EVIL VILLAIN (The Royal Court #3) - Rebel Hart Page 0,51

up out of his seat, and the smile he got was blinding and bright. “Anisa!” He damn near threw himself into a hug and the woman squeezed him close, reminding me of a mother holding her son. The man slid over and put his hand on Nathan’s shoulder, and Nathan unfurled from the woman he’d called Anisa, and clasped into a hug with the man. “Cobalt.”

“Man, you’ve gotten tall. It’s been too long,” he said.

Colette balanced her head in her hands and smiled at the interaction. “The parents he deserves,” she whispered to herself, and it actually brought a tear to my eyes. There were people out there who loved Nathan the way he deserved. That made me happier than words could express.

“My god, is that Nikki?” Anisa said, and Nikita nodded. “Oh my god. You look beautiful! Look, Cobalt.” Then her eyes scanned further. “And Kyle!”

Kyle’s jaw dropped. “Wow! Oh my god. Anisa. Cobalt. It’s been… years.”

Nikita and Kyle were the two people that Nathan knew even from before starting The Royal Court, so it made sense that they’d know them as well.

Anisa and Cobalt settled down into the two empty chairs and Nathan returned to his seat. “Guys, this beauty here is Anisa, and this titan of a man is Cobalt. They used to work for my dad, but they left his employ after seeing how he treated me.”

“Nathan was just this cute, innocent little thing, and that man was destroying him,” Anisa said. “I couldn’t stand by and watch it. I would have done anything to take him with me.”

“He turned out okay though,” Cobalt said. “I’ll admit, when you called us, we lost our minds. I don’t think Anisa stopped crying for two days.”

“Well, I have these people to thank for that.” He set his hand on Nikita’s. “You guys know Nikki, and we’re together now.”

“Seriously?!” Anisa yelped. “Yay!”

“Next to her is her best friend Jaxon, his girl and my friend Colette next to him. You remember Kyle, and that’s my friend Brayden next to him. Then my friend Alistair and his girlfriend Avery.” He pointed at me. “That ray of sunshine there is like a sister to me, Cherri.” Both Anisa and Cobalt shifted a little at my name, but continued to smile and nodded at me. “And then next to her is my friend Sicily.”

“That’s right. I’m his friend. Me. Sicily,” Sicily said.

“That can still change,” Nathan joked.

Sicily held up his hands. “Sorry.”

“Anisa is a military war hero who took shrapnel in the eye defending her platoon. She’s the strongest person I know, and when my father was trying to torture me, she was taking care of me. She’d sneak me candy and toys. I loved it,” Nathan explained. “Cobalt… well, no one really knows what he did, but I did manage to get out of him once that he may have been in the Secret Service.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny,” Cobalt said, and then winked.

“About five years ago, they left my dad’s employ, right before I started The Royal Court. Anisa tried to keep up with me, but my dad wouldn’t let her. Then when we trapped those two goons a couple of months ago, I called her for help,” Nathan explained.

“Ah, so that’s where they went,” Avery said.

Nathan crossed his hands. “It was a quick, darkened exchange, so I didn’t get to really see or say hi to them, and they’ve been keeping them for me, but I figured it was finally time to come together and compare notes, given that all of our trails seem to be running cold.”

Anisa frowned. “I tried to tell you we don’t have much. Those guys are pretty tight-lipped.”

“I know, but I wanted to see you, and I figured it couldn’t hurt to all toss some stuff around. Who knows, you guys could have a single piece of information that would answer a question we have.” He smiled at Anisa. “Plus I wanted to see you,” he repeated, earning himself a kiss on the cheek. “I hope it’s okay, but I didn’t want anyone just wandering back while we’re talking and hearing something they shouldn’t, so I just ordered large portions of their four main dishes to share. I said they could start them once the last two guests arrived, so they should be out soon.”

Over the course of the next hour, Anisa and Cobalt explained all of the information they’d managed to gather from the two men that had attacked us, whom they’d been