It’s an impossible situation.

We’re quiet for a minute.

My hand slides to my stomach, and I glance down at it. It’s rounder than it usually is, but I attributed that to being well fed.

Montes’s hand covers mine.

“You are so lucky I have other people to kill at the moment,” I say.

“I know.”

When I look up at him, I see he’s serious.

“How far along—?” I begin.

“About two months.”

I pinch my eyes shut. Fighting for your life has a way of throwing things into perspective. And really, what’s bothering me is not that Montes kept this from me; it’s that I never tried to prevent this from happening in the first place, and now that it has …

I have few fears left, the king gift-wrapped me a new one.

CHAPTER 24

The King

I’VE ORDERED EXECUTIONS, waged wars, withheld antidotes, neglected people into early graves, and now I’ve delivered death myself.

I didn’t see the soldiers as targets like Serenity advised. I saw them as people. And I didn’t distance myself from the violence like I know some killers do. I was there in that moment and I savored watching my enemies die.

Serenity is right to think I’m evil. The last salvaged bit of my soul burns for her. Other than that, I’m cruelty formed into the shape of a man, and I have no qualms about that.

“We need to leave the country immediately,” I say.

Serenity looks out the window and rubs her belly absently. It’s a knife to the gut, watching her come to terms with what is, and it’s making me want to pull over, hold her to me, and force her to rejoice over the news the way I did.

“The hangar may be compromised,” she says.

I nod. That very worry has plagued me since we left our villa.

Even if the airport isn’t compromised, we could be shot out of the sky.

“And you think all of this is because …” Serenity glances back down at her stomach.

She can’t bear to say it. As much as I would normally enjoy her being squeamish, right now it does nothing but worsen my mood. This is the last thing I want her uncomfortable with.

“You’re carrying our child. Is it really so hard to accept?”

She opens the hand that cradles her stomach, staring down at it like it holds the answers. “Yes,” she breathes. “I never wanted this.”

I give a caustic laugh that does nothing to lessen my blooming fury. “Well you better get used to it because neither of you are going anywhere.”

I am the king of the entire world; I picked her, a lowly former soldier and an emissary of one of the conquered lands to be my wife. Queen of the planet. Who is she to reject me and my child—her child?

She needs to fucking accept that this is the way things are.

Serenity

THE KING THINKS he can keep me and this child of ours around. I still can’t think about the situation without a fresh wave of nausea passing through me.

“If Estes hasn’t already heard that we’ve survived, he will soon,” I say.

I can tell the king hates that I keep changing the subject. I don’t give a damn that he thinks I’m being subversive. He has no clue just how terrible the storm inside me is right now. I’m keeping it together only because we’re in danger.

“I have a safe house an hour from here,” he says.

“Do any South Americans know about it?” I ask.

“Some. You think it’s compromised?”

“The WUN—the Americas—don’t work the way the Eastern Empire does. Everyone here can be bought for a price, and if Estes is willing to fly in a fighter jet to gun us down, he sure as hell will be willing to pay off people for information.”

“I can pay more,” Montes argues.

He’s thinking like a rich foreigner.

“Yes,” I agree, “but Estes lives here. You don’t. This is someone else’s turf and the people here play by their rules, not ours. Trust me when I say that when we’re this close to death, people here are going to remain loyal to Estes for fear of his future retribution.”

“Then we’re going to have to kill him,” Montes says, grim.

“Yes.” If we cut off the head of the snake, the orders stop trickling down to Estes’s loyalists.

“Let’s be clear about one thing,” he says, “my first goal is to get you out of here alive. All our actions will stem from that.”

I reappraise my husband. He didn’t include himself in that statement. If we weren’t in the middle of a dire situation, the magnitude of his words might’ve hit me a little harder.

Something worse than my nausea rises up my throat. Something worse than grief and violence.

I love this broken, broken creature, and damn him to the pits of hell for making me feel it when I should hate him all over again. If I could reason or suppress it away, I would. If I could crush it by sheer force of will, I would.

“Alright,” I say, working to make my voice even, “we’re clear about that.”

“We need to strike before Estes has time to regroup.”

Now this is the king I’m familiar with.

Already the humidity of this place has my hair sticking to the nape of my neck. I squint my eyes and look at the horizon. “Let’s go pay the bastard a house call.”

BY THE TIME we near Estes’s estate, Montes and I have plotted out a rough strategy to kill the man. One that involves liberal use of explosives.

Neither of us know whether the man will be inside, but smug assholes like Estes are fairly predictable. Right now I’m both desperate enough and sure enough to bet all our lives on his being home.

I move back to the bed of the jeep and swap out the machine gun for a rifle. “If we live through this, I’m having a stiff drink,” I mutter.

“Better ask those stars of yours to grant your wish, nire bihotza,” Montes calls out behind me. “I’m not letting you anywhere near the alcohol cabinet when we get back.”

I smirk. I don’t know if the king’s aware of it or not, but banter like this calms my nerves before fights.

The car curves down the road, and ahead of us I catch sight of watchtowers posted on either side of the entrance to Estes’s estate. Two grim-faced guards manage them.

“Are you ready?” I say, lining up my sights. Once I shoot, things will happen very quickly.