Chap­ter 42: Rhys

IT WAS FUNNY HOW ONE MOMENT COULD CHANGE YOUR LIFE.
One moment, my moth­er was alive, then she wasn’t.
One moment, my squad mates were alive, and the next every­thing got blown to hell. Lit­er­al­ly.
One moment, I knew my place in the world, only for it to get turned upside down with the sim­ple unfold­ing of a paper.

Last night had been a mind fuck in every way, and I was still debat­ing the sound­ness of my deci­sion to pay my broth­er a vis­it as I stared at the town­house in front of me. There wasn’t as much secu­ri­ty as I’d expect­ed, though the town­house was in one of the safest neigh­bor­hoods in north­ern Athen­berg.

Until now, the only broth­ers I had were the ones in my SEAL unit. The idea of hav­ing a real broth­er? It kind of fucked me up, to be hon­est.

I walked to the front door and knocked, my skin crawl­ing with antic­i­pa­tion.

Chris­t­ian had left that morn­ing. His had been the quick­est trip in the his­to­ry of inter­na­tion­al trips, but he had a mess on his hands in the U.S. so I couldn’t blame him.

It was just like him to drop a bomb­shell then leave, though.

My broth­er answered on the sec­ond knock. If he was sur­prised to see me stand­ing on his doorstep unan­nounced on a Thurs­day after­noon, he didn’t show it.

“Hel­lo, Mr. Larsen.”

“Hel­lo, broth­er.” I didn’t both­er beat­ing around the bush.

Andreas’s smile dis­ap­peared. He regard­ed me for a long moment before he opened the door wider and stepped aside.

I walked in, my shoes squeak­ing on the shiny mar­ble floor. Oth­er than a few touch­es of white, every­thing in the house was gray. Light gray walls, gray fur­ni­ture, gray rugs. It was like step­ping into an expen­sive rain cloud.

Andreas led me to the kitchen, where he poured two cups of tea and hand­ed me one.

I didn’t take it. I hadn’t come for tea.

“You knew.” I got straight to the point.

He appeared put out by my refusal and placed the extra mug on the counter with a frown. “Yes.”

“Why the fuck didn’t you say any­thing?”

“Why do you think, Mr. Larsen? The world thinks I’m a prince. I am a prince. Do you real­ly think I’d jeop­ar­dize that to claim kin­ship with an Amer­i­can body­guard who, I might men­tion, has been quite rude to me in every inter­ac­tion we’ve had?”

I stared Andreas down. “How did you find out?”

When Chris­t­ian hand­ed me the paper with my father’s and brother’s names, I’d almost thrown it out. I knew in my gut open­ing it would lead to trou­ble. But in the end, I couldn’t resist.

Two names.
Andreas von Ascheberg, my half-broth­er.
Arthur Erhall, my father.
Our father.

I was relat­ed to the two peo­ple I despised most in Eldor­ra. Go fig­ure.

Andreas was silent for a long while. “When I found out Niko­lai was abdi­cat­ing, I was…worried. About Brid­get. She’d nev­er cared much for the throne, and I didn’t think she even liked Eldor­ra that much. She cer­tain­ly spent enough time away from it to give that impres­sion. I thought she wasn’t suit­ed for the role of queen.”

Barbed wire dug into my heart at the sound of Bridget’s name. Blonde hair. Sparkling eyes. A smile that could light up even my cold, dead soul.

It’d only been three days, and I already missed her so god­damned much I would’ve cut off my right arm for the chance to glimpse her in per­son, but she’d been locked up tight at the palace since she left the hos­pi­tal. Prob­a­bly busy plan­ning her engage­ment to Stef­fan.

Acid seeped into my veins, and I forced myself to focus on what Andreas was say­ing instead of spi­ral­ing again.

“I real­ize you don’t have a high opin­ion of me, but I do want what’s best for the coun­try. Eldor­ra is my home, and it deserves a good ruler.”

I bris­tled at the implied insult. “Brid­get would make a damn good ruler.”

“Yes, well, you’re biased, aren’t you?” Andreas drawled. “I had some­one dig into what she’d been doing dur­ing her time in New York. Fig­ure out where her head was at. They men­tioned you two seemed…close. Clos­er than the aver­age body­guard and client.”

“Bull­shit. I would’ve noticed a tail.”

“You were dis­tract­ed, and it wasn’t one. It was mul­ti­ple.” Andreas laughed at my dark expres­sion. How the fuck had I missed a tail? “Don’t feel too bad. They weren’t there to hurt her. Just gath­er infor­ma­tion. I was curi­ous about you, the body­guard who seemed to have my cousin so enam­ored, so I had my peo­ple dig into your back­ground, includ­ing your parent­age.” His smile hard­ened. “Imag­ine my sur­prise when I found out we had the same father. Small world.”

His tone remained light, but the tense­ness of his jaw sug­gest­ed he wasn’t as unboth­ered as he want­ed me to think.

The sto­ry was plau­si­ble, except for me miss­ing the tail. I had been dis­tract­ed, but I didn’t think I’d been that dis­tract­ed.

My mind flashed back to my unchar­ac­ter­is­tic con­fronta­tion with Vin­cent in Bor­gia, the last-minute trip to Cos­ta Rica, and the thou­sands of tiny things pre-Brid­get me would’ve nev­er done.

I do not become per­son­al­ly involved in my clients’ lives. I am here to safe­guard you from phys­i­cal harm. That is all. I am not here to be your friend, con­fi­dant, or any­thing else. This ensures my judg­ment remains uncom­pro­mised.

I scrubbed a hand over my face. Fuck.

“Say that’s true. Want to explain to me how you’re a prince when your father is a mere lord?”

Erhall. Of all the peo­ple, it had to be Erhall.

Bile rose in my throat at the reminder we were relat­ed.

Andreas’s eyes shut­tered. “My moth­er had an affair with Erhall. My father—my real father, even if he wasn’t my bio­log­i­cal one—didn’t know until she told him before she died. Six years ago, can­cer. I guess she want­ed to go with a clear con­science. My father didn’t tell me until before he died, three years ago.” He barked out a short laugh. “At least my fam­i­ly can take secrets with them to their graves. Lit­er­al­ly.”

“Does Erhall know?”

“No,” Andreas said a lit­tle too sharply. “And he won’t. My father was the one who raised me, not Erhall. My father…” A shad­ow flick­ered across his face and dis­ap­peared. “He was a good man, and he loved me enough to treat me like his own son even after he found out I wasn’t. Erhall, on the oth­er hand, is a snivel­ing weasel.”

I snort­ed. At least we agreed on some­thing.

Andreas’s smirk returned as he took anoth­er sip of tea. “Here’s a secret for you. I don’t want the throne. Nev­er did. I’d step up if I had to, of course, but I would much rather have some­one else fill that role—as long as they’re capa­ble. The throne is the most pow­er­ful seat but also the small­est cage in the palace.”

“That’s utter crap,” I growled. “You’ve made your inten­tions clear mul­ti­ple times. The meet­ings with the king and Speak­er, the ‘help­ful’ vis­it to my guest­house the night before Nikolai’s wed­ding. Remem­ber those?”

“Brid­get need­ed a push,” he said cool­ly. “I want­ed to see if she’d fight for the crown. But I also came back because…” He hes­i­tat­ed for a brief sec­ond. “I want­ed to give Erhall a chance. See if we could con­nect some­how. That’s why I asked to shad­ow him dur­ing his meet­ings, more so than me want­i­ng to be king. As for the guest­house, I was try­ing to help you. I’m not an idiot, Mr. Larsen. Or should I call you Rhys, now that we both know we’re broth­ers?”

I glared at him, and he chuck­led.

“Mr. Larsen it is,” he said. “I knew some­thing was going on with you and Brid­get long before the news broke. I didn’t have con­fir­ma­tion, but I could see it in the way you looked at each oth­er. It’s a tough choice, love or coun­try. Niko­lai made his. Brid­get, well, I guess she made hers, too. But before she agreed to mar­ry Steffan”—the acid in my veins thick­ened and pooled in my stomach—“you two had a shot. Thought I’d give you a lit­tle nudge. You are my broth­er, and she is my cousin. Two of the few fam­i­ly mem­bers I have left. Con­sid­er it my good deed for the year.”

“What char­i­ty,” I said, my sar­casm evi­dent. “You should be saint­ed.”

“Laugh all you want, but I was will­ing to push you two togeth­er because you were so clear­ly in love, even if it meant I had to take up the man­tle should Brid­get abdi­cate. Is that not a sac­ri­fice?”

It was a sac­ri­fice. But I wasn’t admit­ting that to Andreas.

My head pound­ed with the vol­ume of new infor­ma­tion rush­ing in. There was every chance Andreas was bull­shit­ting me, but my gut told me he wasn’t.

“I almost told her about our father, you know. At Nikolai’s wed­ding recep­tion. It doesn’t help much with the Roy­al Mar­riages Law, since it requires the monarch to mar­ry some­one of legit­i­mate noble birth. You were born out of wed­lock and nev­er acknowl­edged by Erhall as his son—he doesn’t even know you are his son—so you don’t qual­i­fy.” Andreas fin­ished his tea and set it in the sink. “But she dis­ap­peared from the recep­tion and before I could talk to her, The Dai­ly Tea alle­ga­tions broke.” He shrugged. “C’est la vie.”

Dammit. I’d hoped, now that I knew I was the son of a lord…

“If it doesn’t help with the law, why would you tell her?” I demand­ed.

“Because I have an idea of how it might help in a round­about way.” Andreas smiled. “It might even help you get Brid­get back if you work fast enough. Holstein’s sched­uled to pro­pose next month. I’m will­ing to help you…”

“But?” There was always a but in these kinds of games.

“But you stop treat­ing me like an ene­my and as…perhaps not a broth­er, but a friend­ly acquain­tance. We are, after all, the only direct fam­i­ly left besides our love­ly father.” Some­thing flick­ered across Andreas’s face before it dis­ap­peared.

“That’s it.” Sus­pi­cion curled in my stom­ach. It seemed too easy.

“That’s it. Take it or leave it.”

Some­thing occurred to me. “Before I answer, I want to know. Did you ever snoop around my guest­house when I wasn’t there?”

He gave me an odd look. “No.”

“The truth.”

Andreas drew him­self up to his full height, look­ing affront­ed. “I am a prince. I do not snoop around guest­hous­es…” the word dripped with dis­dain, “…like a com­mon thief.”

I pressed my lips togeth­er. He was telling the truth.