17. Garrett

17

GARRETT

She’d been brave all the way through this: on the plane, on the highway, even having been strangled half to death. Now, for the first time, she looked truly shaken. The idea that someone so close to her could betray her, hit her right where she lived.

“You’re wrong,” she croaked. I could hear the pain from her bruised throat every time she spoke and it lit a white-hot anger in my chest. I was going to find the man who’d done this and tear him apart. “There’s got to be another explanation.”

“There isn’t,” I said.

Tears shone in her eyes. She trusted those two guards completely.

I tried to pick my words carefully, wishing I was better at this stuff. I’ve always been about doing, not talking. And it didn’t help that I was mad at myself for failing to protect her. “Your Highness, Jakov—”

She shook her head. “I know what you’re going to say and—”

“We can’t just ignore—”

“ No!”

“You said one of the assassins sounded like he was from Garmania!” I hated snapping at her but she needed to hear it. “Jakov’s folks are from there.”

“Jakov’s completely loyal. And we don’t know for sure that the assassins are anything to do with Garmania. We’ve heard one man’s accent, that’s it.”

I stood up and started pacing. I was completely out of my depth. I’m a soldier, not a damn detective! “Then it’s Emerik,” I said at last.

“That’s even crazier! He’s been protecting me since I was a kid!”

I shook my head in frustration. We had to figure it out. As long as we had a traitor with us, my plan to get her home via New York was useless: the assassins would set a trap there, or put a bomb on the plane. “One thing I do know,” I told her. “We gotta leave. We got a dead body and folks heard those gunshots. Cops are probably on their way. If they arrest me, that leaves you alone with the guards. Can you travel?”

She nodded—even that small movement made her wince in pain—and climbed out of bed so that she could get dressed. I swallowed. She was wearing some sort of nightgown, half Victorian, half Victoria’s Secret. It had a high neck and long sleeves and the hem reached down to her ankles. But it was gauzy and, when all the frills stretched out and the light hit it the right way, you could catch glimpses of... everything.

Then I saw the vivid red finger marks on her neck and I ground my teeth so hard in anger that they ached. My fault. I’d been right outside the goddamn door and I hadn’t come in because I was second-guessing myself. My feelings for her had almost gotten her killed. Never again.

She grabbed some clothes and ran to the bathroom to get changed. I put my head out of the door and told the others we were leaving, then ducked back inside to wait. I wasn’t leaving the Princess’s side, not tonight.

“Ready,” she said. She’d thrown on a loose green sweater and the dark jeans. Then she stopped dead. “Wait...if you’re right, if one of the guards is the one working with the assassins...then the FBI are in the clear! They can protect me. They can put me on a flight home!”

I thought about it, then sighed. “No. Maybe one of the guards told the assassins about the convoy, but they couldn’t have sneaked them on board the plane, or fed them satellite data to help find us in the pipes.” I ran my hand over my face, the exhaustion catching up with me. “We’ve got two problems. Somebody high up, in the FBI or connected to them. And another person, right here in our group.”

“Someone really wants me dead,” said the Princess in a small voice.

She suddenly looked so vulnerable. My hands itched with the need to grab her and fold her into my arms. “I’m not gonna let that happen,” I told her. Shit! Was that sirens, in the distance? “Let’s go.”

But halfway to the door, my foot nudged a piece of the broken vase. I stopped, frowning.

“What?” the Princess asked.

I held up my hand: let me think. I felt like there was something important about it. That’s why I’d stopped Emerik from tidying it away. But what?

“What is it?” she asked. “Don’t we need to hurry? ”

I nodded. I was getting frustrated with myself. Dammit, why aren’t I better at this? In our unit, I was the big, dumb guy. Doing the thinking was Baker’s job. But tonight, all my size and strength hadn’t been enough to protect her. I needed to be more than just a grunt. So I thought. Until, suddenly….

“When he picked up the vase, he’d already taken the gloves off,” I said with great satisfaction. “He left fingerprints, and they’ll still be on these pieces. We can find out who the bastard is!”

The Princess drew in her breath and smiled, delighted, and I felt my chest swell with pride. It was the first tiny piece of good luck we’d had. But now we had to get the hell out of there before the cops arrived. I opened the door, hustled her out—

And my eyes fell on the towel I’d thrown over the body. Blood was soaking through the white fabric in two places, splotches of red merging together into one big stain—

Suddenly, it wasn’t a towel anymore. It was a bandage around Martinez’s torso. He was lying on a wooden table, howling, begging for relief from the pain, and Felton, our medic, was holding him down. “I can’t give you anything else!” he snapped, and I could hear the raw emotion in his voice. “We’re out! There’s nothing left!”

The gunfire from the militia was getting closer, no more than fifty feet away, now. I needed to go back out there and help Baker but I was still slumped against the wall, coughing and choking. The dust was blocking my nose and coating the inside of my mouth. It was down in my lungs—

A hand gripped my arm. One of them was inside the house! I spun around and grabbed the arm, muscles already tensing to break it—

But the arm felt wrong under my fingers. Soft. Slender.

Her.

And suddenly I was back in the motel room. I had the Princess’s arm gripped in both hands, so tight it must be hurting. I released it as if burned, the nausea rising in my throat. Jesus, I was about to break her arm!

She was looking up at me with huge eyes, terrified. But there was sympathy in her expression, too. It made my chest tighten but it sent a hot wave of shame and anger washing through me.

The sirens were much closer. How long had I frozen for? Seconds? Minutes? I’d put us all at risk again.

“Come on,” I growled. “We gotta go.”