Broken Ties (18 page)

“Did they have any idea why he took her?”

“They weren’t sure, but they think maybe he’s going to force her to marry him.”

“He can’t force her to marry him,” Levi assured Teddy and himself. “She is a grown woman, a United States citizen. She can make her own decisions about who she’ll marry.”

“If he gets her to Medelia, she’ll have to. He’s her fiancé there, and according to their law she has no choice in the matter.”

Up ahead the Land Rover darted out from a side road and came to a stop in front of Philippe’s vehicle. The big sedan swerved, lost traction, and spun about before landing in the ditch on its side.

His heart dropped, and he felt physically ill as he rushed toward the upset car. As they neared, the driver lifted himself out of the window, his arm streaked with blood and his face specked with tiny glass cuts. He slid from the car, and Levi waited for Sidra to follow him, but there was no further movement.

“Where is she?” Teddy’s voice was sharp and panicked as Levi slammed on the brakes and leapt from the car.

“Sidra!” Her name roared from his lips, and he pounded across the road, desperate to get to her before it was too late. If it wasn’t already too late. The thought was enough to make him stumble, but he pushed forward, unwilling to let her stay there, injured, one moment longer.

He threw himself over the car door, peering into the back seat, and his eyes took in what his mind could not comprehend. The car was completely empty.

He turned to the driver, smashing his fist into his face before anyone could stop him. The man staggered backwards, and Levi was on him in an instant, forcing him to the ground and pinning him there with his hand on his throat.

“Where is she?” he demanded, but the man stared at him blankly. “Where the hell is she, damn it?”

The man’s eyes were wide with fear, and he shook his head, obviously not understanding Levi’s words.

Levi motioned toward Gabriel and Miriam. “One of you get over here now.”

He wasn’t all that surprised when it was Miriam’s high-heeled feet that came into his line of vision.

“Ask him where she is.”

She and the man exchanged words.

“He says he doesn’t know,” she translated. “But I think he’s lying.”

“Tell him that.”

As she spoke again, Levi’s hand tightened, and the driver’s reddened face turned nearly purple as his eyes rolled in fear.

She spoke again, sharper, angrier, with the authority Levi would expect her to have over a citizen of her country. She might not be queen but she was most certainly royalty, and the man seemed to recognize her authority and the very real danger he was in. He nodded his head, clawing at Levi’s hand, and it loosened ever so slightly. He gulped air as Miriam spoke to him again, and he wheezed out an answer to her question.

“What did he say?” Levi asked.

“He said she is in another car and is being taken to the airport in Jacksonville. There is a flight to Paris leaving tonight.”

The man continued to babble on, as if unable to stop now that he had started. Miriam translated without a hint of the emotion the man displayed.

“He says there is an old lady in the trunk of the car they are in. If she is not already dead, she will be before they reach Jacksonville. They kidnapped her three days ago from a nursing facility.”

Shocked by the news, Levi lifted his gaze to her, struck by how eyes nearly identical to Sidra’s could remain so cold and unaffected by the words she spoke. She arched one delicate eyebrow. “Do you know who she is?”

“Her name is Carlotta Strauss. She was Sidra’s caseworker once she entered the foster system.”

“We must go!” Gabriel exclaimed. He had been on his cell phone but now motioned wildly. “Leave him be. There’s nothing to be gained from him, and we must go at once.”

“What is it, Gabriel?” Miriam snapped, grabbing him by the arms. “What has happened?”

“I just spoke with Estella. Philippe Beauchene has been at the castle since Monday. There is no way he is in America.”

“Who has Sidra, then?” Levi’s gaze shot to the man lying on the ground and he barked out a question for Miriam to interpret.

“Who do you work for?”

The man shrugged helplessly.

“He has to know something,” Levi growled. “What does the man look like?”

“Ask him the man’s eye color,” Gabriel said. “That will tell us if we’re dealing with him or not.”

“Him who? What haven’t you told me?” Levi’s eyes swung between Sidra’s cousins.

“Ask him!” Gabriel hissed. “We must go!”

“
Quelle couleur yeux a-t-il?
” Miriam demanded.

“
Vert.
”

Levi knew what he meant even before Miriam translated.
Green eyes
.

“Vincente Mateo?” There was no mistaking Miriam’s surprise. “He is here?”

“Who the hell is Vincente Mateo?” Levi snapped, meeting her eyes. A chill rushed through him as she answered.

“A man who is a far larger threat to Sidra than anyone else could ever be.”

Chapter Twenty

“Take me home, now!” Sidra ordered.

“It is not your home, and I will not take you there.”

She turned and grasped the door latch beside her. It clicked uselessly, and panic welled inside her. She beat at the window, but to no avail. There was no escaping as he moved toward her, wrapped an arm around her, and pulled her back against him.

“Let go of me,” she said, but he remained silent, letting his arm hook around her neck and tighten slightly. “Let go!”

The arm tightened more and more, until she could barely breathe, and her head spun dizzily.

“Please,” she whispered as darkness encroached on her vision.

He loosened his grip just before she lost consciousness, and she slid as far away from him as possible.

“I will never marry you,” she spat.

His hand shot out, tangling in her hair to drag her face to his.

“Once you are my queen, you will pay the price for disobedience. Until then, I will enjoy having my men mete it out to your lover. You should have listened to your old friend, Princess. She knows well what horror can be inflicted on the innocent.” He leaned forward, so their lips were nearly touching, and in the language of their country he spoke the words that had chilled her heart once before. “
They will torture your lover, pluck out his eyes, and take his tongue.”

“How do you know that?” she cried, fear shooting through her as he pushed her away from him and leaned back against the seat, a smug, hateful smile playing about his mouth. “What did you do to her?”

“Nothing she didn’t expect, my love.”

Bile rose in her throat, and she shook her head in disbelief.

“She is safe there in the home. You could never have gotten to her.”

He chuckled. “Of course I could. After all, poor Mrs. Taylor is a dear old aunt of my mother’s. Both women were overjoyed to see me. I believe Mrs. Strauss entertained visitors only moments before I arrived. I heard her speaking to them as I waited in the hall.”

“Did you kill her?” Her voice shook with grief and fear, despite her best efforts to control it.

“What do you think?”

“I think you are a hateful coward, afraid of a small, frightened, old woman, and you would have sent someone else to do your dirty work.”

His blow sent her head snapping back.

“That is your warning, Princess. Do not make me angry again.”

Every fiber of her being trembled with fear, but she forced herself to look him in the eyes. “Do you really think I will marry you now that I know what kind of man you are?”

“Why, yes,” he said. “I do believe you will.”

He ordered the driver to stop, and when they did, he pulled her from the car and around to the trunk. The driver opened it, and she stared in horror at the small, bleeding woman confined within. Confused blue eyes were wide above the duct tape that covered her mouth. It was a testament to her dementia that she didn’t appear to be afraid at all, only lay there in the trunk as if she thought she might belong there but couldn’t remember why.

“Take the tape off her mouth,” Sidra pleaded. “Please, I want to speak with her.”

He nodded, and the driver jerked it off, taking a layer of thin aged skin with it so that blood trickled over the pale lips and chin.

Sidra turned and yanked the handkerchief from Philippe’s pocket. She used it to gently dab the blood from Carlotta’s mouth.

“Are you okay?” she asked in their native language.

“Yes, my queen,” the woman answered.

“I am not the queen,” she said.

“You will be.” Her gaze fell on Philippe. “He is not the king. He will never be the king.”

“Silence, you crazed old hag!” he yelled, his hand poised to strike her. Sidra stepped between them and, with every ounce of authority in her body, spoke.

“You will not strike her,” she told him. “You will have your men untie her, and she will ride in the car with us.”

“You are in no position to give orders, my love.”

“I will give this order, and you will obey. Otherwise, you will need to kill us both right now. For I will never go with you willingly, should you kill Carlotta.”

Piercing eyes searched hers, as if gauging her sincerity. At last, he motioned toward the trunk. “Untie the old woman. She will ride with us in the car,” he told the driver, grasping Sidra’s arm in a painful, viselike grip.

Once in the car, Carlotta kissed Sidra’s hands and cheeks, overjoyed to see the woman she recognized as royalty instead of the child she had rescued so many years ago.

“Move back,” Philippe said, nudging Carlotta’s leg with his shoe. She winced but remained silent as she obeyed, moving away from Sidra with her head bowed in shame.

“Don’t touch her again!” Sidra cried.

His shoe caught Sidra in the leg this time, and she gasped in pain.

“You seem to have forgotten who is in charge here, Princess,” he told her. “We are playing by my rules now.”

“When the little princess came, she was small and scared, covered with blood and tears. They followed her here, killed the others, and they meant to have the child as well.”

“She’s talking about me,” Sidra breathed, leaning forward so she wouldn’t miss a word of what Carlotta was saying.

“Yes, of course, she is,” Philippe agreed.

“Who killed them, Carlotta?” Sidra prodded. “Who is after me?”

“They were horrible people, cruel and cold. They were determined they would have her. They killed my poor, sweet sister and left her body in the forest. They tried to find the child, but I had already found her and turned her into an American.” Her thin pale lips turned up in a triumphant smile. “They would never recognize her as our princess.”

“And yet they found her.”

Carlotta’s head snapped around at Philippe’s observation, and her eyes blazed to life.

“Mateo!” She spat the word out as if it disgusted her, and Philippe’s eyes grew even colder.

Just as suddenly as her moments of lucidity began, they ended, and Carlotta was lost once again. She turned her face away from them, seemingly fascinated by the scenery that flew by.

“What is Mateo?” Sidra asked him.

He shrugged nonchalantly.

“It is the name of an old and proud family in Medelia. Distant cousins of your mother’s. Some say they should have ruled, but they were forced from power when the only girl child in their line was one born out of wedlock. Apparently, bastards can’t be queen.” He met her eyes, a dark warning within their depths. “Mateo is the name of the people who many suspected of your abduction. I believe Miriam and Gabriel discussed the theory with you.”

“Yes, but I don’t understand,” she said. “Why would the Mateos have abducted me?”

“One of their young men, Jerald Mateo, was your fiancé. He died when he was only seventeen. Instead of honoring the bond between the families, your father betrothed you to another before Jerald was even buried.”

“To you, you mean?”

He shook his head, and she gasped as she suddenly realized what he was saying.

“You are not Philippe Beauchene!”

“No. Philippe is still safe in Medelia, believing you are dead, and courting your cousin Estella. They have no idea you are alive after all these years and that, very shortly, you will be my bride.”

“And if I refuse to marry you?”

“You, the old woman, and your lover will die.”

****

Levi had never felt so helpless in his life. The ride to Jacksonville was the longest five hours of his life, and by the time they pulled into the airport terminal, he felt as if he’d run the entire way. His heart seemed to have ceased beating hours ago, and it now sat in a clenched, painful knot in his chest.

Miriam and Gabrielle had spent the first three hours detailing the cruelty of the Mateo family and how desperate Sidra’s parents had been to keep her out of their clutches.

“By the time Jerald died, Jeanne and Rupert realized they could not let Sidra marry the next Mateo brother,” Miriam explained. “Jerald’s meanness and delusions had been blamed on his illness, but his younger brother, Vincente, had no such excuse. They say he has been cruel and filled with the lust for power since infancy. He will stop at nothing to gain the power he would have as king.”

“But he is not her fiancé. How can he force her to marry him?”

“He will use the old woman. She will be his leverage and his tool to make Sidra do whatever it is he wants her to do.”

Levi knew it was a cunningly effective tool.

“The Mateos are cousins who were once set to inherit the crown. We share a common ancestor, a queen of Medelia who had two daughters. The younger was Jeanette, my great-grandmother. The older was the Mateos’ great-grandmother. She had only one child, a son. His only child was an illegitimate daughter, born to a girl in their village. That child could never be queen, even though the Mateos believe she should have been. As it was, our great-grandmother had three female children, the youngest was my grandmother and the oldest was grandmother to Jeanne, Sidra’s mother. The crown has been passed down to every oldest daughter for the last three generations and will go to the fourth when Sidra becomes queen.”