Heir in Exile (5 page)

The man she'd come to know, had lunched with, conversed with, confided in, would not do this to his brother. Yet there Mattias stood, looking for all the world as if everything was falling neatly into place.

“The cat seems to have got his tongue,” the leader said to Mattias, in regard to Sander's silence.

“He won't say anything. It's his way,” Mattias replied. His attention returned to Sander. “What the man says is true, brother. Unfortunately, Chey
will
find that unlucky fate as her own should you not return of your own accord and accept the terms of exile. The sooner, the better. Chey is scheduled to be transferred this evening to a holding cell before finding her way onto a bus bound inland in the morning. If I were you, I would get moving.”

Sander pushed up from the chair. Several armed men brought their guns up, muzzles aimed at Sander's chest.

“Careful boys,” Mattias chided. “Dead bodies are messy. See him out.”

Sander looked away from Mattias to Chey. For the first time, she was able to read the gleam in his eyes. His held promise of retribution, of rescue. He would do everything in his power to free her.

She inclined her head, a subtle motion of acknowledgment. Sander turned his gaze on Mattias once more as he started for the door of the suite. He pointed a finger at his brother, the kind of gesture that also promised retribution.

Mattias, if Sander's gesture could be believed, had not seen the last of him.

Chey felt sick. Her stomach churned and clenched. She watched Sander depart the room with two armed men in his wake. They kept a careful distance, leaving the door open behind them. Once Sander was on the elevator heading down, the men returned to stand guard with the others.

“All right then. This just got easier,” Mattias said. He pushed up from his lean. “Have her transferred as we discussed,” he ordered the leader. “Report to me as soon as she's gone in the morning.”

“Yes sir.” The leader gestured to the man closest to Chey's chair.

“Let's go,
Princess,”
the man said. He hauled Chey to her feet with a rough grasp of her elbow. His taunt over a title she would never have drew a derisive laugh from the others. The men snorted and muttered unkind things about how much time she would soon be spending on her back.

Swallowing bile, Chey stabbed a hot look of anger at Mattias. He smirked with half his mouth, apparently nonplussed at the accusation in her gaze.

Two of the men escorted Chey out of the suite, past the foyer and the elevator bank, to a locked door leading to the utility staircase. One produced a key and guided her onto a dimly lit landing.

They were taking no chances allowing her anywhere near the public or other hotel employees. She started down the metal stairs; thirty-five floors seemed an impossible descent in these heels. Stumbling, one of the men snarled, gripped her elbow tighter, and righted her balance.

“Try anything funny and you
will
eat a bullet,” he said. “Messy dead bodies or not.”

Chey decided Sander had the right of it, and remained silent. She concentrated on getting down the steps one at a time without falling and breaking her neck. At some point, her hands had started shaking. The nausea was worse, causing an uncomfortable lump of bile to rise up the back of her throat.

What would happen now? Would Sander call for reinforcements once he was in the hotel lobby? She'd been surprised that the men had allowed him to go free, with no escort and no guard. Perhaps that would have been too risky, given Sander's propensity for self defense. Or, maybe, they thought he would do exactly as commanded to keep her safe. By the time he left Latvala after being exiled, she would be too far gone for Sander to find.

After three floors, one of the men guided her into one of the utility elevators only used by hotel employees. The gunmetal gray interior lacked the polish and opulence of the others used by guests. It was a spartan carriage with plain buttons and bare metal walls.

Chey watched the numbers illuminate on their way down. It didn't stop until a light pinged on over a button marked
G.
The doors opened onto a broad basement garage obviously sectioned off for special deliveries. Here there were vans and sedans with the hotel logo on the doors instead of luxury vehicles that might have belonged to guests. That section was somewhere out of sight, likely accessed by the V.I.P. parking attendants rather than regular customers.

Screaming would do her no good here. Even if she did shout in the hope of attracting an employees attention, she feared another blow to the head might knock her completely out. She wanted to be aware and coherent so she could memorize the route the men took.

Bustled toward a waiting van, the men paused long enough to secure her wrists in front of her with a length of thin rope. After the sliding side door opened, she found herself pushed into a seat. At every opportunity, she looked for escape. Waited for their attention to divert just enough to make a break. A break that never came. The men hovered too close, smothered her with their bodies, guns openly displayed.

Upright in the seat, Chey wondered where she would be taken from here. Blinking away the sting of tears, she focused instead on her anger. Anger helped keep the panic at bay. There was still time. Sander would reorganize, find help, and locate her before any transfer took place in the morning. Never mind that she didn't intend to be a passive participant. There
would
be an opportunity, at some point, and she intended to exploit it for all she was worth. The men would get lazy, or distracted, and she meant to use the lapse against them.

In the meantime, she stared out the windows as the van exited from the garage onto the street. She intended to keep track of the turns so that she might find her way back here again, or at least use the hotel as a point of reference should she go on the run.

Darkness made it difficult. The van turned three times, then hooked two lefts at alternating stop lights. Chey twisted in the seat, looking back, fixing the route in her mind. Already it was a bit hazy. Familiar landmarks she might have recognized from her earlier outing couldn't all be seen under the cloak of night, leaving her to fixate on clusters of buildings or lighted signs instead.

Damn. The van took a right. A left.

By then, her confusion was complete.

Frustrated, she clenched her teeth until her jaw hurt. Her gaze dropped to the floor of the van in search of something, anything, to use as a weapon. The only thing she saw was a collapsible umbrella.

Fat lot of good that would do her. It was small, to boot, without even a spiked tip to use for stabbing. She wondered if the handle was thick enough to cause a decent blow if she struck the driver or passenger with it.

In the meantime, she worked at the rope binding her wrists. The men hadn't been very thorough in this, at least, and the more she wriggled her hands, the looser it became. Small favors. She hid the action from the driver as best as she could. He kept glancing in the rear view mirror, shifty-eyed and menacing.

A moment after that, she got the rope completely free of her wrists. That was when the idea to use the rope struck. She could choke the driver, cause him to crash, and then, with any luck, she might escape before the men could detain her.

Discreetly, she toed off the heels. They would only hinder her later. If she got desperate, she might use one. Aim for the eye or the jugular.

Before she could solidify her plans and act, the driver spat a curse at the windshield.

Chey looked up from her lap, fearing the driver had seen her free the ropes from her hands.

With a jolt, the van picked up speed. A lot of speed. The driver wasn't paying attention to her, but something behind on the road.

Chey twisted around to glance back.

A sleek black SUV was coming up fast, a heavy duty grill guard in place. It impacted the back bumper of the van, sending the vehicle into a small fishtail.

Chey gasped. Could it be Sander already? How in the world had he found them?

The driver of the van cursed again, this time in another language, and corrected the fishtail. He sped ahead, stomping the gas pedal.

Chey decided it was now or never. If it was Sander, the least she could do was help slow the van down. Wrapping each end of the rope around her hands, she lurched forward and hooked it around the driver's neck. She jerked back with all her might, one foot braced against the seat.

In the next second, all hell broke loose.

. . .

The van swerved hard to the right, throwing Chey's balance off. Overcompensating, the struggling, choking driver veered back the other way, grappling with the steering wheel while attempting to reach back and grab Chey's arm.

Tenacious, she hung on. Right up until the passenger clocked her in the cheekbone with his elbow. Stunned, she slumped back against the seat, losing her grip on the rope.

The SUV banged into the back of the van again, harder this time.

Shouting curses, red faced, the driver whipped the wheel between his hands, left and right, fighting to regain control. The van shot forward again and screeched into a hard right turn at the looming stoplight.

Chey reached down, feeling around for the umbrella, fending off the irate passenger who had twisted between the seats to try and subdue her. He snatched her hair, eliciting a cry of pain. She scrabbled for his eyes with her fingers, returning the favor. Bastard.

She scratched harder while unsnapping the clasp on the umbrella. Shoving it up between the seats, she pressed the button and the thing shot open, causing the passenger to fall back against the dashboard. Using the sharp little ends, Chey caught some on the driver's face and pulled.

Lights flashed through the back windshield as the SUV closed in. This time, the SUV pulled alongside in the other lane and rammed the van on the driver's side.

Chey yelped and dropped the umbrella.

The next thing she knew, she was wedged between the front seats, console digging into her ribs. Disoriented, she felt around for a hold on something. Anything.

What had just happened? The van was no longer moving. She heard a hiss, and ticking, and a buzz that replaced it in her ears. Chey felt like she was underwater, moving much slower than she thought she was.

The side door of the van opened with a screech of metal. Two men in suits reached in to extract Chey from the seats, hands gentle yet firm. One of the men fished a phone out of the driver's pocket before they were through.

“What happened? Sander?” Chey sought their faces as they pulled her free of the van and got her feet on the ground. Woozy, she stumbled. A hand shot out to wrap her waist and provide something sturdy to lean on. She saw the van had crashed into a lamp post, the entire hood crumpled in over the engine. The driver and passenger were slumped against airbags, unconscious.

Guiding her forward to the SUV that had sustained minimal damage thanks to the grill guard, the suited men loaded her into the back seat with all due haste. One climbed into the front seat, another behind.

Chey glanced across the seat.

Instead of Sander, she found herself staring at Mattias.

. . .

Gone was the aloof man who had appeared so indifferent in the hotel room. This Mattias wore concern in his dark eyes and a vague frown on his brow. Chey stared at him, head swimming from the impact of the van with the lamppost. She didn't even remember the crash.

“Are you all right?” Mattias asked. “We have a lot to discuss. Things, obviously, are not what they appear to be.”

“Obviously,” Chey said. She didn't know if she was all right or not. Her body was numb, her thoughts scattered. She didn't know who to trust or whether she should be trying to escape yet again.

“It's a long story, one I will fill you in on when we meet up with Sander.”

“We're meeting up with Sander? Was he in on this, too? I don't understand.” Nothing made sense to Chey. It was too complicated, too perverse. One brother pitted against the other, a King with murder on his mind, an heir headed for exile.

“No, he knew nothing. It had to be this way. I needed the men in the hotel room to report back to the King—and for the King to believe them. It had to be real, at least in the moment.” Mattias paused to touch her shoulder, a gentle splay of masculine fingers. “I had men waiting to intercept Sander before he left the hotel. We're meeting up at another hotel not far.”

“Someone could have gotten killed,” she snapped, patience at an end. She didn't brush off Mattias's hand, even if she wasn't sure she could trust him.

“Yes. Any one of us, should the King have discovered my duplicity. We'll be there shortly.” Mattias removed his touch and engaged the driver in their mother tongue.

Chey didn't know what to think. She stared out the window, rubbing her ribs with a palm. There would be bruises, no doubt. Otherwise, a spot on her leg hurt, and one of her shoulders, but that was all. No blood that she could see. The seats had spared her the worst of it.

Brooding, she crossed her arms over her middle and watched the glittering city of Dubai fly by out the windows. She couldn't appreciate the glamor or the beauty after a night like tonight. And it wasn't just tonight. It was the entire thing. The whole shebang.