Possessing the Princess

One minute I was sitting behind the desk. The next I was across the room, blowing up in Yas’s face while I pinned her shoulders to the wall. “Fuck. Off. Why don’t you worry about Daisy instead? Isn’t she about to be sent stateside?”

With a snarl, Yas shoved me back. “You’re a mean motherfucker when you don’t get your way, Aris.”

I raised a finger at her, breath rasping from my lungs. “Don’t you say her name to me again. And don’t you ever call her leverage.”

Konstantin, probably alerted by the commotion, stepped into the study too. “Everything all right in here?”

Neither of us acknowledged him.

“There you are.” Yas stared at me so hard I knew she was speaking to me.

“What do you mean?”

“I had to make sure you actually give a shit about Roya.”

When I made to attack again, she raised one hand and continued, “And that you still have your balls intact. Otherwise Konstantin and I were going to handle this ourselves.”

“You don’t even like her. And handle what exactly?” I looked between the pair, alarm beginning to percolate just beneath my skin.

“Meh. She grows on you. She’s ballsy.” Yas’s eyes glittered. “And she didn’t deserve any of this.”

“Handle . . . What?” Dreaded premonition drew me upright and made me ball my fists.

“You didn’t tell him yet?” Konstantin winced.

“Handle fucking what!?” I bellowed, a sense of unease pitting my stomach.

It was bad enough, thinking about Roya being married to that fat fucking degenerate by the end of the day . . .

Folding her arms over her chest, Yas turned totally serious. “I’ve been doing recon at the palace since you returned Roya, staking it out—”

“I didn’t ask you to do that.”

“You’re welcome, and she’s been taken.”

Dread and dangerous rage exploded in an instant. “You didn’t think to start with that? How long ago! Who did it?”

I paced the confines of the room before barging out the door.

Those two followed me as I stalked to the elevator, and it felt like my heart was going to ricochet right out of my chest.

“Tell me every fucking thing right now,” I shot over my shoulder.

“Big commotion at the palace this morning,” Yas reported, sliding into the elevator after me and Konstantin. “I managed to snag one of the servants. Roya was kidnapped sometime in the night. A slick operation apparently. You know she was using the tunnels to sneak out, right?”

The elevator cruised up, bullet-fast, before spitting us into the club’s offices.

Yas continued right where she left off. “So the perps used the tunnels too.”

“That fucking crazy uncle of hers. Had to be.” I unlocked the room we kept on the premises that was loaded up like a military armory.

Inhaling a ragged breath, I shut my eyes for just a second.

It was already ten in the morning.

She’d been missing for hours. We knew the uncle was stationed in Sharjah, but I wasn’t going to take any chances.

“You”—I pointed at my front woman—“get on the computer. That little adjustment with the gold cuffs is going to come in real handy now.”

“You got it,” she answered with a cutthroat grin.

Next I glanced at Konstantin. “Call in our two best teams and start grabbing the weapons. And I do want the fucking RPG this time.”

With orders drilled out, I fished out my phone and placed a call to one cunt in particular, and it wasn’t Roya’s betrothed.

Oh, and P.S., the wedding was going to be called off immediately whether I got Roya back in time or not.

As soon as the other end of the line was answered, I muttered, “The Sheikh. NOW.”

There was a mumble then a clatter before that fucking weasel got on the phone. “Aris. We are busy with the wedding preparations, as I’m sure—”

“Cut the shit, Sheikh. I know all about Roya. You couldn’t even do one thing right, you useless piece of shit,” I growled out.

Silence was all that met me for a moment while I clutched the phone to my ear.

At last, the cunt broke down. “I will send men. I’ll—”

“Nyet.” I cut him off, dark wrath raging through me, more powerful than any drug in the world. “You will do nothing except set her free once I save her.”

Although I had no such intentions myself.

“On second thought. Send your man who carries the KA-BAR to the hotel,” I added.

That one knew how to handle himself and others, and probably had personal intel on asshole Uncle Abdullah, the city official who’d just signed his death warrant today.

“A KA-BAR? I don’t know what—”