Road To Fire (Broken Crown Trilogy #1) - Maria Luis Page 0,128

to freeze mid-step when I spot a familiar car parked along the curb. Eyes narrowing, I move to the left, searching for the number plate.

Isla’s car.

Something twists inside me, all-consuming and devastating, all at once. If she’s in there, I’m going to . . . to—

Kiss her.

Demand that she never leave me.

—rip the passenger’s side door open, fuming.

At the sight of me, Peter practically spills out of his seat. “Bloody hell! What are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here?” I jab a thumb into my chest, bending low so I can look him in the eye. “What the fuck are you—”

“Language, Saxon,” quips a female voice from the backseat. Josie. If I ever reproduce, I pray not to have a daughter like her. Full of sarcasm. Headstrong. On second thought, she’s a younger version of her older sister. And when have you ever thought about children of your own?

Swallowing a hot retort, I return my attention to Isla’s brother. “You’re supposed to be hundreds of miles away right now. On the other blasted side of the island. Anywhere, anywhere, but here.”

Peter folds his lanky arms across his chest. “She heard what you did.”

I stare at him, unblinking. “I stuck her in a jail cell then left her to die.”

“You didn’t, though,” Josie pipes up, sticking her face between her brother’s seat and the open door. “Because you love her, which is clearly the only reason why you told the world that you killed that priest when you didn’t.”

“I don’t—”

“You have hearts in your eyes right now,” Josie adds, cutting me off. Bravely, she flicks her finger near my face, twirling it in a half-circle. “Big pink ones. Googly-eyed ones.”

Do I?

The fact that I’m considering that she might be right has my mouth tugging to one side. “I’m not going to answer that.”

“Because it’s true.”

“Because I—”

“We came because she figured one of the staff must have your mobile number.” The youngest Quinn blinks up at me, wriggling her brows. “She misses you. She hasn’t bathed in days.”

Peter smacks a palm over her forehead, gently shoving his sister into the backseat. “Don’t tell her we mentioned the bathing thing. She’ll never forgive us.”

She misses you.

Bloody fucking hell. I’m a total goner. She’s turned me into a sap—the sick, annoying kind, at that—and I find my palm rubbing my chest, right over my heart. Happiness, something so entirely elusive, settles within me. Unicorns. Treasure chests of gold. I could die here, in this moment, and I would at least know what it feels like to be adored.

She didn’t bathe because she missed me.

My mouth curves upward, and though I catch Peter’s poorly concealed blanching, I don’t take offense. Isla wants me just fine, deformed upper lip and all.

“I’ll get her now,” I say, pulling back. “Two minutes.”

Isla shouldn’t be anywhere near London, but she’s single-handedly weakened my resolve. She’s here. I’m here. And, clearly, there’s no choice left on the docket but to kiss the hell out of her.

Releasing an aggrieved sigh, Josie mutters, “We’ll be here. As was already promised.”

Long strides bring me to the front door of The Bell & Hand, and I experience only a moment of self-doubt when I step inside. Damien may be battling a severe case of regret over me leaving Holyrood but the same can’t be said for our older brother. In the days since I left the Palace, I’ve not heard a single word from him.

No phone calls. No text messages. Not even an email.

This pub was never Damien’s passion, but it was mine and Guy’s. We bled hours into The Bell & Hand. Found the best chefs in the area. Hired waitstaff that could have hacked it at London’s premiere restaurants, had they ever decided to leave us. Though it started as nothing more than a front to entice anti-loyalists into our midst, The Bell & Hand was our tiny slice of normal. Here, we were business owners. Here, we were brothers—not spies for the Crown.

Will Guy run it on his own?

Is he here now, upstairs in his flat?

My heart doesn’t race. My palms don’t sweat. But I’m acutely aware of a . . . a sort of loss that threads through my body. The same that I felt when Mum took her last breath. Back then, at nine, I’d turned to my older brother and soaked his shirt through with my tears.

This time, I don’t cry.

“Saxon? Is that you?”

I turn at the sound of my name, and find one of my servers,