Road To Fire (Broken Crown Trilogy #1) - Maria Luis Page 0,16
ear and I can hear his every unsteady intake of breath. “Killing a queen in real life doesn’t work the way it does in film. In this life,” I murmur, applying enough pressure on his throat that his lungs inflate with need, “traitors are caught.”
Then dealt with.
But I need that goddamn phone first.
It took Damien only minutes to crack the mobile that Queen Margaret brought by Guy’s flat, before remotely putting a tracker on Barker’s phone. My younger brother is a genius. Had he been born in any other life but this one, I have no doubt that he would have wound up creating new technologies that people around the world could enjoy. New computer software, maybe. Something with artificial intelligence. Only, he’s not in that world—he’s stuck in this one, just like the rest of us—and so Holyrood is the only entity that reaps the benefits of Damien being the most brilliant person in any given room.
Hacking phones is child’s play for him.
Just as intimidation is for me.
Alfie Barker, older brother to the stable hand who tried to kill the queen last week, thrashes around beneath my weight. The queen was right about one thing: it hadn’t been the stable hand’s idea to orchestrate an assassination in the middle of her garden, in broad daylight. No, it was Barker’s.
Beneath my palm, I feel his Adam’s apple bob. Fear widens his gaze and his struggle gains renewed strength. “Please, please—”
Abruptly, his body goes slack.
His eyes roll into the back of his head.
Fingers fall limply from my wrist to the pavement.
I check the man’s pulse. Feel it flutter beneath my fingers. Not dead—not that I expected he would be. It takes more than ten seconds to strangle a person, and I’ve no interest in squeezing the life out of anyone who’ll prove more useful alive than dead.
“Priest!”
At the Scottish-accented voice rising above the cries of the protesters, I glance over my shoulder to see Hamish angling his way toward me. He palms an innocent bystander, pushing them out of his trajectory, until he’s standing an arm’s length away.
Close enough to speak but not close enough to imply that we know each other.
I cut the Holyrood agent another swift glance. Emblazoned across his chest are the words, I Stand With The People.
“It’s my protest shirt. Works like a bloody charm,” he says, plucking at the fabric when he notices the direction of my gaze. “Figured it’s best that I blend in with the crowd.”
One of us has to, and with my face, I’m more likely to take a turn in these people’s nightmares than look like a knight in shining armor. Drawing my hood up over my head, I take advantage of Barker being temporarily dead to the world and finish my pat down.
“Ye find it?” Hamish asks out of the corner of his mouth. “Because I’m still having flashbacks to that cavity search we did. Ye think you’ve done it all until ye’re bare-fisting a man the size of a mountain. Who the feck shoves a—”
“Enough.”
My brother-in-arms promptly shuts up.
A second later, I’m yanking up Barker’s joggers at the ankle and thanking a God I don’t believe in when I spot his phone tucked into his right tube sock. Not as stealthy as he probably imagined the hiding place would be.
I toss the mobile to Hamish. “Take this to Damien.”
Hamish’s stare drops to the man still comatose on the pavement. “Any preference on where I dump him?”
“Not dumping him,” I mutter, sliding an arm beneath Barker so I can haul him upright—bloody heavy bastard. “Not yet. Bring him to the Palace.”
We both know I’m not referring to Buckingham Palace.
Hamish looks from me to Barker then back again. “Ye sure that’s a good idea?”
Whether it’s a good idea or not doesn’t matter. The man won’t be leaving Holyrood’s compound in anything but a body bag, if that, and not until we’ve wrung him dry for information.
Instead of answering the question, I shuffle Barker’s weight in my arms. “Take him before we start attracting notice. I’ll meet you there when I can.”
“Always leaving me to do the hard work,” Hamish grumbles good-naturedly while he throws an arm around Barker’s waist. “See ye, brother.”
Hard work is stripping someone of their life when they don’t suit the cause. Hard work is taking the emotionally strenuous assignments so that your brothers, both those linked by blood and those by choice, won’t have that stain forever imprinted on their memories.