CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Sebastianos
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
While I watched yet another skirmish break out only a few miles from the first, I knew the answer was right there in front of me on the monitors I was viewing. Rebel troops from Amur had deliberately attacked a troop of our guards near the Amurian border. Then, only fifteen minutes later, a second attack was sounded.
The “wrong” was right in front of me, but there was also something else I couldn’t put my finger on.
As I watched through the helmet cameras of our troops, I itched to join in the fight. I felt like a pampered prince by not joining my fellow men in arms, but each time I threatened to do so, I was surrounded by my security and a grave looking Nate who looked prepared to fight me to the death to keep me where I was.
“I should be out there with them,” I complained for the hundredth time. No one even bothered to respond that time as another alert was sounded that yet a third skirmish was taking place.
We were gathered in the war room where thirty monitors lined the walls. Maps and intelligence were laid out before us. It was a room seldom used, and never in my lifetime… until recently.
The door opened, and the king entered, still wearing his ballroom finery even though he’d managed to ditch the crown. “Status,” he barked as everyone leapt to their feet.
I ground my teeth together as General Fieldsis gave him a report. This was his show, and he was a man to be trusted, I reminded myself.
The radios squawked as another skirmish was reported, this time only a half a mile from the palace. “What the fuck?” Nate muttered, and I couldn’t have agreed more.
This was getting too close.
“What is happening?” Nate muttered after more troops were called into battle.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Surely they know they can’t win with this strategy,” I said as another of our men felled an enemy.
Then the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Was this a distraction?
Turning from the monitors, I met the eyes of the king’s personal security. “Secure Penelope and Iliana. Take them to the safe room and report back immediately.”
Uncle Demetrius frowned at me. “Is that necessary?” I just stared at him until he waved a hand. “Yes. Retrieve the girls.”
The men were off, already speaking into their radios as the doors closed behind them. It would be okay. This would be handled. We would win this round and be more prepared for the next.
Yet, my gut continued to churn.
Nate’s hand gripped my shoulder. Was he feeling the same thing too?
I stood. “Something is very wrong. I need to find them. It’s taking too long.”
My personal security stepped in front of the door. “I’m sorry, sir,” one of them, Peters, got the balls enough to say.
I met his gaze. “Move. Out. Of. My. Way.”
“Let us handle it, sir.”
I knew they were right. I knew it, but I didn’t care. I needed to find Iliana and Penelope. I needed to see them with my own eyes.
Before I could say more, both guards cupped their hands over their ears. Peters met my eyes, his jaw tightening. “Please repeat.”
“Put them on intercom,” I said through my teeth.
Peters communicated my order then asked the person on the other side to repeat again.
“They’re missing.”
All the strength seemed to disappear from my legs as the two words echoed through the room, and I wasn’t sure how I was able to remain upright.
“Both?”
“Yes, Your Grace,” the man said. “We’re searching the gardens and palace right now.”
Training took over even as I wanted to kick the wall, scream to the heavens that this not be happening. “Close it down. No one leaves the grounds.”
“Yes, sir.”
When I turned, I found the king in a chair, a hand on his face. Nate was already tapping at the keyboards. The monitors blinked off then video from the palace cameras popped onto the screens.
“Where were they last seen?”
My uncle stood up. “In the ballroom. Mrs. Kent had grown ill and Penelope begged to stay up for the fireworks. Iliana offered to let her watch with her. I left just moments before they were to begin.”
Nate started tapping again and every camera in the ballroom and gardens blinked to life.
I looked at my watch. “Rewind the last fifteen minutes.”
We all watched the screens until I caught sight of silver and gold gowns. “There.”
My heart tightened as I watched Iliana and Penelope walk hand in hand toward the balcony. Nate tapped a button and the angle changed, and I watched them laugh as they stepped outside.
Then Penelope started to lead Iliana toward the steps leading down to the gardens. In the middle, Iliana paused and looked back. Frowning now, the two began to speak. Iliana tightened her grip as Penelope tried to pull away.
I recognized the pleading look on the little girl’s face very well. Iliana looked back again, clearly trying to decide what to do.
“Don’t do it, baby,” I murmured. “Go back. Please, go back.”
In a flurry of movement, Penelope yanked herself from Iliana’s grasp, and the sneaky little thing took off down the remaining steps in a flash of gold.
Without hesitation, Iliana followed, running after her but appeared to be hindered by her heels sinking into the grass. She stopped and looked around, opened her mouth to yell something then gazed up at the fireworks and frowned.
No one could hear her.
She began to run again, and I lost sight of her until Nate changed the camera angle again.
There she was. Penelope too. The little princess was wearing what appeared to be 3-D glasses and gazing up at the fireworks. She had been lured.
By whom?
Bile surged in my stomach as a hooded figure appeared from behind the hedge. Iliana startled but didn’t run. Instead, she held her hand out to the little girl. Small but mighty, I reminded myself.
No!
Behind her, a masked man approached. She couldn’t see him, but I watched in dread as he grabbed her, pressing a white cloth to her face. My uncle gasped as another man did the same to his daughter.
I just stared as Iliana was lifted in the man’s arms and carried right out of the fucking gate, Penelope right behind them. The guard there didn’t attempt to stop them. Instead, he jumped into the passenger seat of the van that approached.
Then they were gone.
“Access all CCTVs,” General Fieldsis barked, snapping me out of the daze I’d momentarily fell into.
Men scurried to get to work. “Retrace the robed figure’s every movement,” I shouted. “Find out who that fucker was.”
While every cell in my body wanted me to race out of the room and go searching for the two women I loved in this world, I knew I needed to stay here and do this right.
I’d failed.
The crown princess, the child I’d sworn to protect, was snatched on the fucking palace grounds, right under our noses.
“Insurgents are retreating,” someone yelled.
Of course they were. The distraction was no longer necessary.
“Guard was found. He’s dead.”
I’d already known that would be the case. What else did I already know?
Mrs. Kent had grown ill, leaving Penelope on her own.
I remembered Ralph being ill at the press conference. Coincidence? An epidemic? I didn’t think so.
“They were poisoned,” I said.
Nate looked at me. “Who?”
“Ralph and Mrs. Kent. Mrs. Kent needs to be tested for poison immediately. We need to know what kind.” It was too late to test Ralph. I hadn’t even suspected that his illness was anything other than what it was. But if I knew for certain that Mrs. Kent had been deliberately poisoned, we might be able to trace it back to the source.
What else did I know?
I search my brain, went through every possibility.
Amur was involved, there was no doubt. And we would retaliate with the full strength of our allies at our backs.
But not yet.
Right now, I needed to find the princess. I needed to find Iliana. My baby.
I looked around the room. The entire security team was in place, except for one person… the Minister of the Interior, one Anjou Alaine.
“Where is Anjou?” I asked the room.
General Fieldsis met my eyes, his expression grim before he turned away and began barking orders.
The weight of the crushing responsibility seized my chest so hard that, for a moment, I thought I was having a heart attack.
“Breathe, Sebastianos,” Nate said, steering me into a chair. “We’ll get them. All of them.”
I’d always been good in a crisis, I thought to myself as the world buzzed around me in a blur of activity and fear. The first one to take control of a situation and make the hard calls when they needed to be made, the first one to cut through the fear and the bullshit and see the situation for what it was: a series of decisions that needed to be made with a clear head and an end in mind.
But now, watching Nate and General Fieldsis handle the initial burst of chaos, I realized that in this instance, I had too much to lose to think clearly anymore. If something happened to Iliana and our baby, if something happened to Penelope, I’d be a lost man.
I loved her. I loved them all but especially her.
Iliana. The only woman to break through the walls I’d so firmly held in place.
“I love you,” I whispered to the monitor that was replaying the snatch frame by frame.
Now, I just needed to find her so I could tell her that to her face.
***
Ten hours later, I was still staring at the damn screens. Still searching CCTV cameras for clues.
We had been very thoroughly set up.
The Cassian borders had all been closed, but something told me that the van holding my family didn’t care about borders. Something told me these were one of those Amurian tribal groups that knew the northern mountains like the back of their hands and could disappear into nothingness in the blink of an eye.
My stomach curdled at the thought of it.
For two more agonizing hours, I was glued to the screens of the computers, watching and rewatching each frame until I wasn’t even able to blink anymore, my eyes were so dry.
I didn’t care.
From the computer in front of me, I watched along with the rest of the security council the footage from various drones, helicopters and dash cams.
Somehow, the news had caught wind of it, and now the international media was spreading the news of our missing princess and future duchess to every corner of the globe. News reports from China, Russia, America, and South America scrolled across the screen as people everywhere speculated what we already knew… the Amurian regime had declared war and weren’t afraid to play dirty.
We were in full crisis mode, and with each second that ticked away without hearing from Iliana, the chasm in my chest deepened, threatening to pull me into darkness forever if she or the baby or my cousin didn’t make it home without an ounce of damage to either of them.
Infantry units were heading to the northern borders, but with Iliana and Penelope still prisoners, we dared not attack.
So we waited.
Searched.
Waited.
Searched.
“Drink this, or I’ll pour it down your throat.”
It was a protein shake, the kind I used to drink in the army. I took it from Nate’s hand and downed the entire thing in a few seconds, knowing he was right. When the liquid hit my empty stomach, it churned but I ignored it.
When I didn’t throw it up, Nate thrust an energy bar in my hand. “You’re no good to her half-dead,” he said. I didn’t want to eat. I didn’t want to do anything but find my fiancée and cousin, but the adrenaline crash had been hard on me, and I was struggling to keep my eyes open.
There was no taste and no joy in the food, though I was grateful for the practicality of it. I just couldn’t be bothered to allow my brain to process anything that wasn’t related to getting Iliana back in my arms immediately.
Where was she right now? Was she hurt? Was she scared? If I knew anything about Iliana, she was probably trying to keep Penelope calm and safe, and it gave me a small amount of comfort to think about it.
But as additional hours passed, and I could do nothing but pace the floor, I started to lose hope. The kidnappers should have called by now. Why hadn’t they?
I staggered, and a hand pressed down on my shoulder. It was Nate. He’d gone off to catch four hours of sleep and looked better for it.
“Sleep.”
“I can’t.”
But when he pressed me into a chair then pushed my head down on the table, my body proved me wrong.
Maybe it was because I hadn’t slept in god knew how many hours.
Or maybe it was my brain’s way of helping me escape from the nightmare I’d found myself in.
As sleep claimed me, I had one thought.
Please, God… please bring them back to me.