Page 87 of Shâhzâdeh

“You need to call your mother, she’s going to be pissed to hear about this shit secondhand, but I’m not about to be the one to tell her you got shot. She’ll do something and have my son and his mama hating me for the next year and I can’t have that. I’d rather she give me the runs or something.” Mir was right but I was hesitating until I remembered one thing that gave me peace.

Thoughts of my mother brought a smile to my face and peace to my heart. “You miss one important zhing about all zhis.”

His head tilted and I knew he was trying to understand the sudden optimism. “What?”

“She’s getting a daughter-in-law. Seeing me married can wipe away just about any offense you could commit.”

“True, despite that, we got to think of something to do with him.” Mir turned to the man who was sitting on the chair that we’d all forgotten about.

I pulled out a small caliber gun that had been holstered by my ankle. Three quick shots went into his body: one in his arm, another in his shoulder, and the last in his neck.

“We doing it like that?” Yacouba was nodding his approval as the man in the chair started to choke on his own blood.

“He needed to suffer. Zhree shots isn’t enough to take off his head, but it’s enough to fuck him up vhile he dies slowly.”

He was fighting against the ropes at his back like he could get himself free from them. I knew Shoaib well enough to know that nothing came undone once he tied it up.

The twitching started, showing that he was losing blood to certain parts of his body and his nervous system was reacting to the disruption. His legs were already done, proving that one shot had severed the connection to that part of his spine.

“He really sitting here doing this shit again?” Quentin was talking shit like he hadn’t seen me do this hundreds of times.

“If you’re strong enough to take a life, you give it enough respect to vatch it float away to heaven.”

Once the twitching stopped I turned to Shoaib so we could be on the same page. The moving date needed to be moved up and I told him as much.

“So you are moving forward wiz it?” He could tell by the look on my face I was, but he needed the verbal commitment.

“Once I check in vith her, I’ll have my answer.”

Priest grinned and popped his imaginary collar. “Let me get my robe ready. It seems I’ll have a wedding to officiate very soon.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

The East side

VANYA

WHAT THE HELL had I done?

That was all I could think about as the chauffeured car drove me further away from the inconspicuous building in the middle of Uptown and toward my apartment in South Park. My brain was going a thousand miles a minute and the amount of information I was processing had me ready to tap out.

There was a bounty on my head.

Me, Vanya Kennedy, even though that wasn’t my real last name, me. How was I Alice falling down the rabbit hole of assassins and secret organizations? People had been sent to end my life, but here I was. Yet again still standing despite the weapons formed against me. Now did that make Xerxes the Mad Hatter or the Cheshire Cat?

I could blame Frankie because let’s be for real. Had I not been her friend I wouldn’t have ended up in this shit. Wouldn’t have been put in the sights of this man at her wedding and would’ve continued living my mundane unfulfilled life. But I couldn’t really be mad at her. Life since I’d met her had only gotten better. And since I’d met him? I’d had more abundance than I thought possible. Health, wealth, joy and safety. So yeah, Frankie wasn’t really to blame. I kinda owed her to be honest.

And if I faced the truth, I felt like somehow some way I would’ve run across Xerxes. Either in this life, or the next, he would’ve found me. We would’ve found each other. That’s the way his pull felt. Destined. Fated. Like the stars were always going to align to make me his and him mine.

And with that knowledge, the surety of my conviction felt heavy.

I felt like I was being drawn back to him. The last few weeks of us working together and laughing together didn’t show me a Xerxes I didn’t think existed. It showed me the man I’d expected. And having expectations of a virtual stranger was crazy.

I felt free looking at Xerxes. Like my safety was a sure thing when I looked into his deep brown eyes. They were often filled with a longing that only I could fulfill and that made me feel loved. To have a man I knew could burn down the world on a whim was like a dream. As a survivor of childhood and adulthood bullshit, I knew I had never been loved properly. Xerxes made me afraid of the emotions I felt the minute I looked at him but he proved for so long that he wasn’t going to play about me. Today was the confirmation of what I already knew.

Then again, maybe this was just what I was telling myself so that none of this seemed crazy. Because it was crazy, right? I’d just escaped a shoot out with my life and agreed to marry into a family that wanted to kill us both. Something about that made perfect sense and also bordering on insanity at the same time.

‘Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle.’

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