King for a Day (The King Trilogy #2)(51)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

Instantly salivating, I sat, realizing how starved I felt. I began devouring the bread, then the cheese and fruit, not stopping until I was almost done, at which point, I finally looked up. It was noon-ish now and a perfect day—crisp blue sky, an endless stretch of breathtaking, deep-blue ocean, and a tepid, calm breeze. I could honestly say that under different circumstances, I’d die of happiness if this place were my home. But there wasn’t a chance in hell I’d ever go along with such insanity or agree to be King’s. Yes, I understood I felt attracted to him. Yes, I knew that somewhere deep down inside, there was a good man looking for salvation. Yes, I wanted him to have it. But none of that meant I would ever agree to be his. He was dangerous. His world was dangerous. And the guy was a frigging ghost whose need for revenge completely consumed him.

As soon as this was over, if I survived, I would be turning the full force of my efforts toward separating myself from this entire mess.

My mind quickly hopped over to the deal I’d made with King right before he’d stopped my heart. He’d said that if I gave him one night, just one, and I still wanted to leave, that he’d let me. Yes, I believed he’d meant it. King wasn’t the type to break his word or make a deal he didn’t intend to keep.

My tired mind drifted off, wondering what being with King might be like. Would his idea of “a night together” consist of throwing me over that goddamned desk, or would he take his time like he’d said and, perhaps, bring me here, where we’d soak our sweaty, sore bodies in between sessions of hard, hot, voracious sex?

I swallowed. Why am I thinking about this right now?

What I needed to be doing was find a weapon I could use to get the hell out there.

I stilled. Was I really prepared to hurt someone? Because I knew the Spiros were fully prepared to do what it took to prevent me from leaving. What if I ended up not just hurting someone, but killing them? Could I do that to help Justin?

Crap. I don’t know.

Other options? Other options….Given the estate was guarded and fenced, perhaps I could wait until nightfall and sneak out. There had to be a way out along the rocky shore even if it meant swimming part of the way. And it couldn’t be more than a few hours walk back to the main town. By morning, I could be parked outside the American Express office—there had to be one, right? They had an emergency card and passport replacement service, which I knew because I’d lost my stuff once in Italy while working. If I acted quickly, I’d be armed with a prepaid cell and on the first ferry or whatever-the-hell boat to the mainland before anyone found me.

I only prayed that I was not too late to help Justin. In the meantime, it was going to be a long, long night, and I needed to get some rest. Because I wouldn’t be stopping until I reached my brother.

I lay down on the heavenly soft bed and closed my eyes for a quick nap. A huge f**king mistake. Because when I opened them again, I was no longer in King’s beautiful bedroom overlooking the Aegean Sea. I was standing in a dark, empty apartment permeated with the stench of death.

~~

I didn’t know how I’d arrived or exactly where I was, but I knew the person kneeling before me sobbing hysterically over a rotting corpse.

“Justin!” I cried. I lunged for him, but my arms passed right through his shoulder. I stilled for a moment and inspected my translucent hands. What the hell?

Justin continued weeping over the decaying body, clasping something tightly in his hand.

“Justin!” I yelled once again, but as far as he was concerned, I was, I was…a ghost?

Justin opened his hand, cursed at the object, and placed it on top of the body’s forehead.

It looked like a small gray stone with crisscrossed etchings over the surface.

The Artifact? Why does Justin have the Artifact?

He slowly rose from the floor and hobbled over to the breakfast bar that divided the kitchen from the living room.

“What’s happening?” I said aloud. “Justin! Justin!” I swiped for him once again, but my hand sliced through thin air instead of making contact.

He began scribbling on a notepad with one hand while wiping his tears away with the other.

Oh my Lord, what is happening?

The only source of light in the entire place was a solitary light above the kitchen sink a few feet from where Justin stood. I leaned in closely to make out what he wrote.

Test 53, no response. Held artifact in left hand.

He slammed his fist into the counter. “Come back to me, Jamie. Come back.”

Jamie? This was Jamie? The woman who worked at the embassy and was marked by Vaughn as his “special someone”? What happened to her? Why was Justin trying to bring her back?

My eyes swept the horrific-looking, bluish figure in a brown dress stretched across the floor over a tarp. She had a sticky-looking black stain over her left breast, and…No. No. No. Oh Lord. I held in a horrible cry. She had an inflated belly.

Pregnant. She had been pregnant. Oh Lord, when we’d spoken on the phone those few times when Justin originally went missing, I remember she’d been rudely crunching away on crackers. This was why.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. My mind whirled in a frantic mess. Why was Justin with her dead body?

My brother had told me about meeting her. That was how he’d known the significance of my “K” mark. But their relationship had to have been much, much more than he’d let on.

My eyes took in the painful display of my baby brother desperately trying to revive the woman. Yes. Of course their relationship had been more. He loved her. Was the baby his, too? I wondered.

Oh Lord. I couldn’t take it. This was simply too much.

I sat next to him on the floor and cried, watching him as he worked relentlessly to make the Artifact work.

How had he gotten it? He’d said he left it in some empty apartment on the day that King was taken by Vaughn. Had he lied to me? Did he make his own deal with Vaughn to keep the stone? After all, Vaughn had said it was a worthless rock.

Because that’s what Justin told him.

Shit, Justin. What did you do?

I ran my hands through my hair, groaning and trying to make sense of all this. Okay. Somehow, somewhere along the way he met Jamie and fell in love with her. Was that how he’d gotten mixed up with Vaughn? He met Jamie? Or was it the other way around? I didn’t know, but then something must’ve happened to Jamie. Then Justin set up King in exchange for keeping the Artifact so he could bring her back.

I knew that wasn’t the entire story, but the pieces fit. And it explained why Justin lied to me. He loved her and wanted to bring her back.