The Dragons of Men (The Sons of Liberty Book 2) (47 page)

“And where will we go?” Sarah asked.

“We have to cross the Mississippi,” Eric replied. “The two vehicular bridges are blockaded, but there is a railroad bridge we can use. It’s narrow and might have some damage, but it’s the best chance we got.”

“You think we can make it there unseen?” Sarah asked. “They’ll be combing this city for us. What’s to stop them from finding us the moment we set foot on the ground below?”

“I am,” Trey said, stepping forward. “I managed to hack their comms and do a quick scan of their systems. Seems they speak mostly via radio waves and text messages that are easy to intercept, read, and alter. Lucky for us, something happened earlier at the southern crossing and they’re all riled up about it. A lot of the guards went south to reinforce the bridge. That left an opening for us now, though I’m sure it won’t last for long after that little shootout we just had. I can intercept and redirect anyone that comes close to us with my Featherweight device, but we only have a limited window over the next hour to get our asses across the river.”

“Fine,” Sarah said, turning to Judah and Alexandra. “Can you two move?”

“I’ll be okay,” Judah said. Alexandra looked up at him before nodding her head slowly.

“Good,” Eric said. “We’ll need to leave now and move fast. We can cross tonight and be in Dallas in a month. If we—”

“No,” Alexandra said quickly. Judah shifted his eyes toward her as she brushed her hair back and stood up, failing to hide her pain while she wiped a solitary tear from her cheek. “My sister is north of Little Rock. I’m going there.”

“Alexandra,” Eric began, “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through, but we need to get to Texas.”

“We go to Harding University first,” Alexandra replied, brushing away a tear from her cheek.

“I…don’t think your sister is going to be there,” Sarah replied as she stepped closer. “I’m sorry, but I think you should—”

“I don’t care what you think!” Alexandra bellowed. “I want to know if she is alive. I
need
to know. She’s the only family I have left and I’ll go myself if I have to.”

“Alexandra, we can’t—”

“She’s right,” Judah said, slowly rising to his feet. He paused, glancing at his mother before looking back over at Alexandra. “If you don’t take her…I will.”

“Judah,” Sarah began, “don’t do this.”

“It’s not a debate,” Judah replied, taking a deep breath. “We told her we’d get her there and we owe that much to her.”

Eric hesitated before shaking his head and nodding over to Trey. “Grab what you can. We’re crossing the river tonight…and we’ll be at Harding University in a few days, even if it kills us.” Eric shook his head and walked over to the ledge, packing up his bag as everyone else slowly began to ready themselves for the journey. Sarah gazed back at Judah before sighing in defeat.

Judah looked over at Alexandra, unsure what to say. She gazed back at him, her eyes vacant as they studied him in the dark. After a brief pause, Alexandra lowered her head and turned around. Judah silently watched her as she joined Elizabeth. His leg ached and he knew he should be getting ready for their journey, but he couldn’t yet rip his gaze away from the broken, scarred, and beautiful girl he had failed.

As tears filled his eyes again, Judah silently vowed that he would die before he ever left her side again.

C
hapter
S
ixteen

A Dance with Shadows

Maria Brekor stormed through the White House halls like a frenzied missile searching for her target. She breathed heavily as she walked, looking down each corridor. Only the sounds of her heavy breathing, the drumming of her heart, and the jingling of the Spirit of the Sovereign filled her ears. The czars, bodyguards, and advisors all slowed to paused and gape at her as she marched on—a royal thing of rage. Despite Lukas’ attempts at secrecy, they knew why Maria was furious.

They had all heard the news before she had.

“Lukas!” Maria bellowed, causing a young, muscular Praetorian—a strapping lad who looked like he would fight a bull without a second thought—to flinch. She turned to her side just as Sandra Bowie, the newly titled Civilian Patronus, approached.

“Maria, please don’t—”

“Where is he?” Maria growled, a deep and vicious rumble.

“Now is not the time to do this,” Sandra replied. “I know you’re upset, but—”

“Upset?” Maria said, her eyes watering as a rage unlike anything she had ever known quivered down her spine. “Miss Bowie, I get upset when the stitching on my gloves fray. I get upset when I see a picture of a hungry child who has no one to feed it. But now…well, I passed all exits for
merely
upset
thirty minutes ago when I awoke to the news of what that bastard has done. Upset? No, I am not upset. I am Maria Brekor, a perilous tempest of wrath, and I intend to make my husband drink from the waters of fury that flow from my wake. Now you can tell me where he is or I can beat it from your miserable, wretched face!”

Sandra stared back silently, a mouse gazing at the famished eyes of a cat. She nodded her head.

“They’re in the Green Room.”

“Is she with him?” Maria asked.

“Maria, I don’t think you should—”

“I am well beyond what you or anyone else thinks,” Maria replied as she turned and began down the corridor, talking as she walked away. “This is treason and my husband will know where I stand.”

Maria traversed the halls of the West Wing, doing what she could to calm the storm within her before she confronted Lukas. She had done everything she could to keep from losing him and it had been all for nothing. It had begun months ago when a crack first appeared in the new foundation of the Imperium. As she battled to keep her husband to herself, that crack grew into a web of fractures, stretching out to weaken the new empire. While so much of her efforts had been focused on preventing the young and intolerable Jamie Rowe from stealing her husband, Maria had been careless and blind to the real threat. She had paid little attention to the fault line that was now on the verge of rupturing into an unrelenting quake—a violent tremor, born from Lukas’ ill-advised uncertainties.

Maria threw open the double-paned mahogany doors, glancing into the room just in time to see Lukas and his guards surrounded by Jamie, Damian, Clark, and the three Battle Marshals all jump into their seats like a den of nibbling badgers who had just heard the bark of the hunter’s hound. She paused, her eyes finding Lukas immediately as they burned imaginary holes through his skull. She stormed into the room, a hurricane looking for a Sovereign to topple.

“Now Maria,” Lukas began as he slowly rose, “you have to understand that—”

Her full-arm swing caught him across the jaw, cutting him off and causing the guards to step forward nervously. She was vaguely aware of the drones overhead shifting. Maria wondered if they were able to strike down the queen they had been programed to protect for the sake of the Sovereign. In all likelihood, they were looping through their complex code—an artificial intelligence incapable of discriminating between emperor and empress.

“You asshole,” she roared, tears beading in her eyes as she slapped him again on the other cheek. “You perfidious…ponce! You self-indulgent bastard. You weak, insufferable excuse of a man!”

“Do not hit me again,” Lukas growled. “I knew you’d try to stop me. That’s why I couldn’t tell you. Now, we are leaving in five minutes to go to the Capitol Building and announce what has happened via a broadcast on the Imperium News Network. We have agents in place to detain him at any moment before he hears a word of what is going on and—”

She hit him harder, a closed fist this time. Her knuckles throbbed through her white gloves. She reached down, grabbing a glass of water to throw in his face. But as she raised the glass, Lukas’ hand wrapped around her throat and roared.

“You bitch!” Lukas shouted as Maria dropped the glass in surprise. She grabbed his arm and tried to pry it away, but she might as well have been struggling with a grizzly bear over a meaty bone. He quickly forced her down on the floor, her face growing red as Lukas gazed down at her with rage. She shifted her neck, tears pouring down her red temples, and summoned the last of her courage and breath to mumble three tiny and infinitely powerful words.

“I hate you.”

Lukas’ eyes grew wide and he quickly pulled his hand away, glancing down at it and her as though he had just become aware of what he had done. He sat back, lowering his hand slowly as his eyes began to water.

“Oh, Maria,” he began, “I’m sorry. I didn’t…I never—”

“He saved you, Lukas,” Maria said, staring back at him while she ignored the others in the room. “My father saved you and you repay him with a death sentence?”

“Jacob Brekor is a traitor,” Jamie said, stepping forward. “He had been working with Sigmund and Eli Kane to establish their own empire through Lukas.”

“That’s a lie and you know it,” Maria whispered.

“I’m afraid not, Mrs. Brekor,” Clark Madison replied. “With the help of Miss Rowe’s team, we have unearthed unquestionable evidence in the matter. Their goal was to destabilize the Imperium from within. It was all part of a plan they conceived before they showed up at this very building and injected Lukas with that drug. They knew Lukas would be vulnerable and angry afterward, and they used that to their advantage.”

Maria’s eyes moved between those who gazed down upon her as though she were a wounded animal worth pitying. She fought the quiver in her lip as she shook her head. “You’re wrong. You’re so wrong and we are going to pay for this blunder with the empire we have created.”

“It’s true, Maria,” Lukas said as he slowly rose. “I’ve heard the audio. I’ve seen the videos and read the unencrypted files. I didn’t want it to be true. I wanted to win this war with your father at my side, uniting the world together. But there is no denying the truth. They had begun planning their coup the moment a bullet ripped through Dan Brown’s head. Please do not think I enjoy this. Jacob was like a father to me as well. We will detain him and transport him here so I can do what I must. I…will let you say goodbye before the end.”

Maria gazed back at him, refusing to believe the allegations. Finally, she stood to her feet, fighting the tears in her eyes as she adjusted her gloves and righted the Spirit of the Sovereign that rested on her upper chest. She paused, wondering if she should rip it off and throw it in his face.

But she didn’t. She couldn’t. Maria realized in that moment what she had to do. Despite everything she had done for Lukas, she could never spend another day with him once he murdered her father. She would have to play along with his schemes until the moment was right for her to escape. Still, she glanced over at her husband—a leader she hated, a man she had once loved—and wiped her tears away.

“You win, Lukas. You’re great, you are powerful, and you are the man the world is destined to unite behind. Do with me as you wish. I’ll stand by your side until the day you no longer need me. And Jamie,” she said, turning to face the woman she loathed. “I believe a congratulations is in order. You have done what you came here to do. He is no longer mine. He is yours. I hope one day he tears your heart out and feasts upon it, as he has done to mine. I hope one day you too see the sad truth that I now see in my husband. Lukas Chambers is nothing more than a serial rapist, wedding and bedding any woman he desires before casting her to the side like an appetizer of which he’s had his fill.”

She paused, smoothing her hair as she returned to her normal, miserable self, before glancing back up at Lukas. “Well now, Mr. Chambers, let us not keep the world waiting because of one teary-eyed woman. That would be a travesty, would it not?” Maria smiled, a defeated smile nearly as sorrowful as the pain on Lukas’ face. “Let us go. Let us smile for the cameras and wave to the empire you’ve forsaken.”

Lukas rubbed his jaw gingerly as he watched Maria climb into the back of his long, black limousine. He opened his mouth wide and winced—hoping the INN’s software would automatically conceal the budding bruise. Jamie walked up to him, frowning as she watched Maria’s door close. She looked over to Lukas and smiled. Jamie was beautiful—wearing a dark business suit, a white blouse, wide glasses, and three separate foot-long silver pins in her hair instead of the usual one. He smiled back, thinking of his wife while hoping she might learn to forgive him one day.

“Shall we?” Jamie asked with an uncertain smile. Lukas nodded back and one of the Sovereign Guards opened the door. Jamie climbed in as Lukas’ six guardian drones took up positions surrounding the car. He entered the vehicle with as much courage as he could summon, though he felt like a ferret dining with famished owls.

Maria sat opposite Jamie and Lukas, her back against the thick bulletproof pane of glass that separated the driver from them. Two Sovereign Guard agents began to enter the vehicle with them, but Jamie’s eyes went wide and she shook her head, a silent plea to Lukas for privacy.

“Leave us,” Lukas commanded as he nodded back to her. “Ride with Car Two today.”

“Sir,” the guard began. “Protocol requires—”

“Oh, forget protocol for a day,” Lukas argued. “I am your Sovereign and this is an order. If I can’t ride two or three miles in our own capital without needing you then we might as well give up now. Go, the drones will suffice while you and thirty guards won’t be more than ten feet behind us.”

The guards reluctantly nodded their heads and closed the doors in unison.

“Thank you,” Jamie said quietly with a warm-hearted smile.

“They might be professionals, but I don’t think one of them is trained to survive this car ride.” Lukas removed his black gloves, glancing over at Maria as he tossed them to the seat. Despite the mess she had been, Maria had taken merely ten minutes to ready herself for the camera. She had a knack for that; she was always ready and able to be the most attractive person in the room. He looked from her to Jamie and back, thinking back to the words Maria had spoken.

I hate you.

They stung like a fresh knife wound. Thinking about her words was like remembering an unexpected lightning strike to the skull. He had always loved her and despite what she had said, he still loved her. He didn’t want to execute Jacob, but he had no other choice. He couldn’t put his love for a woman over his fate to unite the world. He just hoped he could make her understand that one day. He simply hoped he could make her see that he would always love her most.

“Maria,” Lukas began as the car started forward, “I—”

“Have you two slept together?” Maria asked quickly, her eyes dark and unforgiving from across the limo as they shifted between Lukas and Jamie.

“No,” Lukas replied defensively. “We haven’t and if you’d just stop…being so…selfish for once and let me—”

“Selfish?” Maria cut in before throwing her head back to laugh heartily. “My dear Lukas, what a poor choice of words for the man who is unsatisfied with a single woman.” She paused, smiling as she looked over at Jamie. “I can give you advice if you’d like. It is not always easy to please a man as great and powerful as Lukas Chambers. That being said, there are many ways to gain his undivided attention should you ever need it. For example, bringing up his mother every now and then can be a useful tactic if you truly wish to boil his blood.”

“Maria, I never—”

“Quiet,” Jamie cut in, looking off to the side as she held up a finger. “Both of you.”

Lukas paused, glancing over at Jamie as concern lined her face. She quickly began swiping the air in front of her, guiding something unseen on her nVision display. After a moment, the concern on her face shifted, becoming both determination and fear.

“He’s on the move,” Jamie said, directing her hands furiously.

“Who?” Lukas asked quickly.

“Jacob,” she replied. “Someone tipped him off.”

“Don’t let him escape!” Lukas roared, tapping his watch and pulling up his nVision. “I need him alive for questioning.”

“I thought you no longer questioned your prisoners?” Maria said with a grin. “I thought you knew everything you needed to know about Sigmund and the Patriarchs. Tell me, oh dawn of tomorrow, why do you tremble?”

Lukas paused, glancing at his wife before scowling. “You did this.”

“Me?” Maria replied with a wry grin. “I never left your side since you had your hands on my throat!”

“Then you did it before that,” he growled.

“I wish I had,” Maria replied with a grin. “I hope he flees your clutches. I hope he can prove you wrong and make you see what a misguided buffoon you’ve become.”