Chapter 30

Tyler

“It’s time,” the voice in my radio crackles, and I feel that deep anxiety once again. Being forced to sit on the sidelines hasn’t helped as well. I’ve been watching everything unfold up in the stage, and I’m almost surprised I managed to fight against the urge to simply storm the place.

“ETA?” I ask Nicholas through the radio, my heart kicking against my ribs — this whole charade is about to come to an end.

“Thirty seconds. Stay sharp,” he replies, and I can’t help but look up at the sky. Placing one hand inside my jacket, I curl my fingers around the cold metal of my gun — shit is about to hit the fan real soon.

By the time I start hearing the Apache, the palms of my hands are so sweaty that I have to brush them against my jacket. Like a black cloud, the helicopter advances toward the Main Square, making every single head in the place turn to look at it. It all happens in a matter of seconds — black ropes are thrown from the open doors of the helicopter, and a dozen of SEALs rappel down them in a flash, gleaming rifles slung over their shoulders.

By the time their boots touch the stage, a dozen more guys dressed in civilian clothes pull out their guns and storm the stage, courtesy of the CIA. Like clockwork, a few seconds later I hear the roar of a dozen Humvees, all of them carrying an US Army team. You can say what you want about the US, but one thing’s for sure: these guys don’t fuck around.

“Nicholas, the airspace?” I ask him as I march toward the stage, one hand inside my jacket. Almost too casually, I take the safety off my gun and start walking faster, the atmosphere in the whole square becoming so oppressive I can’t think straight. The whole situation might go sideways anytime now — it just takes one trigger happy asshole to turn this into a bloodbath. Lucky for us, the US doesn’t really enjoy toppling governments while making blood rain — it makes for bad press.

“Airspace secured,” I hear Nicholas say through the radio, but I can’t quite make out his next words. As he finishes speaking, three F-35s flying in formation roar in the sky above, their dark silhouettes jumping out of the grey clouds like the Devil’s own fist.

“STOP THEM! STOP THEM!” I hear Moira scream hysterically the moment I arrive at the stage. Her voice, so poised before, now seems like it has cracked completely. It must suck to have power slip from your fingers in a matter of just a few seconds.

As I start climbing up the stairs that lead up to the stage, I see Derek, Lucien, Nicholas and Malcolm emerge from the crowd as well. They have their guns drawn, their fingers on the trigger, and their faces are a blend of excitement and nervousness. We’ve prepared for this, but in an operation with so many moving parts there are always a thousand things that can go wrong. That’s why we stood back while everything happened on the stage — if something went wrong, one of us would need to coordinate the whole thing.

Lucky for us, the Americans pulled through.

“Alright, the show’s over,” one of the Americans says, pointing his rifle at Moira’s private military guys. They keep their fingers on the trigger for a long while, just staring down the Americans circling the stage, but the beads of sweat trailing down their foreheads leave no room for doubts — they’ll break. And that’s exactly what happens: in a matter of just a few seconds, one by one they start lowering their guns and raising their arms up in the air. Moving as fast as lightning, the SEAL team that served as the tip of the spear throw them into the ground and tie their hands fast, kicking their rifles out of reach.

“Snow!” I call after her, my heart beating fast as she looks toward me. Smiling, she just gives me a quick nod and moves toward Richard. With the help of the government’s attorney, now being held at gunpoint, she frees Richard from his handcuffs; a fraction of a second later and she has both her arms wrapped around him.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” Richard tells her, ignoring all the chaos happening around him. People are being arrested, shouting and trying to run away, but Richard seems oblivious to all that. He just places both his hands on Snow’s waist and, pulling her into him, crushes his mouth against her.

“Don’t be too jealous,” Derek laughs, hitting me with his elbow. “Plenty of time for some fun after we wrap up this shit up,” he continues, helping the soldiers storming the stage to handcuff all the Queen’s men.

“Moira? Where the fuck is she?” I suddenly remember, looking around the stage and seeing her nowhere. Nor do I see Gladrell.

“There!” Snow suddenly cries out, pointing toward the crowd. Narrowing my eyes, I see a figure clad in black running through the confusion, Gladrell trailing after her.

“Let’s go!” Derek cries out, jumping out of the stage with his gun drawn. Without even thinking about what I’m doing, I simply run as fast as I can, elbowing people out of the way as I feel the heel of my boots crashing against the concrete underneath.

As fast as Moira and Gladrell are running, they’re no match for both Derek and I. We reach them fast; grabbing Moira by the hair, I simply yank on it and stop her dead on her tracks. She falls back, collapsing on the floor and shrieking like a banshee; ignoring her, I just take a zip lock out of my back pocket and tie her hands behind her back.

“Hope you’ll enjoy a cell as much as you’ve enjoyed the crown,” I tell her, pulling her up to her feet.

“Oh, don’t worry ‘bout these,” Derek laughs, bending Gladrell’s arm so much that I almost think it’s going to break. “They’ll have a lot of time to catch up in prison.”