ROYAL BRIDE (A Billionaire Bad Boy Romance) (18 page)

ANTONIO

“Where the hell is she?” Antonio barely managed not to pick up his glass of brandy and throw it at the heads of his wife’s security team. They had been charged with taking care of Isabella, to watch her and protect her. Yet they had returned to the hotel without her.

“She went into the washroom and never came out.” Marc repeated the same story he had already told his prince several times. “There was a second door.”

“You let her fool you?” His eyes narrowed, and he could feel the heat of his anger as deep breaths blew through his nose and mouth. His heart raced, and his body clenched with fear for her.

“We have a tracking device on her phone,” Dimitri called from behind Marc. He walked around him and pulled the laptop toward him from the desk. After a few clicks, he stood up, looking quite pleased with himself.

Antonio shoved him out of the way and looked at the screen. A red dot blinked on a map of the city. “Is that where she is?” he asked, pointing to the beacon. “Where is it?” He leaned over and zoomed in on the map. “A coffee shop.” He sighed heavily. “She’s at a coffee shop. Go! Now—I want all of you to go get her and bring her home. Now!”

Without another look from him, the five men who had been standing in the room—trying to explain their inability to keep one woman safe—scattered. He sent her another text message. After the men had come back empty-handed, he sent her a simple question.
Where are you?
But there had been no reply.

This time he typed,
Stay where you are.

Putting his phone on the desk, he threw himself in the chair, still watching the blinking dot. The coffee shop was several miles away from the hotel and nowhere near the campus. Why would she go so far north for coffee? There were several shops within a few blocks of the hotel. Elisabeth’s office wasn’t in that area either, so it wouldn’t make sense that Isabella was meeting her for coffee.

His stomach twisted, and the hairs on the back of his neck began to stand up on end. Something was wrong. He looked at his phone, but there was still no message from her. Twenty minutes passed without word from his team or his wife. When the knock came on his door, he jumped. Cursing himself for letting his nerves get so wound up, he went to the door.

When he opened the door, he found Silver and Maria standing outside. “Silver.” He nodded curtly.

“Antonio. I’m sorry for the interruption, but my wife would like to make an apology.”

Antonio noticed his hand gripped tightly around Maria’s arm. “For what?”

“More to your wife than yourself. Is she here? Maria tried to call her, but her phone went straight to voicemail.”

A cold shiver ran through him. “Come inside, please.” Antonio opened the door the rest of the way and stepped aside. “She’s not here. She’s out.”

“I’ll come back when she is.” Maria tried to take a step toward the door, but Silver yanked her back by her arm and gave her a little shake.

“Unless you want things to get very serious in here, Maria, I would suggest you do as I said. Now, you tell Antonio what happened.”

“What is it? I’m sure it’s not all that bad.” Antonio narrowed his gaze on Maria.

Her eyes widened, and she bit her lower lip. “I’m afraid I embarrassed your wife the other night at the charity dinner. I said a few things that were inappropriate and not for me to repeat.”

Antonio signaled for her to go on with her story, and once he’d heard the whole of it, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “She thought I was boasting.” He shook his head.

“Oh. I don’t think so. I think she was just embarrassed.”

“A small part, I’m sure, but there’s more. I shouldn’t have made that comment to Silver.”

“And I shouldn’t have repeated it. Sometimes, I forget when Silver tells me something that I’m not to repeat it.”

“Don’t worry. I think we’ve found a great way to remedy that.” Silver gave her a soft push toward the door. “Go back to our room. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Maria’s eyes widened, and her cheeks blushed hot red as she fumbled for the door. “I’m really sorry, Antonio. I really didn’t mean to embarrass her—I was just curious.”

“You’ll have all your answers in five minutes. Our room. Now.” Silver pointed a finger at her. The door flung open, and she ran out. “I shouldn’t have repeated our conversation to Maria.”

Antonio shook his head. “She’s your wife. Of course you’ll share things with her that you wouldn’t share with other people. Even if you shouldn’t.” Something he wished he’d learned weeks ago. Perhaps his wife would be able to share more with him if he showed her how much he trusted her. “It was careless of me to say something that like that. No wonder Isabella was visibly upset that evening.” She must have been humiliated.

“Either way, I apologize. Now, I need to see to my wife.” Silver turned for the door without any further comment. It wasn’t needed. Antonio had a feeling he knew exactly what was about to transpire in the suite across the hall.

Still waiting to hear back from his security team, he remembered all the careless things he’d said and did over the past several days. It was no wonder Isabella had withdrawn from him. He’d made her feel unimportant. He imagined how she felt when Maria repeated his words to her, how embarrassed and caught off-guard she must have felt. Her pain at his betrayal had been well-masked, but he knew she was upset. He had known there was something at the dinner, but he hadn’t pushed. He should have pushed.

Hell, he should have done a lot of things. He should have gone slower with her, eased her into his life with more of a loving hand instead of requiring such blind obedience. Getting to know what her family life had been like would have been a better start to their marriage as well. Perhaps then he could have tried harder not to treat her as her father had.

Isabella was more to him than some pretty princess to escort to functions and wave at his people in the annual parades. She had quickly become his entire world. Almost every decision he made about his schedule, his upcoming travels… everything began with thoughts of her.

His phone rang loud in his pocket, dragging him from his list of wrongdoings. “Isabella?” He hadn’t even looked at the screen before he answered.

“No, sorry.” Julian didn’t sound like his usual self. “We’re here at the coffee shop. She’s not here. Her phone was found on the ground, under a table. She was here. We are questioning the staff, and they did see her. She was sitting with a man whose description fits Claudio’s. They said she became very ill and fainted, and the man she was with carried her out.”

“And no one stopped him?” Antonio’s heated blood coursed through his veins. “Find her, Julian. Find her and kill the bastard for taking her!”

“I have two men going to his sister’s workplace and to her apartment. Maybe he went there.”

“It’s a long shot. When you find Elisabeth, detain her. I want to question her myself.” Antonio didn’t wait for a response. He slammed his phone down on the table and cursed. His bellow was so loud, the guards outside the door came running in. “Bring the car around!” he yelled before stalking into the bedroom to change out of his suit.

ISABELLA

Burnt coffee. Isabella woke to the smell of coffee burning somewhere nearby. She tried to open her eyes, but the blindfold over her eyes revealed nothing. Everything remained dark. She tried to move her feet, but her ankles were bound together with flesh-biting bondage, and her hands were in the same predicament.

She managed to wiggle up to a sitting position, with her feet out in front of her and a cool cement wall at her back. Having her hands bound behind her made her shoulders burn. The more she wiggled her hands, the worse the pain became.

Irritated because she couldn’t see, she rubbed her face against her shoulder. The little bit of friction moved the fabric around her eyes enough for some light to come through. She stilled her movements, listening for anyone who might be nearby. Convinced she was alone, she began to rub more frantically. Finally, the material slipped, and she was able to use the wall to push it off her eyes. Once her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, she almost wished the blindfold hadn’t fallen off.

Only a small window graced the cement walls that encompassed her prison. The window looked too high for her to see through even if she could jump up. Dirt and straw made up most of the flooring of the small cell. The gravel beneath her dug into her legs when she shifted her seating. A thick, rusted door was the only chance of escape, and she doubted it was unlocked.

“Well, shit,” she muttered into the room. Resting her head back against the wall, she fought off the urge to cry, forcing herself to believe that she would find a way out and that Antonio would find her—if only to yell at her for ditching her security team. He would find her.

In hindsight, perhaps ditching her security had been a bit hasty. She hadn’t questioned Claudio, though. She trusted him. How could he betray her? She’d known him since childhood. She’d looked up to him. When he had returned to the island, Isabella had spoken with Raphael to get him a good position in the military. What did he stand to gain by kidnapping her?

Metal ground, and a loud squeal filled the room as the door opened, letting more light trickle in from the hallway. She dragged her gaze from the booted feet of the man in the doorway to his face, expecting to see Claudio. She gasped when recognition hit her. The man from the marketplace. The kidnapper who had ripped that woman off of the street and thrown her into the back of the van. She would remember him forever.

“Ah, she remembers.” He laughed and stepped into the room. Claudio walked in behind him, his hands folded behind his back.

“You took off your blindfold. That was very naughty of you.” Claudio tsked.

She pulled her feet back toward her bottom as he stepped up to her, squatting down on his haunches. “Claudio.” Her throat burned when she tried to talk. “Why are you doing this? Where’s Elisabeth?” she asked in a panic that he would harm his own sister.

“Elisabeth is probably at work, completely oblivious to the issues plaguing our home country. She enjoys the American life so much you would think she never lived anywhere else.” He spoke her name as though he were disgusted with her.

“Does she know you’re here?”

“No. I didn’t tell her anything. She can keep living in her deluded bubble. My job right now is to bring justice to the people of our country and your husband’s country. For too long, the people have gone hungry while the king and queen feast.” His eyes were wild as he spoke, making him look more like a stranger than an old friend.

“Claudio, there are better ways. This isn’t going to work.”

“No, thinking the king would cave for the daughters of his cabinet wasn’t going to work. You, the jeweled princess? He can’t let that go. He’ll need to give in. Your husband will see to it.”

Would he? Maybe he would be better off without her, and this would give him the perfect escape from their marriage. Perhaps Claudio was doing Antonio a favor.

“I think you put more worth on me than is real,” she scoffed and looked away from him, not wanting to see the crazed expression he held. She wasn’t afraid of him, not really. Somewhere inside of him was the Claudio she knew. “So this is how you had the information on that woman?”

“I was there in the marketplace when we took her. You didn’t see me from where you were crouched behind that dumpster, but I saw you.” He ran a finger over her cheek. “You are too beautiful to hide behind trash.”

She jerked her face away from him, his touch making her skin feel dirty. His laugh sent a shiver through her, a crawling sense of disgust and panic.

“When Elisabeth reached out to me for you, asking about that woman, it was like God himself opened the door for me. You are my way in. You are it, Bella. Don’t you see?”

No, she didn’t. She didn’t understand any of it. “Antonio won’t negotiate with you,” she said with certainty. She needed to make him see that, to make him understand. “He’s not the king, and even with our marriage, they won’t bargain with you. You have to stop this craziness before you get yourself killed! And what about Elisabeth? Once Antonio figures out you’re involved, he’s going to question Elisabeth. “

“If your husband touches one hair on my sister’s head, I’ll fucking gut you. I don’t give a shit how pretty you are or how nice your tits are. I’ll gut you and dump you on his doorstep, so you’d better fucking hope he doesn’t do that.” As he yelled through his tirade, a large-bladed knife in his hand caught her eye. He pressed the flat edge against her cheek so hard that she could feel the sharp edge at the tip and knew he wasn’t being cavalier. He would kill her if he needed to.

“I don’t understand you, Claudio. “

“What’s to understand? You’ve been royalty your whole fucking life. People like me, like my mom, we live to serve you,
Your Highness
.”

“We were friends. Your sister is still one of my best friends. Why would you do this?”

“It has nothing to do with you, Bella. Don’t you get that? There is a whole world out there that moves about without you. You are not the center of the universe.” A small droplet of spit flew from his mouth and landed on her cheek. She bored her gaze into his.

“You’ve lost your mind,” she yelled at him, her composure lost. “Antonio won’t bargain with you! You are crazy! He does everything he can for his people. Why do you think we are here in Chicago? Not for a honeymoon, I can tell you that. He works to raise awareness, to raise funds, and to make the world a safer place from people like you!”

The reverberating sound of the back of his hand slapping her face was nothing compared to the loud popping sound her ear made after the impact. A fire lit a trail from her jaw up through her ear. She worked her jaw open and closed, trying to alleviate the ringing, but nothing helped.

He was talking again, but over the ringing in her ear, she couldn’t make out his words. His eyes told her enough. The large black eyes that glared at her while his mouth moved quickly explained that she had angered him. Would she ever learn to keep her mouth shut?