The Hero and the Hidden Royal - Renae Kaye Page 0,50

cage for the night with another pillow and blanket. They didn’t need the night goggles on him. He was completely visible.

The morning brought a breakfast of dry toast and coffee. Derek waited, knowing it wouldn’t be long now.

The first portent of something going wrong was Monica coming down the stairs with an apprehensive look on her face and reporting to Joe that Rico and Bruno hadn’t turned up for “work.”

Derek waited and printed the names in Cyrillic, a change from Greek to keep him from getting bored stiff. R-I-C-O. B-R-U-N-O.

Joe got angry and sent Salvatore to do the work. The gang was owed $500 from the bakery and $300 from the dress store, and they were supposed to lean on the Chinese restaurant owner and increase the fees by another $50 a week.

Derek happily sipped his coffee and printed it longhand in Latin. “Quingenti pecunia alter pistoribus.”

Then he grinned and wrote a note for himself. “Amare mei iratus mea maxime.”

My beloved will be extremely angry.

Salvatore returned after two hours, puffing his distress. “They all refused to pay me. All of them. The Chinese chef chased me off with a knife. The dress shop lady locked me inside the store, shouted to her customers that I was trying to rob her, and then five of them hit me with their handbags.”

Derek nodded to himself and printed neatly in the book, “Quod incipere seditionis animi.”

The beginning of the rebellion is starting.

“Fuck.” Joe turned to Derek and roared. “Do you know about this?”

Startled, Derek looked up from his notebook and didn’t have to feign surprise. “Me? I’m locked in a fucking cage. How in the hell am I supposed to know anything?”

Thumping the wire in his rage, Joe pointed a finger at him. “This better not be your boyfriend’s doing.”

Derek would lay money on the fact that it would be.

Joe didn’t wait for an answer, but grabbed a gun, stuffed it down the back of his trousers, and clicked his fingers. “Come on. I’ll go and take care of this. Salvatore? You stay here with Jerry and watch the little freak. Those people will learn they don’t mess with Joseph Miguel Tanner.” He stormed up the stairs with his followers trailing him.

Derek watched and then turned back to his lettering, going back to Greek purely for fun. J-E-R-R-Y. J-O-S-E-P-H M-I-G-U-E-L T-A-N-N-E-R.

“You okay, Sal?” Jerry asked his colleague.

“Yeah. Fucking bitches could hit hard with those handbags though.” He probed at a red spot forming on his cheek.

Derek bit his tongue to stop laughing, but then said, “That looks like a Gucci logo you have forming under your eye there.”

Salvatore snarled at him. “Just you wait until I get you out of that cage. Bruises don’t show on invisible people. I’ll turn you black and blue and it’s not going to matter to me.”

Derek sat up and made a show of stretching. “No. Of course that won’t matter to you. But I do know someone that it will matter to.”

“And who’s that, you little fucker?”

“You’ll find out the answer to that soon enough.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Salvatore yelled and smashed a chair into the cage. Derek flinched and went invisible. “Fucking freak. Come back here where I can see you. I’m going to kill you.”

Slowly Derek came back into sight—smirk on his face and all. “No. You won’t kill me. You won’t get a chance to kill me. You’re impotent. Joe has the key in his pocket and you can’t get me. And besides, what will Joe say when he gets back? Although,” Derek stopped and put a finger to his chin. “I don’t think Joe’s coming back. Oops.”

Salvatore threw himself against the cage. Derek watched, completely unafraid, and when Sam silently slipped down the stairs, unseen by the two men who were totally focused on the man in the cage, Derek smiled. “Oops, indeed.”

Sam didn’t waste his energy. His movements were precise, concise, and vicious. Salvatore and Jerry had guns, but they hardly had time to reach for them before they were hit with a barrage of hands and feet. They went down, but were used to the hard life of crime and got back up. It was two against one, but hardly a fair fight. Sam was focused and refused to hold back. Jerry succumbed to unconsciousness first, leaving the battered Salvatore to try to save himself. He couldn’t. As he slid down the wall and stayed collapsed, Sam spun to scan the room, looking for other dangers. When he could only