We reach a door marked Grand Prix B and I check the time on my phone as we enter the dark room. We have twenty-one minutes to finish this job and get out of here.
Daimon hits the lights and the room is revealed to be a mid-sized conference hall with about a hundred chairs lined up facing a stage. He closes the door behind us and one of the bodyguards says something to Amica in French, probably expressing his concern about this discreet meeting. But she doesn’t have a chance to respond before Daimon and I shoot both bodyguards in the head.
Amica begins to scream, but Daimon quickly grabs her from behind and clasps his hand over her mouth. Andre-Louis looks shattered as I point my gun at his forehead and I can’t help feel as if I’ve disappointed him. I’m not the little girl he lost nineteen years ago. And I’m certainly not here for a loving reunion. I’m here for revenge.
My hand is steady as I look my father in the eye. “I’d feel sorry for you if it weren’t for your stupidity. What kind of man accepts his wife’s word that their child has died without any proof?”
“You do not understand. I was told that your body was so badly decomposed that seeing you would have haunted me. I knew nothing of you until one month ago.”
I shake my head in disgust as I search his pockets for a phone, then I slide it into my purse. “Get on your knees and keep your hands clasped on your head.”
He kneels before me with his hands resting on top of his perfect hair, then Daimon drags the princess over to his side.
“I’m going to remove my hand from your mouth and you’re going to be very quiet or Baby Alexandria is going to put a bullet in your brain.”
She nods and Daimon lets go of her mouth. She stands next to her kneeling husband looking very unsure about whether she should be more angry or frightened. She takes a few breaths and decides on angry.
“You won’t get out of this building alive. The cameras followed us into this room. They will come looking for us very soon.”
“Good, because what we have planned won’t take very long,” I reply with a smirk. “Get on your knees!”
She falls to her knees and her hands tremble as she laces them behind her head. “What do you want?”
Daimon tucks his gun into his waistband and pulls his phone out of his pocket to open up the app. “Oh, I’m thinking that Alex’s pain and suffering go far beyond any amount of money or sympathy you can give. But I think $50,000,000 would soften the blow.”
Amica laughs and Andre-Louis spouts off a few French expletives. “I’ll give you no such thing!” he shouts.
“Oh, yes, you will,” I say, pressing the muzzle of the silencer against his forehead. “And you’ll do it in the next two minutes or Princess Amica will lose her nose, like this.” I peel off the prosthetic bump on my nose and toss it over my shoulder. I look at the princess then back to Andre-Louis. “The resemblance is uncanny, don’t you think? And yet, somehow, I was the one deemed too hideous to exist. Believe me, the irony of this moment is not lost on me.”
“The password?” Daimon says, sounding almost bored with the conversation.
“Go to hell!” the prince shouts.
I toss Daimon my gun and he catches it in his hand, then he shoves the silencer inside the prince’s mouth. I draw my knife and grab the princess by the back of the neck as I hold the blade to her nose.
“Password?” I ask again.
“Give it to them!” she shrieks.
“Okay, okay!” the prince mumbles through a mouthful of metal.
Daimon pulls the gun out of his mouth and smiles. “Go ahead.”
Andre-Louis holds his hands up and his mouth is saying okay, but his eyes are saying I’m not giving you anything. The moment Daimon glances in my direction, the prince takes a hard swipe at the gun. It goes soaring out of Daimon’s hand and sliding over the carpet then underneath a row of chairs. Andre-Louis tries to get up off his knees, but Daimon lands a hard elbow across the prince’s cheek and he falls onto his face.
Daimon steps on the back of his neck to hold him still, and I recognize the seething anger in his eyes. “That was a very stupid thing to do, Andre-Louis. Right, chérie?”
I position myself behind the princess and she squirms as I lock my arms around her neck to get her in a sleeper hold. Within a few seconds she starts to go limp, so I let go immediately so she doesn’t lose consciousness. She falls onto all fours as she tries to get her bearings, but I pick her up and get her into a one-armed headlock. I press the flat side of the blade against her lip this time and she whimpers.
“Please don’t,” she mutters.
“If you don’t give us the password now,” I say, turning the blade so the sharp edge barely punctures her lip and I clamp my hand over her mouth as she cries out, “the princess will be completely unrecognizable when we leave here.”
“Please don’t do this,” the prince pleads. “We will set up an off-shore trust in your name. Just please don’t do this.”
“The password?” Daimon replies.
I cut a shallow slash across the princess’s right cheek and her piercing shrieks are muffled by my hand, but they’re sufficient to get the prince’s attention. He spouts off the password and Daimon proceeds to use a covert app to wire the funds to an off-shore account.
It takes a couple of minutes for the wire to go through, then we sit them back to back, gag them and tie them together.
I look into the princess’s eyes as I kneel before her. “If you try to put a hit on us ever again, you won’t see us coming next time. Understand?” She nods and I stand up straight, trying not to let the stress of the clock ticking down show on my face. “Someone wise once told me that nothing has caused more foolishness in this world than the pursuit of beauty… It’d serve you well to remember that.”
Chapter Nine Alex
We make it out of the Galerie Cristal without incident. But the moment we turn the corner, a couple of bodyguards at the end of the corridor stop us in our track. Daimon grabs my hand and yanks me in the other direction. My vision flickers as my heart rate speeds up, but we make it to the end of the corridor where we burst through a door into a concrete stairwell.
I kick off my heels and Daimon holds my hand to help me along as we race up the steps. The sound of the door exploding inward and footsteps below us gives me that extra push of adrenaline I need. We make it up to the helipad on the roof at the north end of the property just as Julien’s helicopter is touching down.
My hair whips my face and Daimon’s wig flies off as he race toward the chopper. Daimon and a guy inside the helicopter help me up. Once Daimon is inside, we take flight and my heart jumps at the sound of a gunshot hitting the side of the window. The glass shatters and everything goes black as someone falls on top of me.
No. Please don’t let it be Daimon.
Another gunshot clinks off the landing skids on the bottom of the helicopter, but I can feel myself being pressed down by the inertia as we continue to climb. Seconds feel like hours as I wait for the person on top of me to move. Finally, the person rolls off of me and onto the floor.
I open my eyes expecting to see Daimon dead on the floor, but he’s kneeling before me. “Are you okay? Were you hit?”
“Me? No. Were you hit?”
“Of course not,” he replies, as if I’ve asked a silly question. He’s Daimon Rousseau. He’s invincible.
I throw my arms around his neck and he laughs.
“We did it!” I shout to be heard over the rotors. “We did it!”
“Don’t get too excited. We still have to get out of Monaco air space without being shot down.” He lets me go and pushes me back so I can sit on the seat. “Put your seatbelt on. I have to talk to the pilot.”
He helps me get my seatbelt on, then he heads up front to sit in the co-pilot seat. I can hear him and Julien speaking French to each other and I realize just how important it is that I learn the language. It will be the first thing I do if we make it out of here alive. Well, after we finish executing the plan.