The Soldier and the Princess

“I had it all under control. It was all perfect and then you came along, and you ruined everything!”

“Connie,” I said slowly, not wanting to startle her. “Connie, please. Just put the gun down.” I had never seen her so distressed, not even the time Melanie Walters beaten her out for Prom Queen. Constance hadn’t thrown a fit then. No. She had come home from the dance and sat in her room and planned out a strategic dismantling of Melanie’s entire social life.

Prom Queen or not, Melanie had become a social pariah by the time her celebratory hangover had worn off.

No, this Constance was one that I didn’t recognize, and that meant I had no idea how to handle her.

“Back off, Daphne. This doesn’t concern you.”

“Connie,” I said again, my hands raised so she could see I wasn’t going to try anything. “Listen to me—”

“No!” she shrieked. “I am done listening to everyone else. I listened to mother when she insisted I marry Toddrick. Then I listened to Toddrick when he thought it was a good idea to invest all our money in his father’s firm.”

Holy smokes. I hadn’t known that Constance and her husband had actually invested money with his dad; if that were true, and it was a substantial enough amount, then my sister was truly broke.

“And then I listened to father when he told me to leave her alone,” she spat, gesturing wildly with the gun and making my lungs freeze.

I seriously never wanted to see another gun again as long as I lived.

“For once in my life, I am going to get what I want.”

I refrained from telling her that she always got what she wanted, often at the expense of others. Constance had never been the kind of girl who liked hearing the word no, and growing up that way appeared to have done her a huge disservice in the real world.

“And what is it you want, Constance?” I asked instead, truly curious as to what her end game was here. If she had resorted to hiring kidnappers, then this was bigger than just not getting her way.

“I want,” she started, still holding the gun, but I could see she was losing steam as the weapon was now pointing somewhere over Penelope’s left shoulder. “I want...I want to be the best, Daphne,” Constance finally answered, and I watched as her shoulders drooped, the arm with the gun now hanging at limply her side. “I want to be the one everyone looks to, the one they flock to and fawn over and envy because I had done something remarkable. I want to be the woman at the top, the smart, capable one. The one holding all the cards.”

I stepped closer, reaching for her as she started to sob. “I know, Connie,” I soothed, meeting Penelope’s eyes and nodding for her to get out. I needed her to leave the room so I could deal with my sister, but the stubborn blonde refused to move, shaking her head at me even as she practically hyperventilated on the couch. “I know you want those things. But there is nothing stopping you from having them. Not me, not Stone, and certainly not Penelope.”

“I just needed her gone, just for a while,” she breathed, her whole body shaking as she spoke. “Once she was out of the way, Stone would be a mess. Then I would be able to step in and show daddy that I wasn’t just a pretty thing to be married off and trotted around.” Constance looked at me, her face crumpling as the tears trailed down her pale cheeks. “Just this once I wanted to prove there was more to me than the way I looked, Daph. That I could be something other than a doll.”

Dropping the gun, which landed with a dull thud against the thick carpet, Constance brought both hands to her face as she began to cry in earnest, her knees giving way as she collapsed to the floor.

But before she went down, I was there, my arms around her as I guided us both to the floor. Constance clung to me, her arms tight around me as she cried into my chest, and as a distraught Penelope looked on, I did my best to soothe my sister, comforting her for the first time in our lives.

I don’t know how long we stayed that way, but we were still there, clinging to one another when the door to the suite opened and Stone and Silas came in, looking at us in a panic. Penelope ran to Stone, throwing herself into his arms as he gaped at the scene before him.

Silas wasted no time in coming to me, his limp much better since the last time I had seen him. As he made his way around the couch, he spotted the gun on the floor, and his eyes flew to mine in question, but I just shook my head.

“It’s alright,” I said quietly, to both him and the crying woman still in my arms. Silas picked up the weapon and did something with it before placing it in the back of his pants. Stone, finally having caught sight of the gun, looked at me, alarmed, and I gave him a sad smile when I said, “Stone, I think you should probably call the police.”