The Missing Monarch

by Rachelle Mccalla

  Thad absorbed the news with a nod. “Perhaps that’s the best place to meet. We have twenty-seven hours.” He sighed, seemingly unwilling to explain everything in the foyer, only to reexplain once they joined the others upstairs. “Shall we join them?”

  Kirk led the way. “Levi Grenaldo and Dom Procopio are up there, as well.”

  Monica felt a sense of relief hearing that Dom Procopio would be joining them, the only other person who’d known she was married. Having kept the marriage a secret for so long, it would be a relief to be around someone who’d been there in the beginning.

  She followed quietly up the stairs, letting Petrela and his men shadow Thaddeus closely, since they seemed so intent on doing so. Most of the others had entered the conference room by the time Monica came around the corner.

  Dom Procopio waited just outside the conference room. The round-eyed older man extended his arms toward her when he saw her, and she returned his embrace gladly. Finally, after so many new faces, someone familiar. Though the sight of the man who’d officiated at her wedding brought back bittersweet memories, she was grateful for the hug.

  “Monica,” he greeted her warmly. “It’s good to see you. It’s been too long.”

  Choked by emotion, Monica nodded and followed him into the room. They’d brought quite a crowd with them, including half a dozen of Petrela’s men, besides the two he’d stationed outside the doors. But the room was quite large, and its vast space seemed to absorb the figures.

  Nonetheless, the presence of Octavian’s men had a stifling effect on Thad’s siblings, who glanced at them repeatedly, as though beginning to question why the men were there. Thad’s emotions also seemed stunted, though Monica wasn’t sure whether to attribute that to Petrela and his men or the long-term freezing effects of his Arctic sojourn. The guards took their places around the periphery while Thad and his siblings made their way toward the table.

  A man stepped forward and linked his arm around Princess Isabelle’s waist. Just as she guessed who he was, he extended his hand to Thad and introduced himself.

  “Levi Grenaldo.” Isabelle’s fiancé.

  Thad shook his hand, recognition in his eyes. “You’re a lawyer?”

  “I specialize in international law.”

  Isabelle jumped in to add, “Levi’s father, Nicolas, is the president of Sanctuary International, the asylum organization that was instrumental in getting me safely out of Lydia.”

  “Sanctuary International would be happy to continue to help Lydia in any way possible,” Levi added. “Unfortunately, in the course of Isabelle’s adventures, we discovered one of our trusted agents was secretly working for the conspirators who were targeting Isabelle.”

  “I appreciate all you’ve done.” Thad thanked him. “I agree with your wisdom in keeping your father’s organization out of the loop from this point on. We need to maintain secrecy as much as possible. I’ll explain momentarily.”

  Monica ducked around the massive mahogany table that occupied the center of a room surrounded by wood inlaid walls interspersed with bookshelves. A marble fireplace dominated the far wall. The crackling blaze kept the damp chill of the stone palace at bay. She took a chair by the dancing flames, hoping to ward off some of the cold that had settled in her bones after her Arctic adventure. Even as she soaked up the warmth, she prayed that her son wasn’t too cold or frightened.

  The mere thought of him sent tears springing to her eyes, and she bit her lip to hold them back, glancing up quickly to see if anyone had noticed.

  But no one seemed to be paying her any attention. Thad’s sisters had seemed to catch on to the nervous vibe—that this wasn’t a happy homecoming at all. They exchanged questioning glances, and Stasi played nervously with her necklace.

  Thad looked at Monica for just a moment, long enough for her to be certain he’d seen the tears that were about to fall. Then he looked away, his stony expression unreadable.

  Monica let out a long, slow breath before inhaling again deeply. She had to keep her cool. She’d already put up with a long trek to Alaska as well as the flight to Lydia. It wouldn’t do to lose it now—not when her son’s future hung so precariously in the balance.

  * * *

  Thad turned to see his brother, Alexander, rising from his chair to greet him. After six long years, the soldier prince had changed greatly—even more so, given that Thad had seen little of him in the six years prior to that, when he’d gone off to the United States for school. Now, as Thad understood it, Alec had been appointed to the role of General of the Lydian Army, having defeated General David Bardici, one of the conspirators who’d been helping Octavian from inside that branch of the Lydian military.

  Alec regarded him silently for a moment before hobbling forward to embrace him. Growing up, they’d squabbled and fought constantly. But Alec had just risked his life to preserve a crown Thad wasn’t sure he’d ever wear. Alec shuffled back a step on a walking boot, and Thad pointed to the orthopedic brace. “You were injured?”

  “Shot in the foot.” Alec pointed to the bright-eyed woman who’d been sitting next to him at the table. “By her uncle.”

  The woman rose. “I’m Lillian—”

  “Bardici,” Thad finished with her, remembering the name from Kirk’s summary on the way to the palace.

  “My fiancée.” Alec wrapped an arm around the woman, who beamed up at him.

  As the recently engaged couple gazed at each other happily, Thad glanced at Monica, who sat by the fire, her attention on the dancing flames as her chest rose and fell with slow, even breaths. He’d never had the opportunity to introduce her to his family as his fiancée. He’d never introduced her at all.

  Suddenly a formal introduction felt long overdue.

  He cleared his throat as he crossed the room to stand by her chair. “Thank you all for being here. I know you’ve made immense sacrifices to make this meeting possible, and I realize you’re all eager to see the current situation stabilized. You’ve overcome many foes to bring us to this point, but there is one enemy who has yet to be defeated.”

  His siblings and their fiancés looked back at him, as did Dom Procopio, his father’s most trusted spiritual advisor. But they also looked nervously at General Marc Petrela—a figure known to his siblings and, most likely, by extension, to their fiancés, as well. His presence clearly stifled their willingness to speak.

  Even Petrela himself seemed to realize the difficulty his presence presented. To Thad’s surprise, Petrela stepped around to his men and murmured something to each of them before escorting them to the door. He stayed in the room, but closed it behind the last of his men before turning to face the royal family. “Now you may speak freely,” he announced.

  Isabelle shook her head, looking back and forth between the general and Thad. “I—I don’t understand what he’s doing here.”

  “It’s a long story,” Thad told his sister. “And we don’t have much time—”

  “You haven’t explained that, either,” Stasi accused.

  Thad closed his eyes, blocking out the sight of his family as he tried to think. After so many years of not feeling anything, being in the presence of Monica and his siblings all at once, on top of finding out he had a son...he was overwhelmed. He wasn’t sure what kind of guidance he could give under the circumstances.

  To his surprise, Monica picked up the line of discussion that he’d dropped, speaking the name the rest of them seemed so hesitant to utter. “Octavian, the man
you know as ‘8,’ has yet to be defeated.”

  “But is he still a real threat?” Stasi questioned. “He’s never shown his face. Perhaps he’s been scared away now that we’ve defeated so many of his henchmen.”

  “We haven’t defeated them all,” Levi Grenaldo replied. Isabelle’s fiancé had been sitting quietly at the table beside Isabelle. Now he dropped her hand to gesture. “Lydia had three generals, who Isabelle discovered were conspiring with Octavian. David Bardici, Corban Lucca and—” he turned an accusing look at the general “—Marc Petrela.”

  For one long moment everyone seemed to freeze. Thad fully expected Petrela to jump in and defend himself, to make an excuse for why he’d been included in the emails between the conspiring parties, but he said nothing.

  Alec continued the story where Levi had left off. “David Bardici is dead, Corban Lucca was routed in Milan but we don’t know what’s become of him, and we don’t know where Marc Petrela stands.” The prince raised an eyebrow toward the general.

  Petrela had been sitting silently near the far corner of the conference table ever since he’d dismissed his guards. Now he spoke so quietly that everyone had to strain to hear him. “I am glad to hear that the royal family is on top of the situation. I understand your hesitancy to accept my presence, given the inherent awkwardness of my recent associations.”

  Monica coughed derisively, but didn’t say anything.

  Thad understood the source of her consternation. Petrela had made their lives miserable for the past twenty hours. Why would he attempt to distance himself from Octavian using rhetoric?

  And yet, as Petrela continued his explanation, Thad began to consider that the general’s claims might have some credence.

  “I grant that I have been involved with Octavian to a highly suspicious degree. I myself have frequently questioned what my own motives were, and who I think I’m working for. I’ve had my doubts whether I was doing the right thing, especially over the last two weeks. And yet, we now stand closer than ever before to overcoming this madman who has for so long had his sights set on overtaking Lydia.”

  “We?” Anastasia questioned. “Are you claiming to be one of us?”

  “If Octavian asks, I will deny it,” Petrela admitted openly. “But to you I will confess, I have been cooperating with Octavian only to gather evidence against him—to spy on him and, ultimately, to undo him. There is nothing I can say or do at this moment that will prove to you precisely where I stand, but I can promise you this—when the moment of truth comes, and it is fast approaching, then you will know I have always been on your side. Until then, you will just have to trust me.”

  While silence descended over the room, Thad considered Petrela’s claims. Was he telling the truth? Thad couldn’t think of a way to test him—not without wasting far more time than they had to waste.

  Alexander shook his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how I can trust you.”

  Petrela didn’t appear to be fazed by the prince’s statement. “It doesn’t really matter. You have no choice.”

  SIX

  The general looked at Thad. “Will you explain it to them?”

  Thad felt as though all his strength had been drained, along with his ability to form a coherent sentence. Where should he begin? With the news that he had a son? With Octavian’s demands for the scepter? He stood and crossed the room toward Monica. She’d made sense of his muddled thoughts earlier. There had been a time when she’d known him better than anyone and could supply the words he couldn’t find on the tip of his tongue.

  Could she do that again for him today? He hoped so, because he felt at a total loss.

  As the warmth of the fire seeped into the cold of his bones, Thad stood next to Monica and tried to spell out all that was on the line. He didn’t know if Octavian could be stopped—but he was quite sure he needed the help of his siblings if he was going to have any chance of keeping their kingdom out of Octavian’s hands. “Octavian has acted. Not only is he a sincere threat, but as of this moment, he has the upper hand.”

  Thad let his hand settle onto Monica’s shoulder, and he suddenly found it easier to speak. “Kirk, what have you told them about my wife?”

  “Just that you have one, and her name is Monica.”

  Thad nodded. “Six years ago, I secretly married Monica Miller, only to learn days later about our father’s entanglements with the man known by the code name 8. Octavian demanded that I sign away my claim to the throne that had been made legal when I was formally declared Father’s successor following his coronation. At the same time, he wanted me to hand over the priceless relic of our family’s reign, the Scepter of Charlemagne, which would solidify his claim to the throne.”

  “Thank God you didn’t.” Isabelle flashed him an appreciative smile.

  Thaddeus wished he could smile back, but the sorrow inside him was too great to allow his mouth to turn upward with that expression. “I hid the scepter and went into hiding, abandoning my wife in hopes that she would never be discovered.”

  All eyes turned to Monica.

  “Were you discovered?” Stasi asked in a small voice.

  Monica looked up at him as though waiting for him to speak. Thad could hardly form the words. “Tell them,” he whispered.

  “I don’t know when Octavian found me.” Her voice sounded thick, weighed down with pain. “I’ve lived for six years in Seattle, near my parents. I finished my doctoral degree in ancient languages and started teaching. There was never anything that would have indicated that this madman realized I existed.”

  Kirk rubbed his face with his hands as she spoke, and shook his head as she finished. “You don’t suppose, when I started to mention her over the phone...”

  General Petrela’s deep voice murmured. “Octavian didn’t know about Monica until just a few days ago. Even then, he didn’t have a name, just a possibility that there was a woman in Thad’s past. He started looking into every woman Thad was known to have been friends with prior to his disappearance. That’s how he tracked down Monica.”

  Kirk’s face blanched pale. “It had to have been the phone call, then—or else it was when I explained to the family about Monica, right after the phone call. But there were just the six of us in the room then, so unless there’s a mole, or a unless Octavian has some way of listening in—”

  “Don’t forget,” Petrela cautioned them, “Octavian had control of this very palace for almost a full week following the ambush. I wasn’t in the area, but I know he sent instructions to Viktor Bosch to make modifications. Devices were sent—but I don’t know what they were, and Viktor is dead, so he can’t tell us.”

  “Listening devices?” Isabelle shuddered. “Do you think he has the whole palace bugged?”

  “This palace has over a hundred rooms.” Thad recalled that Viktor Bosch had been the head of the royal guard at the time of the ambush on the motorcade. He leveled a look at the general. “Does Octavian have the manpower to monitor that many devices at once?”

  “He does,” Petrela confirmed, “though I understand the shipment contained only two devices. I can’t say for certain what the devices were or where we might find them. They could have been any number of things. Given the time constraints I advise you to carry on as though you can’t be heard.”

  Anastasia gave a little whimper, and Thad realized he’d brought his family nothing but bad news and dreadful uncertainties. They’d been so hopeful that he might help them end their ordeal. And they had ye
t to hear the worst part.

  There wasn’t anything to be gained by letting the possibility of devices distract them from their discussion. Thad had no intention of revealing anything that Octavian didn’t already know. But they needed to press on—the clock was ticking.

  Thad took a deep breath. “I’m indebted to you, Kirk, for all the sacrifices you’ve made on behalf of Lydia. You saved Stasi’s life, you went on trial for my murder, you kept my secrets for six years.”

  A sniffling sound caught Thad’s attention, and he looked down to see Monica fighting back tears.

  Thad finished quickly. “I won’t blame you for what happened. Whatever Octavian may have heard, however he overheard it, somehow that led Octavian to my wife. And not just to her.” He swallowed, and met the eyes of everyone else in the room before finding the strength to finish his statement. “Unbeknownst to me, during our brief marriage, Monica conceived a son. His name is Peter.

  “Yesterday, he was kidnapped from his grandparents’ house. Octavian is holding him prisoner. If I don’t hand over the scepter and sign over the crown at noon tomorrow, Octavian has vowed to kill him.”

  * * *

  Monica couldn’t stand it any longer. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t get emotional, but the stark summary of Peter’s predicament sent silent tears streaming down her cheeks. She rose to excuse herself from the room.

  Before she could navigate her way around the long table, Thad stepped in front of her. She looked up at him to apologize. He wrapped his strong arms around her shoulders and held her against his chest.

  The tears flowed freely then, too much emotion and confusion fueling them. She’d failed her son. Octavian had him—and from what she’d heard, Octavian had every advantage over them. Would she ever see Peter again? Even if she did, would Octavian have taught him lies and corrupted his tender heart?