Gabe felt Sloane stop breathing. Her whole body stiffened before her knees went out. Gabe tightened his hold on her to prevent her from falling as her eyes darted wildly around the room as if calculating her escape. Nash stepped forward and stopped right in front of Sloane.

“It’s time to tell them. You’ll be okay. I promise,” he said softly, forcing Sloane to look at him.

Though Gabe tried to get Nash to look at him, Nash kept his eyes locked with Sloane’s. She’d finally started breathing again, but her breaths were short and shallow. She gave a slight nod of her head, and Detective Braxton moved to stand next to Nash.

“Go ahead,” Nash said gently. “Tell them why your parents would send someone to kidnap you.”

Gabe blinked. Her parents?

Sloane swallowed so loudly Gabe could hear it. Her entire body was trembling and Gabe feared she’d fall down. “Come on, let’s take a seat and you can tell me about it.” Gabe had to pull her to the couch, but then her legs buckled and she fell onto the seat.

“It’ll be okay, I promise. I’m right here,” Gabe said softly, taking a seat next to her. His family and friends wisely stayed back, except for Nash, Detective Braxton, and Ryan. Their law enforcement radar was going crazy.

Sloane shook her head. “No, it won’t be okay,” she said through chattering teeth.

Gabe put his arm around her and pulled her lifeless body against his in hopes of warming her. “Start at the beginning. Who are your parents?”

“Shane and Lisa Malone,” she whispered. No one said anything. They didn’t need to. The Malone family was as well known as any mobsters had ever been. Shane and his even more violent and ruthless wife, Lisa, were the most wanted drug lords in the country. They always managed to keep their hands clean enough to avoid jail. The government had been trying to bring them down for decades.

“Tell us about your parents. I don’t remember them having a daughter named Sloane. What happened?” Detective Braxton coaxed. No doubt if she got something on the Malone family, she’d run straight up the political ladder. Gabe pushed the thought from his mind. This was about Sloane, not Braxton.

“My name was Chanel,” Sloane whispered. She hadn’t said that name in nine years.

“But, Chanel died,” Braxton said, causing the people in the room to murmur.

“It’s Sloane now. I’d better start at the beginning. My parents grew up in the Riverdale neighborhood of Chicago—the worst of the worst. They fell in love when they were fifteen. My father worked for the local drug lord, selling cocaine and other drugs in his school. My grandparents didn’t care, since that meant they didn’t have to work. My mother approached him to see if he needed a partner. Her mother had overdosed, and her father was a long-haul trucker. She basically raised herself,” Sloane told them. Gabe looked at her. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused as she told them about her past.

“At eighteen my father decided to challenge his aging boss. I don’t know what happened exactly, but the boss was found dead in the Little Calumet River, and my father took control of the Riverdale drug operation. My sister, Valentina, was born first. My parents were only twenty, but they were now some of the wealthiest people in our neighborhood. It was then they decided to change the name of the organization to Malone Family Enterprises. Normally, drugs east of the Mississippi are imported from Central America. However, Mexico is where the good stuff is. They made a deal with the head of the cartel to be the exclusive East Coast distributor of their drugs. By the time I was born, we were living forty-five minutes from Riverdale in a historic mansion in Lincoln Park. But the business was run out of a warehouse in Riverdale.”

“Why did you leave?” Detective Braxton asked.

“I had to. My mother . . . well, she was in charge of enforcement. My sister is just like her. My father wanted to focus on bigger and better drugs. He let them have free rein of the business side of the organization. I worked for them from the time I was eight years old. I knew every general in the organization. I knew where every stash house was. I knew what they cut the drugs with. I knew it all because they made me work. They thought it was cute to show off their daughters working the family business when the cartel visited. But even then, I knew it was wrong. I made the mistake at ten years old of telling my sister this was hurting people. She told my mother, who in return beat me so badly I couldn’t walk for two weeks.”

Gabe heard his mother suck in a sob. Anger, sadness, and relief that Sloane had escaped filled him.

“I learned to keep quiet then. I was told to sell the drugs at my very expensive private school when I turned thirteen. They said it was a family tradition. I would be given ten thousand dollars or more worth of product and head off to school. However, I couldn’t do it. The regular beatings I got, and the fact I was starved if I didn’t sell the drugs, drew the attention of my chemistry teacher, Mrs. Holiday. I confided in her one afternoon. Instead of calling the police, we hatched a plan. We knew some of the police were on my mom’s payroll, and I wouldn’t be safe. Instead, I sold fake drugs to the students. They were loaded with caffeine, but no more than in a couple of cups of coffee. The kids felt the high and were more worried about appearing cool than the actual use of drugs. They paid, so the beatings stopped.”

Sloane took a deep breath. “I began to worry as graduation grew closer. I talked to Mrs. Holiday about it. My parents were already planning to move my operation to college. My sister was in law school and selling so steadily that she lived on the Upper East Side of New York City instead of some small apartment like most students. That’s when we decided I needed to disappear forever but I couldn’t do it until I was eighteen for legal reasons. When I turned eighteen, I could head straight for the courts and change my name without my parents being notified. Mrs. Holiday went into the computer system and printed off my transcripts with the new name I’d selected so I could enroll in college. And at 12:01 on the dot, I snuck out of the house with nothing but my purse. I left everything I had ever known. I sent a vague text to my sister telling her goodbye. I drove my car to Lake Michigan and left a suicide note inside it. There was a little pier and I jumped off it, into the water. I still remember how dark it was. I swam out a short way and tossed my flip-flops as far out as I could. Then I started the long swim parallel to the beach until I couldn’t swim anymore. I chose a dark place with no cameras to come ashore. And I started walking. I met Mrs. Holiday about two more miles away. We drove to Springfield where her son was a judge. I changed my name the next morning. Mrs. Holiday bought me some clothes, and I went to the DMV. I lied and said I had just moved to town and provided false information to obtain a driver’s license under my new name. Will I be arrested for that?”

“No, you won’t,” Detective Braxton assured her. “What happened next?”

Sloane nodded and let out a deep breath as if that was what she was most worried about. “Then I took what money I had and bought a bus ticket. The farthest I could go was Lexington. In the meantime, my sister had immediately called my parents, who went looking for my car. One of their soldiers found it a day later along with a washed up flip-flop that my parents recognized as mine. Search and Rescue found the other one way out in the lake after a storm. It was determined I drowned and my body had been washed out into the lake. A couple of weeks later, I saw that the search for my body was called off and my death had been ruled a suicide. I never looked back after that. I thought I was safe.”

“Why would your parents want to kill you after finding you again?” Gabe finally asked.

Sloane lifted her eyes to his. “Because I took something when I left.”

“What did you take?” Gabe reached out and took her hands in his. He felt her take a deep shuddering breath.

“I think I need a lawyer first.”

Gabe felt someone come to stand behind him. “That’s a good idea, dear,” his mother said to her gently. “I sent a text to our attorneys the second you told us your name. They’ll be here shortly. In the meantime, why don’t we make a cup of tea? You’re shaking, you poor dear.”

Sloane’s face was set in stone, but her eyes told it all. She was ashamed. She was embarrassed. She was scared. And Gabe hated knowing she felt that way. “It’ll be okay,” he assured her.

Finally he saw emotion as a tear leaked down her face. “Stop saying that. It will not be okay.”

---

Sloane jumped to her feet and looked down at the man who could hurt her more than her parents ever could. The man she had slowly been losing her heart to over the past weeks. Every small conversation at the bar, every smile he gave her, and every flirtation . . . she was stupid to dream of a happily-ever-after.

“It will not be okay,” she repeated. “Even if my parents manage not to kill me, and even if I somehow don’t spend the rest of my life in jail, I’m still just a waitress whose parents are drug lords, and you’re still a prince.”

“It doesn’t matter—” Gabe started to say, but it hurt too much to hear it.

“It does!” Sloane yelled. “You think your father, who has been quietly standing over there, will support an heir to the Rahmi crown marrying the Princess of Heroin?

Quietly Gabe’s father pushed himself off the wall and stared her down as he walked toward her. “Don’t presume to know me, Miss Holiday.”

“Don’t you mean, Malone?”

Mo shook his head slowly. “You were never a Malone. That much is clear to me. You are who you say you are, Sloane Holiday. A waitress and a student who is gradating with a master’s degree. And if you care for my son, truly care for him, not for the money or the title, then I wouldn’t care who your parents were. But if this is a con—”

The threat went unspoken. His highness didn’t need to speak the words, for the threat was perfectly clear, and she believed him.

“Father,” Gabe warned, but the sound of the doorbell had Sloane wanting to roll her eyes. It was a circus, and she was the main attraction.

“Sloane,” Gabe whispered as if he didn’t have much time, “I’m proud of you.”

“Who’s my client?”

Sloane looked at the tall man and young woman walking into the room and blinked. They were not exactly what she was expecting when the princess said she’d called their personal lawyers. The man had to be in his mid-fifties and his suit appeared to be shiny. Yes, somehow it was iridescent and appeared to change color as he walked into the light from the windows. The young woman looked to be fresh out of law school and very well put together, but Sloane was confused by the spray bottle she was carrying.

“I am,” Sloane said hesitantly.

The man’s eyes went to hers. “I can see why you’ve been arrested. It’s against the law for one person to look so fine.”

Squirt.

The young woman squirted the man in the ear. He tilted his head and began shaking his head while hopping up and down on one foot.

“Is this a joke?” Sloane asked Gabe.

“No, this is just Henry,” Gabe said, shaking his head. “You’ll grow to love him.”

“I’ll grow to kick him in the balls.”

“You wouldn’t be the first, dear,” Gabe’s mom chuckled.

“I’m sorry about my father’s choice of words, but he is a good attorney. I’m Addison Rooney and this is my father, Henry Rooney. Now, is there someplace we can talk privately?”

Gabe showed them to his office and closed the door. Sloane turned to the two oddball lawyers and wondered, not for the first time, whom she could trust.

---

Gabe walked back into the living room filled with dread. Could today go any worse? The doorbell rang, and he ran a hand over his face. He’d just jinxed himself.

Before he could get to the living room to see who it was, his father had stopped him. “Son, a moment.”

“I know. I have horrible taste in women. I always get myself into trouble. I’ll be all over the news. I’ll blow the first major assignment Uncle Dirar has given me.”

Gabe looked at his father and saw his face deepen with anger. “What have I done to make everyone think I’m a royal snob?”

Gabe let out a sigh. “Stop fooling around. Marry and give me grandchildren. Secure the line,” Gabe said, imitating his father’s voice.

“Yes,” Mo agreed, “But I never told you whom to marry, just whom not to marry.”

“Seriously?”

“Okay, so I may have forgotten the pains of being single. But I had to tell you, contrary to what Miss Holiday believes, I like her. And I like you with her.”

“My Sugarbear told me Prince Hottie was in trouble.”

Gabe’s eyes went wide. He knew that voice.

“Put the gun down!” Detective Braxton ordered.

“I’m here to protect that fine body,” Aniyah called out a second before a gunshot went off.

Gabe ran for the living room only to find Detective Braxton attempting to tackle Aniyah to the ground and the chandelier over the dining room table swaying lopsidedly.

Aniyah, with her dark skin glowing and her black hair slicked back into a perfect swoop over her forehead, teetered on her five-inch heels. His father leapt the couch, grabbed his mother, and shoved her to the ground a second before another shot went off.

“Oopsy. If this woman would stop trying to feel my goods, I wouldn’t have fired. I’m getting real good at coming close to my targets now.”

“Detective!” Gabe yelled, wading into the battle. “She’s with us!”

“Get off her, or we won’t have a ride home!” Thwack.

Gabe felt the broom crash into his head. Dried straw went flying as Miss Lily continued her assault. Her sisters closed in on Detective Braxton with a wooden spoon and a spatula, looking like a menacing granny gang.

“What is going on?” The loud yell filled the room and everyone froze. All eyes turned to Sloane standing wide-eyed with Henry and Addison slightly behind her. They didn’t seem surprised in the least.

“It’s a girl,” Miss Lily said with something akin to wonder in her voice.

“And she doesn’t look like a tramp,” Miss Violet said not too quietly.

“Hello, dear. Are you single?” Miss Daisy asked as she smiled innocently.

Gabe shoved the broom off his head. “I can explain.”

When Sloane broke out laughing instead of running away, Gabe knew things were starting to improve.