“Are you sure your uncle hired the assassin?”
Darling gave his friend a wry stare. “No, I’m not sure. I have no idea how to track information like that down. Pure bloody speculation on my part.”
“Cut the sarcasm, Lord Smart-ass. I’m just worried about you, okay? I am allowed, after all. You are the only family I have in this world.”
Darling checked his temper as he saw the hurt in Maris’s eyes. “I know, Mari. I’m sorry.” The two of them had been through so much in their lives. Best friends since they’d started preschool together twenty-three years ago.
Through thick and thin, brothers to the bitter end. That had been their childhood pledge to each other. Little had they known then how many times that bond would be tested.
Never once had they disappointed each other.
He placed his hand on Maris’s shoulder to reassure him. “I already have everything arranged. Arturo thinks my mother and brother retreated to the Summer Palace after Drake’s last exam yesterday. Tomorrow, I want you to head to Caillen’s by midday. Then I’ll pick Lise up from school and get her to Nykyrian’s where my mother and Drake are waiting.”
“And then you’re going out alone to commit suicide. How vintage Darling of you.”
He ignored Maris’s dire prediction and sarcasm. “The CDS”—the Caronese Delegate Symposium that served as the secondary governing body of their empire—“meets tomorrow evening. Once I have all of you secured, I can issue my challenge to Arturo. With that many witnesses, he’ll have to agree to it.”
“I thought you had to be twenty-nine for a challenge.”
“Normally yes, but I found a loophole last night in the Unification Laws. Since Arturo isn’t a fully blooded governor, and he attempted to kill the full-blooded prince and heir, I can petition the CDS on those grounds and he’ll have to meet me, or be arrested. Stupid bastard. I now own his ass.” But then Arturo had no idea the kinds of skills or resources that Darling had access to.
Arturo’s mistake was about to cost him his life.
Maris held his hand to his temple as if his head was throbbing from their discussion. “Okay, alien life-form here. I still don’t understand the nuances of how all this works.” His face was a mask of frustration. “Everyone thinks you’re gayer than I am. Won’t they ask how you’re supposed to produce an heir when you’re ostensibly homosexual?”
Darling shrugged. “If I win, it won’t matter to the CDS. As a fully blooded governor, I can name Drake my heir until I produce a legal one. Even if I don’t ever have a son, it’s not important. I don’t care about inheriting. I only care about keeping all of you safe.”
And avenging my father.
That was an account that was long past due.
When Arturo had paid for and sent that assassin after him, Arturo had made the biggest mistake of his life. By coming that close to succeeding, Arturo had rammed home to Darling that if he didn’t do something, now, today, his uncle would see him dead. It was no longer a possibility, but a harsh, concrete fact. And where there was one failed aassassin, there were always a dozen more willing to take over the bill-kill target and collect the credits.
Not going to happen, old man.
Darling hadn’t come this far and survived so much to die at the finish line. It just didn’t work that way. And after finding the contract Arturo had placed on his life, Darling wanted to bathe in Arturo’s blood until he was drunk from it.
A tic worked in Maris’s jaw. “And if you fail to defeat him, you’re dead.”
“I’m dead anyway.” Or worse, his uncle would lock him up in a place that made him wish he were dead.
No one could deny that. Arturo hated him with every part of his being. But for his survival skills and strength, Darling would have been dead a long time ago. “It’s just a matter of time before Arturo finds a way to assassinate or permanently imprison me.”
Maris grimaced. “You should have let one of us kill him years ago.”
If only it were that simple.
“Believe me, I wish.” Darling clenched his teeth. “Our laws are so fucked up and backward.”
Unfortunately by Caronese law, if his uncle was assassinated by anyone from any empire, all Cruels, except Arturo’s male blood children, were to be executed… that included his uncle’s current wife and their three legitimate daughters. That had been the first law written and passed by his uncle when he’d taken the throne. One Arturo had created to keep Darling and Drake from killing him or having him killed.