C.J. Miller - The Secret King

Her confirmation? That made no sense. Icarus wasn’t in charge of screening what boats entered and exited through their waters. Acacia and Icarus had no such arrangement. “What do they really want?”

Iliana repeated the question into the phone. “He wants to speak to you. He being DeSante, the warlord.”

DeSante wasn’t exactly a warlord, but he wasn’t a peaceable man either. He had come to be president of his country during a violent coup.

This was a warning, then, from Icarus. If she refused to speak to him, DeSante would place an embargo on Acacia.

The dictator of Icarus was playing a dangerous game, mostly dangerous to Acacia with its weaker navy and dependency on imports. If DeSante refused to allow boats into their ports, Acacians would starve. “Put Demetrius DeSante on the line.” She sounded stronger than she felt. She had been avoiding the dictator’s requests for an audience and instead had allowed Iliana to put him off and explain that she’d needed time to grieve. Apparently, that time was over.

Iliana handed Serena the phone.

“Good evening,” Serena said, keeping her voice cool and polite.

“Finally, I have the pleasure of speaking with you,” DeSante said.

She wasn’t in the mood for a conversation with DeSante. “Let the boats through.”

“I would be glad to. I am an ally who can secure your western waters from enemies.”

What a load of crap. Her enemies consisted of him and whomever had killed her family, although Serena still suspected they were one in the same. “Let them through.”

“As you command. I expect a meeting with you shortly or my navy may again feel the need to question boats coming close to your shores.”

“You’ll have your meeting,” she said. She hung up the phone with a quaking hand.

Iliana grabbed her arm. “You did good, Serena. It’s okay. You sounded strong and the right amount of pissed off and polite.”

It wasn’t okay. The sharks were circling because they smelled blood in the water.

* * *

“She’s looking for you,” DeSante said.

Casimir knew it. He needed to play it cool. If he came on too strong, Serena would be suspicious. Casimir needed to approach her in the right manner with his plan in place.

When he was ready, he would allow himself to be found. Or perhaps he would show up at her castle and catch her off guard. The biggest downside to his plan was living with his fake persona a little longer. Being a wealthy heir who liked to party didn’t suit him, but it had been his cover to infiltrate King Warrington’s social circles. Though he had never breached the inner circle, he’d gotten to know enough royals and hangers-on that he couldn’t change his identity now.

“Someone may recognize me and tell her who I am,” Casimir said.

“As long as they give her the cover story and do not reveal who you actually are, you can handle it,” DeSante said.

Casimir could handle anything. He would leak the story that he had been the man who’d saved the princess’s life. It might keep him interesting to the royalty of Acacia and Rizari. Staying close gave him leverage to manipulate the situation to his benefit. “I’m not worried.” Yet. Living a lie every day was almost as hard as harboring the rage he felt toward Samuel Warrington.

“Call me after you make your move,” DeSante said.

“Will do.”

Casimir hung up the phone and slid it into his pocket. Few people trusted the president of Icarus, but Casimir did without question. Not only did DeSante owe him, DeSante had a vested interest in Casimir taking control of Rizari. Having allies in the region and preventing Rizari from interfering with Icarus had long been DeSante’s goal. With Casimir assuming the throne, DeSante would have the freedom to do as he wished.

Casimir entered his mother’s house. His weekly meetings with her were difficult to press through, and grew worse with each visit. Casimir hated the stink of booze and cigarettes. “Hey, Mom.”

His mother, Anna, rarely greeted him. She was sitting in the dark in her living room, like she often did. She had the television on, but seemed to be staring blankly at it. Casimir muted it. His mother hadn’t always been this way. Every year, she grew noticeably more withdrawn, tired and depressed. Now, he couldn’t convince her to sit outside on a nice day. She was a recluse and if he didn’t do something, she would die in this dark, dank house.

“He’s still alive,” his mother said. She was looking haggard, having lost weight, and her skin appeared sallow.

Samuel Warrington was still alive. Casimir hadn’t killed him. He had told his mother he would take care of it, but he had failed. The knowledge burned him. But he wouldn’t give up on his new plan. “There were other assassins in the room. They killed the Acacian king and his daughter Danae.”

His mother lit another cigarette. “What’s that have to do with anything?”

Casimir hid his frustration. His mother’s sole focus was revenge. “I couldn’t get to Warrington in the confusion.”

His mother said nothing and her silence reeked of censure. Her history with the king and his family was a bitter one.

One year into her marriage to King Constantine Warrington, he had falsely accused her of having an affair with his brother, Charles, and had exiled her. Anna had blamed Charles’s jealous wife, Katarina, for manufacturing stories about her. She had fled to Icarus with a new identity. Fearing for her life and the life of her unborn child, she hadn’t told the king that she had been pregnant with his baby. She had lived in Icarus and raised her son with her eyes on one goal: for Casimir to return to Rizari in glory and take his crown when he was of age.

But when Constantine and his brother were killed ten years ago, Casimir knew presenting himself as the rightful heir would earn him a knife in his back as well. He needed to be more careful, more crafty. Martyrdom wasn’t the goal. Making things right for his family and Rizari was.

Casimir’s existence and true parentage was a secret from everyone in the world, except his mother and DeSante, whom Casimir had allowed into his confidence when he was fifteen.

When his father had died, so had his mother’s chance of revealing to her ex-husband his true heir. With false accusations about her participation in his and his brother’s murders and her conviction without a trial, her life had spiraled further into darkness. Anna had sworn to Casimir all his life that she still loved his father. His death had robbed her of the family reunion she had not-so-secretly wished for. Anna had believed that Constantine would see that she had been loyal and that Katarina would be revealed as a liar.

That hadn’t happened.

When Anna had heard rumors that Constantine and Charles had been killed by Charles’s son, Samuel, in an effort to usurp the throne, she had made Casimir swear he would avenge his father’s death by killing the king who had stolen his life.

Chapter 2

Iliana recognized the country calling code for Icarus and felt a jolt of adrenaline. She had arrived at the castle early that morning to start work and she was eager for a tussle with DeSante’s goons.

They thought they could push Serena around because she was young and had been distant from her father for some years. There had been no bad blood between Serena and her father, but Serena preferred the quiet of her beach house and the private pursuit of her interests. She hadn’t been idle. She had painted a number of amazing landscapes and was making a name for herself—at least, under her alias—in the international art community. Iliana had brokered deals for her in the United States, Canada, Italy and France as well as throughout the Mediterranean. Iliana’s law degree had some use after all, which was a mild salve on her ego, considering she’d failed the bar exam three times.