Royal Line by Carrie Ryan (online e book reading txt) 📕

even if only for just a second. Like the time Wilder had broken her priceless Ming vase, one that she’d acquired with her own money after Uncle George had died. She had been furious. Part of me thought that she would actually hit him or something, although, given what was going on now, that possibility probably hadn’t been too far off.

I needed to get away, and if making her talk long enough so I could form a plan would work, I’d keep going. “Look, Aunt Rebecca, I know you’ve had a sad, sad life. You didn’t get to rule like you thought you should. Too bad. But doing all of this is not going to change who you are inside. It won’t make you any less miserable. You’ve believed that you were unlovable your whole life, and well, you’ve proven it now.”

I didn’t see it coming, didn’t anticipate it and couldn’t brace for it. And the sharp blow she dealt me exploded like a bomb inside my head and sent the edges of my vision graying as I once again slumped forward on my seat.

Chapter 17 Kannon

I never expected her.

My heart was doing its level best to jump outside of my body.

You idiot. You sent her out running away from you. And now she’s gone. 

My hands gripped the steering wheel tighter as I peeled out onto the main road. Next to me, Olly clutched at the door handle. “Jesus fucking Christ, boss, I thought the goal was to save Sparrow and London, not die on the way there.”

I shot him a withering glance. “You have something else to say?”

As one hand death-gripped the door and the other clutched his laptop, he shook his head. “Nope. Carry on.”

I held back a snarl. “Where is her beacon?”

“It’s stopped right now.” He frowned as he peered closer. “Looks like it’s headed toward the airport.”

“If they’re headed to the airport, they must have some big plans in place.” This scheme had been well thought out, or at least sufficient enough to get by us. Damn it.

“I don’t know. But judging by the blood we found by the pool house, one of them is in nasty shape. Either that or Sparrow took a piece of someone’s ass. But if she was okay, she would have radioed in. The blood has to belong to one of them. Wherever the hell she is, we need to fucking find her soon. There was too much blood there, Kannon.”

My heart continued to hammer. The spike of adrenaline that was normally a boon in times of crisis was instead making my head feel cloudy and foggy, and I had that brassy taste of fear and worry in my mouth.

I knew that taste well. It was the same one I’d had when Phoebe was murdered.

Is that going to help right now?

No, it wasn’t going to help.

What would help was getting to her as fast as possible. And when we did, I would grovel the shit out of this. I’d fucked up. Pulling away had been the wrong move. Making her think I didn’t want her had been absolutely the wrong move. I’d hurt her, and it was a move I could have killed myself for.

I wanted a chance to fix it, but I had to find her first.

Olly was busy in the passenger seat as he alternated between making sure that London’s tracker hadn’t moved and checking weapons. At his feet were boxes of ammo and our vests. I watched as he methodically clipped in ammunition, checked magazines, and made sure our vests were fully loaded with everything we would need for a small arsenal. I didn’t know how many men we were going to face or who exactly had taken her, but I made a call to some friends of mine that had a security firm in New York. They had international agents, and I put out the SOS and asked if they had anyone close by to please send them in.

“Has the beacon moved?”

Olly’s voice was quiet. “No. They’ve stopped. Looks like they are at Le Bourget Airport for private planes.”

My hands worked the steering wheel, sliding back and forth, and back and forth. It didn’t make any fucking sense. Why the hell would someone not just kill her where she was? Why not leave Sparrow behind?

Olly was obviously running those same questions through his mind. “Doesn’t something bother you about all of this?”

I lifted my brow. “What do you mean?”

He frowned at me. “None of this shit makes any sense.”

“We’re on the same path, Olly. For starters, it’s like London fell into my lap, literally. And if I hadn’t seen someone try and kill her with my own two eyes, I’d take this whole situation with a good dose of skepticism. I know she doesn’t want us to look at her brothers, and honestly, they have nothing to gain if she dies. If this law goes into effect, her brother, the king, loses everything. But they are the only ones who knew where she was going.”

Olly nodded. “The problem is that everything I was able to find on the family, including details about the obscure law, seems to prove they didn’t know anything about it until recently as there have been zero moves on their part to stop it from happening. Including the king. He’s been the damn monarch for years. Plenty of time to make an heir, unless he can’t. Then there are the other brothers, one of whom obviously has been in the press a lot, Breck. I’m surprised he doesn’t have any children anywhere, but currently, there are none we’re aware of. If they are responsible for this, it makes no sense they’d let her leave the country in the first place.”

“That’s exactly it. There must be something we’re missing.”

Olly shrugged. “Unless they needed it to look like an accident. You said you found her in a ravine on the side of the road, right? And then, when you pulled her out,