“I agree.”
He lifts his chin until our eyes lock. “It wouldn’t have stopped at me, you know.”
“How do you mean?” I ask, my brows forming a V.
“Signoria Batorini wouldn’t have stopped at my death. She would have continued. She would have eliminated my entire family.”
A chill runs up my spine. “Perhaps.” I can’t deny the plausibility of that.
“The girls are mine,” he says.
“I have no doubt that they are.” And I mean that. They’re his. Even as I ache for him that the question is there.
He releases a breath and stands. “The girls are mine,” he repeats. “I don’t need a blood test. I don’t need proof. They’re mine. I held them when they were first born. Hell, I remember the nights we conceived them because I didn’t exactly sleep with Nora often.”
Shit.
“I’m not surprised she was sleeping with him,” he continues. “She would always tell me she couldn’t stand him, but she was gone a lot too, coming up with different locations and excuses for things she had to do as queen. I didn’t challenge it because I didn’t care all that much. I neglected her in a lot of ways. I don’t blame Samil for hating me, especially if she was pregnant with his child. I’d hate me too. I’d want me dead. If it were Bellamy, I don’t know what I would have done if she belonged to another man.”
“Love breeds madness. I have firsthand knowledge of that now, but I didn’t before.”
“Yes, it does. I don’t know how I would have reacted if I had known about the affair, and I can’t change the past. Nora made her choices, and Samil made his. He took Bellamy with the intention of killing her, and for that reason alone, I will never regret his death. But it seems as though, at least according to Marcella, that accidentally killing Nora and his baby broke him, and after nearly losing my wife and children, I can’t begin to imagine that sort of agony.”
I release a breath, my head bowing.
The door slams open before I can say anything, and Gabe is there. “She’s escaped,” he announces. “I just got a notification that Marcella worked her way out of the cell, knocked the guard unconscious, took his gun, stole a car, and fled the palace.”
“What?” startles past my lips.
But Sebastian isn’t surprised. He simply checks his watch. “That was faster than I thought it would be. She’s very good,your Marcella.” He meets my eyes. “She didn’t come after me. She stole a gun and left.” He walks over to me and clasps my shoulder. “If you go after her, keep that in mind. I’m going to kiss my children, tell them about their new brother and sister, then return to my wife. Keep me updated and keep yourself safe above all else.”
With that, he leaves, and I can’t believe it. I can’t believe he knew this would happen and allowed it. Now that I think about it, we didn’t have anyone watching the cameras and only one young guard on her cell. This was intentional.
I look at Gabe. “Let’s go.”
“Your Highness?—”
“It’s not up for negotiation. I’m going.” Because I have to save her. I have to make sure she’s okay. I will take down Signoria Batorini or anyone else who hurt my girl, but I will fucking make sure she’s okay, and when this is all over, I’ll hold her captive in my arms and make her tell me all her secrets, and we’ll see where we come out.
Except now there’sa man on my right holding a gun to my temple. This wasn’t the most well-thought-out plan, and that seems to be how we do things lately. Unwisely. Rushing into a situation and praying it all goes to plan. That’s how we did it with Samil, that’s how we did it with Charlotte, and now this. Fuck!
“Marcella, what is this?” the man with the gun asks. His fucking hand is shaking, which isn’t what you want when you’re the one whose head it’s pointed at.
Marcella doesn’t look scared. She looks furious.
“Cristo, what are you doing?” she hisses under her breath, keeping her voice low. “This is the prince. Lower your weapon. I brought him here.”
Cristo’s eyes widen before he looks at Gabe, me, then back at her. “No.”
“Sì,” she persists, speaking in Italian with him. “Come on, Cristo. You know me. They’ve been digging into me. I lured them here so we could torture secrets out of them, and after, I was going to kill them. But if you shoot him, we won’t get any of those secrets we so desperately need.”
The man stands still, except for his shaky goddamn hand. “You brought them here for this?” He’s incredulous because it doesn’t exactly make a ton of sense.
She scoffs and rolls her eyes indignantly, working to sell it. “Yes. Of course I did. How many jobs have you been my driver to? You know how I do things.”
I don’t know how she does things. Jobs? What jobs? What the actual fuck is going on and who is this woman?
“I kill everyone. Don’t I? No loose ends. No trails.”
