They were bound to protect their employer, but they weren’t idiots. There was their employer and then there were their monarchs.
Ari recognized the guards at a glance. Pain knifed through his head with a resounding crash and he stumbled against the wall, but when he looked up again it was with such perfect clarity that he almost laughed out loud—right before he and Dimitri piled into the men, thrusting them aside. Another shot sounded and Dimitri crashed against the door. This one held and they both ran at it, cracking it completely off its hinges as it crashed into the room.
A man screamed and Ari whirled around as the power of Dimitri’s rush carried him almost to the far wall.
He watched Francesca stumble back from Count Silas Saleri in her heavy, rumpled ball gown, her hair streaked with broken bits of wood and a small cut bleeding on her neck, her hands wrapped around Silas’s where Ari realized the man was wielding a gun—
Caution fled him and he strode the final step to reach the man, cracking him with a roundhouse punch. Silas slumped against Francesca, nearly toppling her, until Ari was able to pull her to his side, her hands still clasped around Silas’s gun though the man now lay sprawled out on the floor.
They stared at Silas’s inert body as Francesca let Dimitri carefully take the gun out of her grasp. Then gently, ever so gently, Ari put his arms around her. She hadn’t begun to tremble yet from the shock, he realized.
At his touch the softest sob broke free from her lips, and she swayed—but he was there to catch her.
“Sweetheart,” he whispered, as he pulled her into his embrace. “In the future, you’re really going to have to do a far better job of letting me rescue you,” he said.
Francesca pressed her head against his shoulder, then shifted away, her half-sob sounding more like a laugh as she muttered something about her mascara.
Stefan’s voice cracked across the room. “Damage?”
“Negative,” Dimitri said, crouching down at Silas’s side. “He’s breathing, more’s the pity.” He squinted up at Ari. “We’re going to have to work on your boxing skills.”
“Agreed.”
Ari held Francesca to him as Stefan stepped inside the room, clearing the way for them to re-enter the hallway. As they exited the storage room, there was an entire phalanx of royal guards now lining the hallway of the building, but the count’s two soldiers were nowhere to be seen.
Stefan stepped back into the hallway and signaled two more men inside the room with Dimitri. “There’s a bag in the corner of the room. That’s how she was carried. Chloroform.”
Ari’s breath hissed between his teeth. “Son of a bitch.”
Stefan nodded. “The count’s guards are being detained in the conference room, the party’s continuing. Your father knows and wants you back when you can come.” He glanced between Ari’s face and Francesca’s. “I’ll let him know that’s not advisable.”
“No.” Francesca’s head came up, her face pale as she brushed her hands beneath her eyes, though she remained flawlessly beautiful. “No. Go—I’ll be fine. You’ll put me…somewhere, right?”
Stefan lifted his brows. “There are several conference rooms near the ballroom.”
“There,” she said. “Conference rooms. Several of them. I’ll be there with a stiff drink and someone can fix my hair,” she tugged at it ruefully, “and you can do what you need to do so that no one knows—especially not Edeena or her sisters.” She touched Ari’s arm. “You have to know she knew nothing about…this. I don’t really think Silas knew what he wanted to do with me. He just wanted to lash out. To be heard.”
Ari blinked at her, unable to fully process her words, but at that moment the two royal soldiers emerged from the chamber, carrying the unconscious Silas in their arms.
“He should go to the hospital,” Stefan said, and Ari nodded.
“Yes. Send him first, then notify Edeena. Wipe down his hands and if we can, change his clothes. He fired two shots?”
“Two, sir,” one of the men responded.
“Close down this building, let no one in or out. He’s my mother’s cousin, and we don’t want anyone to get the wrong impression here.”
“Agreed,” Stefan said. “We’ll take him to the royal infirmary on the castle grounds, wait until he wakes up. Depending on his responses and state of mind, we’ll take him to the public hospital or keep him on site. He’ll have armed escort at all times.”
“Go,” Ari said. The men moved forward, carrying Silas down the long hallway, but bypassed the main door.
Francesca frowned after them. “Where are they…?”
“There are underground passages between the two buildings,” Ari said. “Something else I’m happy to remember. I’ll have to show you sometime. It can take twenty minutes by car to wind between the main residence and the Visitors’ Palace, but by foot, it’s not so long.”
They were walking now as well, and Ari lifted a hand to brush splintered wood out of Francesca’s hair. Then he remembered her neck.
“You’re injured,” he said, frowning down at her.
