Text copyright ©2018 by the Author.
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The Fidelity World: Invictus
Copyright © 2018 Kylie Hillman
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
Published: DyMi Ink
Cover Design: Kover Kreative
Editing: Rose Vaden
Images in Manuscript: Adobe Stock
Cover Images: Adobe Stock
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CONTENTS
Disclaimer
Dedication
Playlist
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Full Circle Security Inc. Details
Newsletter Signup
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Contact Kylie
Also by Kylie
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Felix Von Sonderberg will also appear in the spin-off series to the bestselling Centrifuge Duet, Full Circle Security Incorporated. Be the first to meet Felix and taste the sinfully seductive world of the FCS Inc. alphas before the series launches at the end of 2018.
DEDICATION
For the members of Kylie’s Kollective.
Your support means the world to me.
PLAYLIST
Music is my main inspiration.
Follow the Invictus playlist.
SPOTIFY
“Expectation is the root of all heartache.”
~William Shakespeare~
PROLOGUE
Felix
One Week Earlier
Familial duty.
Predetermined destiny.
Unrivalled opportunity.
Transcendent prosperity.
They can pretty it up as much as they want. It still means the same thing to me.
Total loss of freedom. Never-ending constraints. Complete surrender.
“I’m ready to step down, Felix,” my father states. While desperation claws at my throat, his bland tone matches the bored expression on his lined face as he moves his gaze from one of his minions to me and back again. “My health isn’t what it once was, and I feel that a smooth transition of power before I deteriorate any further is in everyone’s best interest.”
Wretched despair turns to anger, and I barely refrain from pounding my fist on the opulent desk that separates us. Displays of emotion from anyone but my father isn’t acceptable within my family. His feelings are the only ones that count.
“Yeah, everyone’s interest but mine.”
As usual, my muttered negativity disappears into thin air. Not unheard, but definitely unheeded. Nobody skips a beat. The advisor closest to me steps forward. He’s one of three who fill this office with their air of pious awe toward the man who sits in front of us. The manila folder filled with paperwork—documents that would, no doubt, sentence me to a life in golden shackles—flutters in his hand before it’s laid down with deference in front of my father.
Our king.
The monarch of the country I call home ignores the offering. Instead, he pins his stern gaze back on me, then steeples his hands under his chin. It’s a curious contradiction. Hard eyes and soft posture. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was about to go against his better judgement and say something fatherly.
“Son,” he says in a tone I haven’t heard since I was a boy. “I know you feel trapped by my age and our family circumstances. In view of this, I’m offering you a proposal. It’s fair but firm. A rather non-negotiable demand if you will.”
And, there it is. As quickly as he gives me hope, he pulls it away. In the three seconds it takes for him to voice his offer, my heart flips in my chest then drops to my stomach, as heavy as a stone and as miserable as a miser who’s lost his last dollar. This is vintage King Maximillian III—he giveth before he taketh.
Preferably with as much stealth and as little regard as possible.
“And, what ultimatum would that be?” My question is posed with as much cynicism as I dare.
Which isn’t much—my sense of self-preservation runs strong.
It doesn’t matter how much I might detest the man who rules my life with an iron fist; he is my father, my monarch, and the sole arbiter of my future. He can quite literally take everything I possess from me with no more than a flick of his wrist, and as much as I might complain about the gilded handcuffs that bind me to this life, I’m well aware that the world outside these walls is a lot harsher.
“I’m giving you one year, Felix.” Steely resolve straightens his spine as he provides the answer I sought in a hard and deliberate tone. “One year to be anyone but a Von Sonderberg. One year to put aside your duty to this country. One year to decide if you’re capable of being the man I raised you to be.”
Sometime during his proclamation, my mouth falls open. It matches my overall disposition. I sit completely still in my seat before his grand desk, shocked into silence, waiting for the ultimatum that he’s so far disguised as an offer to drop on my head.
My father flips through the folder that was placed in front of him and extracts a photograph. Sliding the sheet in front of me, he taps his finger against the frosty blonde who smiles from the centre of the image. “This is Princess Annabelle. Isn’t she beautiful?”
I peruse the photo, my gaze roaming over the aristocratic-looking beauty with the sharp cheekbones and the perfect pout, then incline my head. “Yes, she is.”
“I’m glad you agree because
she’s yours.” My father states this as a matter of fact. I guess, for him, it is exactly that. The cold hard truth that he decrees.
“How so?” Trepidation skips through my veins once the question is posed. Something tells me I’m not going to like the answer.
“Princess Annabelle is the daughter of our closest ally. Her pedigree is impeccable. She is my choice for your Queen.”
“I won’t—”
Bang. The sound of his hand slapping against the hard wood forces me into temporary silence.
A second later, I try again. “There is no—”
Bang. Bang. This time, my father pounds his fist twice against his desk. My protest dies, and I swallow down the impotent anger that threatens to engulf me. Furious shaking aside, I’m willing to let him have his say before I decide whether my complaint about his declaration regarding mine and Princess Annabelle’s marriage is worth objecting against.
Knowing my father, marriage is probably the least of my problems.
“I will no longer entertain your incessant need to disrespect my legacy.”
The man in front of me has lost the small amount of fatherly tenderness he possessed. Now, I’m facing King Maximillian in all his regal glory.
The hard, no-nonsense, impenitently imperial disposition that has seen our country grow from a major player on the world stage to unconquerably powerful under his forty-year rule stares me down from across the solid oak desk. His gaze is harsh, his lips pressed together in a tight line that telegraphs his displeasure, and his large hands are no longer balled into fists. No, instead they lay face down on top of the photo of Princess Annabelle with a sort of resigned stoicism that sets the hair on the back of my neck on end.
“The time has come for you to make a choice, Felix.” The manila folder is pushed toward the advisor who handed it to him, who then slides it over to me. “Inside that folder is the receipt for a wire deposit of ten million US dollars into your personal account, a new identity and all the documentation that pertains to your new life, as well as a plane ticket with a return flight scheduled for exactly one year from today.”
I flick the folder open and find exactly what my father describes. A lump grows in my throat. It threatens to choke me. What he’s offering is a once in a lifetime opportunity, yet the logical part of my brain knows that this reprieve has to come with strings.
They always do.
“My son, I’m giving you one year. One year to purge your distaste toward the future out of your system. One year to become the man that this country needs—to become the heir I require to continue my life’s work. One year to finally grow up and choose to do the right thing.” He pauses. His shoulders droop just a bit before he lifts them back into place and manages to sit up impossibly taller. When I look him in the eye, I see nothing but steely resolve. “When that year is finished, I want you on that plane ready to take your rightful place as my replacement. When you return, you will marry Princess Annabelle, and as our new King, you will bring our countries together to solidify the superpower I’ve been creating throughout the last forty years.”
“And if I don’t get on that plane?”
My father doesn’t skip a beat. His reply glides from his lips with utmost certainty and unrelenting promise. “Then, you will no longer bear my name or own any title I have previously bestowed. Your cousin, Andrey, will be crowned in your place.”
ONE
Ida
Present Day
Hopping on one foot as I attempt to slide my high heel on, I silently curse myself for oversleeping once again. As much as I hate my day job, losing it because I’m late once more isn’t a smart move. Not when my bank account anaemic and this month’s rent is due in two days.
“Ah, shit!” I shriek when my right foot catches on something and I topple forward before I can stop myself.
My phone drops from its precarious position trapped between my ear and my shoulder. The loud crack it makes when it hits the tiled floor doesn’t bode well for its survival. My stumble over my housemates Gucci handbag may have interrupted my mental castigation, but it’s now replaced it with a bigger problem. Bending over, I pick up my phone. A couple of perfunctory jabs at the shattered screen confirms my suspicions. It’s broken and there is no salvaging it.
I glare at the expensive accessory where it sits, like a shiny beacon of sabotage, in the middle of our living room floor. It’s a stark reminder that my gratitude at having a decent place to live is tempered by the fact that my housemate’s slobby ways and her clear lack of regard for those of us who have to work to support ourselves drives me insane.
“Marta!” I stand and scream. “How many times do I have to tell you to clean up after yourself?”
By the time I’ve managed to find my shoes and wedge my feet into them, my housemate—who also doubles as my only friend in this city—has made her way out of her room and into the living room. She’s naked, except for the satin sheet she clutches to the front of her long, curvy frame, and the tall, dark, and handsome man who is wrapped around her back.
“What?” Marta whispers her question. She stares at me with annoyance on her classically beautiful face. The smell of stale alcohol permeates the living room, surrounding them like a noxious reminder that everyone else in this city has a life but me. While I was busy working my ass off at my second job last night, they were out having fun like a pair of normal twenty-somethings.
Well, as normal as a pair of twenty-somethings with uninhibited access to Daddy’s platinum Visa can be.
I ignore Marta’s question, instead staring down her conquest when he lets out a deliberate cough to draw my attention to the fact that he’s naked while he clings to her, apparently unembarrassed, like a second skin. Fixing my hands on my hips, I glare at him unblinkingly until he shows the good grace to grab the throw rug from the couch closest to him and wrap it around himself. He sits on the arm of the couch and eyes me warily.
“Seriously, Ida? Stop being such a prude. It’s a dick, not an IED. They won’t hurt you unless you ask them to.” Marta lets the sheet drop before she stalks away from me. Taking the half empty champagne bottle that she left on the coffee table, she tilts her head back and drains the rest of the sparkling fluid. When she’s done, she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, then plonks herself onto the couch next to her latest one-night stand.
She points the remote at the TV and turns it on. The screen bursts to life, loud music filling the room. Hot flames of rage catch fire in my veins and I literally see red. I grab her handbag and throw it onto her lap. A smirk of satisfaction twists my lips when she shrieks and leaps to her feet.
“You left this on the floor. Again.” I close the distance between us and toss my phone at her. She catches it with a lazy grace that I’ll never possess, turning it over in her hand while she inspects it. “I dropped it when I tripped over your freaking bag. It’s broken. I’m late. And, I’m probably out of a job too.”
The man sitting next to her decides that right now is the perfect time for him to speak.
“She’s exquisite,” he drawls. “Who is she?” The insolent gaze that he runs over me, starting from my high heels, lingering on my chest, and stopping at the black hair that frames my face, is enough to make me roll my eyes. It’s the typical, cocksure, rich prick behaviour that this town is known for. It didn’t impress me when I first moved to the city and it certainly doesn’t impress now, two years later.
“Nobody you need to worry yourself about,” I quip, moment of ocular judgement over. My mother always told me that my eyes would stay rolled back in my head if I didn’t stop using them to display my contempt for almost everyone I meet. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a more efficient way of dismissing the people who make my skin crawl, so it’s become a bit of a trademark of mine.
So much so, that it makes Marta giggle when I follow my dismissive eye roll with a sneer in the direction of her man friend.
“Don’t poke at Ida, David. My roommate is a bit of a bitch. Sh
e’ll flay you alive with her acid tongue and then laugh while you try not to cry over it.” Her accurate assessment makes me smile. I’m still trying to decide if I’m angry at her or not, when she rifles through her bag and holds out a wad of cash to me. “Here. This should cover your half of the bills for this month. Consider it an apology for breaking your phone and making you lose that terrible job you loved so much.”
Sarcasm is our primary mode of communication. I should be used to her straightforward nature. But it’s times like this that remind me how big the divide is between where I find myself and where she comes from.
Not that our differences would be so apparent if I’d swallow my pride and admit that our backgrounds aren’t as dissimilar as I like to pretend.
“I don’t need your charity,” I snap, blinking back tears of anger. Hurt makes my retort sharper than it should be. “What I need is a housemate who knows how to clean up after herself like an adult.”
Spinning on my heel, I dismiss her with my back while I gather my things and head for the front door for the second time this morning. Late as I am, it’ll be a miracle that I’m not actually sacked when I get to work.
“What you need is to get laid,” Marta yells after me. “A nice long trip to O town can take the bitch out of any woman.”
The door swings shut behind me, silencing the laughter they’re sharing at my expense. I stop for a moment and lean back against the smooth wood. Blinking hard, I force away the sting of emotion that has my tears threatening to spill over and silently curse the universe.
It shouldn’t be so hard to prove yourself in this world.
The Fidelity World: Invictus (Kindle Worlds Novella) Page 1