Dree huddled more closely to the throne, clicking on the video camera from Magnus’s text feed. Magnus texted,We are placing shaped charges on the door.
Wait,she texted back.
“That’s not true,” Maxence told Marie-Therese, speaking from the front of the dais. “Rainier IV took three rounds of voting, even though he was the heir apparent at the time. That’s why my brother, Pierre, was politicking so hard. A deadlocked election is always a possibility.”
Marie-Therese raised her arms, looking like Evita in a red dress. Her raven-black hair spilled over her shoulders and down her back. “The election is over, and I have won! I am the Sovereign Princess of Monaco.”
Dree picked up the phone and, without interrupting the video feed, texted Magnus,Be ready when I say to go.
Chapter Three
Honor
Maxence
“No, it’s not over,” Maxence told the room, his voice carrying even though he sounded thoughtful. He was looking up at the ceiling, where Alexander the Great was surrendering.
Even Alexander the Great had been defeated when he overreached, an important analogy for that afternoon. Marie-Therese was grasping at too much.
“Yes, it is over!”Marie-Therese retorted. “Go ahead and say it again, Maxence. I can do this all daybecause I’ve already won.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Maxence saw Dree edging off the side of the dais.God,he prayed,let her get to safety. Let her find an unlocked door and run.
“Lady Valentina,” Maxence called. She stood near the front and on the other side of the dais. Talking to her would draw the terrorists’ attention away from Dree creeping into the crowd. “Do you believe the election is over?”
Valentina Martini was still glaring down the barrel of a rifle at another terrorist. She didn’t break eye contact as she said, “The election isnot over.We will countall the votes.”
Dree’s white sundress swished as she slipped between bystanders.
Maxence sighed,“Excellent,and Duc Alexandre?”
“It’s not over,” Alexandre called from where he had backed his wife, Georgie, and his sister, Christine, against a wall, his long arms and legs fencing them in and shielding them.
Casimir and Arthur were both on their knees with their hands behind their heads. Arthur glanced up at Max, his eyes the blue-white fire of ignited magnesium that could burn down cities.
“Lord Lorenzi, what do you—”
“Not over,”Lorenzi grunted from where he had tackled and spread himself over his struggling teenaged son.
The terrorists were beginning to waver, listening more to Maxence and concentrating less on their initial plan.
“And why not?” Maxence asked the room. “Why shouldn’t we stop the election now?”
Lady Valentina finally turned away from the terrorist holding the gun on her to glare at Max. “Because Marie-Therese and Jules would be a disaster for Monaco.”
Yes.“We all want what is best for Monaco,” Maxence said. “We want a better, stronger, more just Monaco. And that means that everyone gets a vote.”
The nobles were beginning to stir as their immediate panic ebbed.
“Thisisn’t how we do things,” Maxence said, gesturing to the guns and mercenaries. “We’re better than this. Monaco has been the shining city on the hill of Europe for a millennium. We’ve calmly transferred power from one prince to the next with no infighting, no assassination, no civil wars, and no bloody conspiracies and murders like the other great houses of Europe. There are no bones of little princes to be found in our towers, and none of our sovereigns have died suddenly of suspected poisoning.”
The noblemen and women eyed each other even as they watched the mercenaries for sudden movements.
He said, “Monaco’s sovereigns have always put our people first. Monaco is our family. We Monegasques have always stuck together, surviving on this scrap of land and harbor becausewe stay together.”
The mercenaries were listening too, turning their gazes away from the sights of their guns.
Maxence said, “We Grimaldi have held Monaco peacefully for nearly a thousand years. Together, we hold this fortress onLe Rocherover the harbor. We stood together against the cities of Italy that attacked us, and we closed our borders when the Vichy government wanted to use our harbor to collaborate with the Nazis. We standtogether.That is ourstrength.”
