the
change.
It was as if Elena Rostov's eyes glazed over, her features tightened as her gun hand moved, ever so quickly, ever so silently. Seconds only, but it felt like forever. The dark barrel of the weapon arced and settled. This time pointing dead center on the king.
"Elena. Don't."
It was Eustace's voice that cried out. But too late. The gun snapped. Once. Twice. Again. Ugly, rasping sounds exploding through the room. Four times in all. Short, abrupt, lethal pops.
The king's face registered surprise. A questioning expression that begged for understanding even as a wide circle of red spread across his chest.
Lucius's hand, still banded about Jane's upper arm, swung her behind him, as if he could hide her from the figure of the king toppling forward, one hand reaching toward his brother. A brother as frozen in place as the rest of the group.
"Eustace?" It came on a gurgle of breath, swallowed by the heavy thud of shoulders slamming against the carpet.
It was that quick. From a living, breathing man, befuddled by the pace of events unfolding, to a crumpled mass, lying still and silent.
Jane felt separated from reality. From where she stood, behind Lucius, all she could see was Viktor Tarkioff's outstretched hand, red-stained and motionless against the patterned carpet.
She closed her eyes, afraid she was going to be sick, knowing if she didn't pull herself together, she was going to run screaming out of the room. Though she doubted Elena would let her get far.
"You didn't have to—" Eustace Tarkioff's voice sounded as bewildered as his brother's.
"I did and it's done." No regrets from this woman, Jane thought. Not one teeny, tiny ounce. "It was only a matter of time. I just moved up when it happened."
Jane could hear the breathing in the room. Eustace Tarkioff's hard and ragged. Elena's short and shallow, as if she'd run a hard race. Lucius's calm and controlled, as if dead bodies fell at his feet on a regular basis. Which maybe they did. Could that be why he seemed to be the only one in the room unaffected by what just happened?
Eustace's expression changed. Grief was there, regret maybe, but then came a dawning realization that Vendari now had a new ruler—himself.
Elena looked bored. As if she'd had a dirty chore to take care of and now it was time to focus on other things. Jane didn't want to think yet of what those things might be, or of how she fit into them.
But Lucius remained exactly where he'd been seconds ago, his hand steady on her, his expression focused on the woman with the gun still in her hand. His expression gave nothing away. The man had to be made of granite.
"What now?"
Eustace spoke the words, but it wasn't Elena who answered. It was Lucius.
He moved first, releasing Jane's arm to kneel by the body, checking for a pulse along the king's throat. As if anybody could live after having four bullets pumped into their body from only a few feet away.
"He's dead."
The words echoed around the room.
"Of course he is, darling." Elena smiled with her words. Jane decided if Lucius was made of stone, this lady was made of steel, shiny bright and hard, razor-hard. "I am nothing if not thorough."
It was then Jane wondered why no one had come running into the room. Surely somebody should have heard the shots. Or had they been loud only to her? But what about Lucius's man stationed just outside? Was he to open the door any second and meet his own death?
Lucius's next words answered her unspoken questions. "Your silencer is useless now."
That's why the bullets had sounded like loud pops. Elena had used a silencer. Maybe that was why the gun looked different, too. Different from the one Lucius had told her to keep close not too many nights ago. That night they'd first made love.
It was that thought that had her shaking. Where was the man who'd held her in his arms, made her laugh, made her body sing? Was this the real Lucius McConneghy before her—cold, lethal, discussing weapons with a murderer who'd just pulled a trigger?
He glanced at her then. One quick, silent look as if he'd heard her thoughts aloud before he turned back to Elena Rostov who was staring at the gun in her hand.
"Then I shall have to find some other way to eliminate your American friend."
American friend? Eliminate? They were talking about her again and she didn't care for the words being used. The shaking grew stronger.
Lucius rose to his feet, the move smooth and controlled. Almost too controlled, she thought, reading the tenseness of his shoulders, the way he held his body as if ready to spring. But his words were at odds with what she saw.
"Is it necessary?"
What was he saying? Is it necessary? She couldn't believe what she was hearing. What happened to "No way," or "Over my dead body"? Hadn't he said all along he'd protect her? Was this his definition of protection?
"Of course it's necessary, darling."
Jane was getting really tired of Elena's slow, casual way of talking, as if discussing murder exhausted her. She absolutely refused to think of the words spoken. The "of course" words.
It was Lucius who answered, but not in the way Jane expected. Not at all.
"Then I'll handle it."
What?
She turned, shock making her movements jerky, her body refusing to accept what he was saying. She wanted to demand an explanation. Force him to tell her he was joking. But no words would come. All she could do was stare, willing him to look her way, to meet her gaze and repeat his words.
But he kept his gaze averted.
"Don't play me for a fool, Major." Elena's voice held contempt. "I know how it would offend your sensibilities to eliminate a pawn. Especially if that pawn was a woman."
Pawn? Was that how Lucius had seen her all along? It couldn't be. It just couldn't be.
"I have a mission to complete." The words were delivered calmly, rationally. How many times had she heard him say them before? The mission came first—always the mission. So why hadn't she believed him?
He spoke again, his gaze still locked with Elena's until it shifted momentarily to the dead man on the floor. "Aspects of the mission have changed, but fundamentally it remains the same. My country wants to see a strong presence ruling Vendari. They never indicated who that strong presence must be, only that it remain friendly to our interests."
Was he crazy? How could he be talking about political policy at a time like this? Maybe he had a plan? This was Lucius—of course he'd have a plan.
"So you will have me believe you will help take care of our liability here?" Elena cast a brief impersonal glance Jane's way before continuing, "Our only witness to what really happened in this room who does not have a vested interest in keeping it quiet?"
"I would have preferred not to have to kill her." Lucius shrugged and Jane's heart plummeted. "But I will do whatever is necessary to complete my mission."
No. No, this couldn't be happening. Lucius wasn't really saying such things. He couldn't be. This was the man who only moments ago was talking about a picnic with her. Who had told her, again and again, he'd protect her. Maybe he was buying time for his men to rush in and save them? That had to be it. Lucius would never kill her. Never.
She didn't even know she'd made a sound, but it escaped anyway. A soft, choking sound that drew all eyes to her. She could feel them, though she looked at only one face, one set of clear, gray eyes.
Without thinking she found herself shaking her head, denying what she'd heard, wanting Lucius to tell her in some way that everything he'd just said was a lie. A ploy. Something.
But he didn't deny it. Not with his words. Not with his look. Not even with his eyes, so glacially cold she could feel the goose bumps crawl up her arms.
"You will kill Miss Richards?" Eustace asked the question in his blunt manner. Not hiding it behind double talk.
Silence wavered like a tangible beast in the room until Lucius spoke. "I will take care of it."
Jane stepped back, an instinctive, age-old reaction to a threat. A threat coming fr
om a man she loved. Or had that, too, been a lie? Had she given her heart, soul and body to a man who lied with his? Who used her, knowing it could come down to a moment like this, to a cramped room with one dead body and two ruthless people playing with others' lives as if they had no meaning. Playing with her life. Only it wasn't a game and it was Lucius who was going to pull the trigger.
"You said you'd protect me." She whispered the words aloud as she took another step in retreat.
"I told you to trust no one."
Hysteria bubbled within her. He was right, he had told her not to trust anyone, especially him. But had she listened? No. Like a fool she'd walked into his arms and believed what she wanted to about this man. And in spite of everything, she still believed it. She still loved him and that's what was hurting most of all.
"Jane." He spoke it softly, as if it was only the two of them in the room. "It will be quick. I will not hurt you."
The man had said he was going to kill her, but he wouldn't hurt her? Ha!
Even Elena seemed to have a problem with that statement. "I want it done now. Where I can see it."
"Perhaps it would be for the best—"
"No." Elena interrupted Eustace's statement, looking at only Lucius as she continued. "It must be done here and now. As a sign of good faith between our country and the major's."
Oh, that was choice. Not only was she going to be coldly executed, it was going to be on the altar of diplomatic relations. A sacrificial goat so that one country would be pleased with another.
"It will be done. But in my own way. It does not need to be painful."
She wondered who Lucius was trying to reassure—them or her? If it was her, it wasn't working.
"You can't do this." She'd always heard of people begging for their lives and realized it was more than that. She knew, in her heart of hearts that if Lucius killed her, something in him would be lost forever, too. She could read it in his eyes. In the coldness of his words. She wasn't just fighting for her own life here, she was fighting for his, too. "You can't do this, Lucius. There's got to be another way."
He shook his head, denying her statement or denying what he was about to do, she didn't know. She had to try harder.