Max squinted at Quentin in disbelief. “I’ve been trained in macroeconomics since I was a kid. I’ve run multinational charities with enormous budgets for a decade. Monaco isn’t on the brink of bankruptcy. It’sthriving.Your pension has never been in danger. Who told you that?”
“Everybody knows it!”
Maxence squatted in front of him, still beyond Quentin’s feet and keeping away from Rossi’s limp form. “Who’s everybody?”
Quentin’s voice verged on panic. “Prince Pierre and Prince Jules both told me how you were going to destroy Monaco! With Pierre gone, Jules is the only one left who will save it for people like me!”
Max peered at Quentin, looking him straight in his colorless eyes. “Is that why you committed treason?”
“I didn’t! I was—”
“You broke your oath to the country and the Constitution. When you took your oath, you didn’t swear to protect and honor Jules or Pierre. Your oath was always to Monaco, not aperson,and not to an ideology.”
“I was doing my job!”
“No, you weren’t. You committed treason. You were supposed to support the peaceful transition from one prince to another, not to kidnap or murder someone in line for the throne.”
“His Highness Prince Pierretoldme to send people after you because you weredangerousto Monaco’s future, because you wouldrapeMonaco and leave people like me withnothing.Hetoldme to have your security detail take you out when you were off on one of your damned charity missions, but you always slipped away as soon as you got off the plane.”
Maxence nodded. He’d known. That’s why he’d gotten so good at giving his security the slip.
“He told me to have you followed in Paris and, if there was an opportunity, to remove you there.” Sault’s eyes creased closed. “He told me to leave and lock the doors.”
Maxence didn’t know what that meant. “Stop this, Quentin. Give me the gun, and help me call the shore. We can discuss ways you canhelpthe situation and contribute toward a peaceful resolution at the Crown Council meeting tonight.” He held out his hand, palm up, hoping.
Quentin Sault raised his arm, lifting the gun with its muzzle toward the brilliant blue sky above the ship.
“No!” Maxence yelled, leaning, reaching. “No, Quentin,don’t!”
Quentin wedged the barrel of the gun under his own jaw, and his fist squeezed the trigger.
The gunshot crashed through the air.
A burst of blood appeared on the gray wall behind his head. His body jerked and slumped to the side to lie on the deck.
Max had reached with his hand through space as if he could have somehow grabbed Quentin’s arm and stopped him.
His fingers grasped air, and he let his hand fall.
Over to Max’s side, the last guy from Monaco’s secret service fell to his knees and buried his face in his hands.
Quiet descended over the mob.
They weren’t fanatic freaks who had awakened that morning anticipating a mutiny. For the most part, they were just guys trying to do their jobs out on the sea, moving the world’s commerce from one country to another so people could have what they needed to live.
Occasionally, they took a little bribe and indulged in a little piracy because they needed more money to send home to their families, because the world would let them starve if they didn’t. Maxence had lived in the parts of the world where desperation outweighed ethics, and he didn’t begrudge them the little bit of extra money that would make a big difference to their parents and kids.
Maxence staggered to his feet, staring at the ruin of Quentin Sault, a man he had never trusted but hadn’t been able to get away from, and the body of Michael Rossi, who’d saved Max’s life twice that day but had been instrumental in his kidnapping and his cousin’s murder.
Max turned, staring at the sailors, the last gunshot from Quentin’s pistol still ringing in his ears and inside his head.
The brilliant Mediterranean sun poured down over the crowd of men, their eyes vacant with shock. The deck of the ship rolled beneath his bare feet.
Maxence sucked air into his fluttering lungs, and he said the only thing that would come into his mind, “Let us pray.”
Most of them clasped their hands or genuflected. Other men lowered themselves to their knees, overcome with the horror of two violent deaths.
Maxence raised his face to the light, his arms outspread, and he prayed with every fiber of his being, every shredded remnant of his soul. His voice rang out across the ship and the waves and echoed in the men’s hearts, “Our Father, who art in Heaven—”
