Cherry’s dress was gorgeous, but in hindsight, she should’ve chosen something slightly less… dramatic.

She watched Lydia settle her children into the back of the waiting Hummer. First Ella, then Hilde, who had been carried from the palace asleep in Hans’s arms.

“Don’t worry,” Demi said, placing a hand on Cherry’s shoulder. She had to reach up to do it, but she still managed to sound like a parent comforting her child. “We’ve planned everything. Nothing will go wrong, inshallah.”

Cherry exhaled, her breath condensing in the midnight air. “I’d feel a lot better about this if I’d seen you at some point in the last week.”

“Oh, I was around,” Demi smiled. Her gaze trailed to Hans, as if by habit.

Cherry managed to spare a smile of her own. “I don’t doubt it.”

The children settled, Lydia climbed into the car. Ruben appeared, a few familiar members of his guard trailing behind him.

“We’re ready,” he said. “We’ll go round to the front entrance and slide in with all the cars leaving tonight. He shouldn’t notice we’re gone until we reach the airport.”

With a nod, Demi stepped forward and slid into the passenger seat. Hans walked round to the other side of the car, leaving Cherry alone with her prince.

Prince no longer, after tonight.

Ruben reached out to her. “Let’s go.”

She put her hand in his. And that was when it all fell apart.

* * *

“How sweet,” Harald said.

His voice rang out through the darkness. And then the floodlights drowned Ruben in their bright, white glow, blinding him for a second. He squeezed Cherry’s hand, and felt her squeeze back.

Then he turned around to face his brother.

Harald stood at the entrance to the basement garage they’d parked in front of. He was flanked by a dozen members of the royal guard, dressed in Hans’s all-black uniform. They shared his intimidatingly blank expressions too, but theirs were made truly terrifying by the dead look in their eyes.

“You have your boys, little brother.” Harald held up his hands, indicating the men behind him.“And I have mine.”

Ruben steeled himself. Calculated all the possibilities in his mind. His brother’s men were armed, but they couldn’t get away with any real damage, could they? Harald wouldn’t risk the complications.

Of course, if he did, Lydia and the girls would be safe. They were already in the car, an official royal vehicle, bulletproof.

But Cherry was right here.

“Harald,” Ruben said, his voice low. “We can discuss this sensibly, can’t we?”

“Discuss what?” Harald hissed. “You kidnapping my wife? My heirs?”

“I’m just taking the girls on a trip. They don’t want to see you right now.” Ruben gentled his tone. “You understand, Ella’s in shock. Lydia’s—“

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” Harald’s eyes bulged as he spat out the words, fury blooming red beneath his pale skin. He stepped forwards, across the tarmac, his hand’s fisted at his sides. He was still wearing the gold-braided dress uniform he preferred for formal engagements, military medals pinned to his chest. None of which he’d earned.

But then, he hadn’t had the chance to. By the time he came of age, the throne was essentially his.

“If you take her,” Harald said, “she’ll never come back.” For a moment, Ruben thought that his brother might actually miss his wife. But then Harald cried out, his voice ragged with panic, “What will people think of me?”

Cherry’s voice rang out before Ruben could even open his mouth. “They’ll suspect what we already know. That you are a weak, pathetic man who hits his own children—“

Ruben pulled her closer to him, cutting off her words, angling his own body in front of hers. “Stop,” he whispered tightly. “You don’t know what he’s going to do.”

“I don’t care,” she hissed. “The girls are in the car. Tell Hans to leave. He won’t follow them with all those people as witnesses.” Even now, just to the east of the palace’s jutting wing, they could hear the chatter and laughter of guests, the engines starting as people piled into their cars and limousines. It would take seconds to reach the safety of the crowd, if Hans put his foot down.

Which would leave Cherry here to face his brother’s wrath, and Ruben with nothing but his bare hands to protect them both. All his life he had stormed into situations based on nothing but instinct, passion, sheer bloody-mindedness. He couldn’t do that anymore.

“Harald,” he shouted across the tarmac. “You must realise you’ve gone too far. This is ridiculous. I’ll take the girls home with me, just for a while, and it’ll all blow over. Be reasonable, will you?”

His brother scowled at that, as Ruben had expected. “You presume to dictate to me? You, the son of a gutter-born whore!” He spat out the familiar words, his voice rising as he got into the swing of things. Ruben didn’t bother to listen. He knew the gist. Your very existence is a stain on the great history of this proud nation, your mother the seductress destroyed our lives, blah blah fucking blah.

As his brother ranted and raved, throwing out the words that had once torn Ruben apart, Ruben turned his head slightly to catch Cherry’s eye. He kept his lips as still as he could, and murmured under his breath, “Phone in my pocket.”

Cherry looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. But evidently she decided to trust him anyway, because her hand slid into his left pocket and then his right, her movements hidden by her skirts. She found the phone and looked up at him, widening her eyes in question. What now?

“Are you listening to me?” Harald roared, tearing at the sash across his waist, his neatly slicked-back hair falling over his sweaty brow.

Ruben said, “Kathryn.”

“What?” Harald hissed.

“I said, yes. I’m listening.” He squeezed Cherry’s hand. Hard. Hoped she got the message. “But I think it’s time you listened, Harald.” He took a deep breath. Prayed to every god he could think of that somehow, this would work. And then he began.

“When our parents died, you and Sophronia and I, we were all alone together. We should have been a comfort to each other. And I realise that you hated my mother. That you were angry with our father for throwing everything away for a love you couldn’t understand. I get it. I really fucking do. But you didn’t have to take that out on me, Harald. I was just a child, and you did your best to break me. In body and in spirit. Do you know how fucked up I was, the day I left this place? How long it took me to stop hating myself? Too long.

“But I got better. I figured out how to be myself, instead of someone else’s punching bag. And I swore that no matter what you did, no matter how much I despised you, I would never give up the one thing you swore I didn’t deserve. I would never let you push me out of this family.

“But you know what? This place is poison. The family fucking name, the royal fucking household, is poison. I keep waiting for you to change the way I have, for you to become a better person, but that’s never going to happen, is it? Because this isn’t about our parents, and this isn’t about who I am or anything I’ve done. This is about you. You’re the problem. You can’t stop hurting people. You hurt Lydia, who loves you—I have no idea why, but she does. So fucking much. Or at least, she did. But you couldn’t stop with her. You hit your own fucking kid, Harald. Ella is thirteen years old. She’s your daughter.

“What kind of so-called king preys on his own family that way? You’re so obsessed with titles and power, and what everybody thinks… What would you do if the man you really are was exposed to the world? What would you do?”

Harald stood before them, his face twisted into a sneer. “Very philosophical, Ruben. I’m utterly shamed. So embarrassed. Now get my wife out of that fucking car, before one of my boys loses control of his weapon and shoots your darling fiancée.”

Cherry brought a hand down on Ruben’s shoulder even as he started to react, his vision blurring, his world a haze of red. She dug her nails into his flesh, hard. “Stop,” she whispered. And then she pushed the phone into his hand.

He looked down at the screen, and relief flooded through him.

There was a little red light blinking in the left corner, next to the words: LIVE STREAM.

Ruben faced the king with a smile, holding the phone up between them.

“Well, would you look at that,” he called. “It seems everyone does know.”

“Know what?” Harald demanded.

“Who you really are.” Ruben tossed the phone across the tarmac, watching as his brother snatched it out of the air and looked at the screen.

The way his eyes widened, frantic and afraid, was almost the sweetest sight of Ruben’s life.

Almost.

“Tell me,” Ruben said. “Can you see how many people are listening right now?”

Harald looked up, his face slack. “The number… the number keeps changing.”

“Ah, that means people are still watching. I’m not great with social media, but I think that video stays up for the next 24 hours. Plus, you know, it’s still—“

Harald threw the phone against the tarmac. He released an unearthly scream, stamping on the device again and again, his movements vicious and brutal.

The men standing behind him began to mutter amongst themselves, watching him warily, as if wondering whether they should take action. When he threw himself to his knees and began punching the phone, smashing his fists against the ground, Ruben backed away, towards the waiting car.

“Go,” he said to Cherry, keeping his eyes on Harald.

“But—“

“I’m coming. But I’m not about to turn my back on him. Go.”

To his relief she went. He heard the swish of her skirts as she stuffed them through the car door. And then, with halting, backwards steps, he reached the car himself.

Cherry’s hands guided him in. He didn’t tear his eyes from his brother, a ragged mess screaming at shards of glass and plastic on the ground.

Not until Cherry shut the door and shouted, “Hans!”

The engine roared. And just like that, they were away.