A Tale of Two Cousins (A Papaioannou Novel Book 3) Read online

  “You really are hung up on money, aren’t you?” I asked Maggie, ignoring Kardom.

  “If by ‘hung up’ you mean I want some? Yes, yes I do want money. I want what’s mine. And you can stop pretending you like living like a pauper, because the truth is you sure as hell made sure you snapped up a rich, handsome bachelor as soon as you set eyes on him.”

  “A man who I thought was a waiter, and too poor to own a car,” I pointed out, shaking my head. “You’re so mercenary now. You never used to be that way.”

  “Oh, I was. You just never took the time to notice that I didn’t pretend I didn’t mind being poor, like you and Chris did.”

  “Well, now I know,” I said, feeling like there wasn’t much more I could say. “I’ll send you a check just as soon as I turn in the article and get paid. Until then, I guess this is good-bye.”

  “You have no idea how right you are,” she said, and, grabbing my arm with one hand, whipped out a small rectangular object the shape of a blocky cell phone and, before I could so much as blink, jammed it into my back.

  Instantly, my body stiffened, my muscles locked so tight that I wanted to scream, but couldn’t get my mouth to work. Pain burst all over my body, and I felt myself falling, my body slamming into the pavement with another wave of pain. I lay completely inert, my muscles still immobile, and my mind screaming with horror when I saw Maggie scoop up Valentino. She leaned down to look at me, her lips curving in a smile that seemed to be the epitome of evil. “I don’t have time to wait for you to pay me the pittance you’re making from the magazine. You get that rich husband of yours to pony up a hundred grand, and you can have the cat back. Otherwise, I’ll send him to you in pieces. You got that, cousin?”

  I lay on the pavement, my mind torn between the anguish of my body and the sheer horror of the thoughts of what Maggie would do to Valentino. I couldn’t see him, but I could hear Kardom telling Maggie that she was stupid to attack me in full view of everyone, but his voice stopped as a car squealed away.

  Two women who most likely had been watching from the safety of a shop emerged, asking me questions in Greek. Although my muscles were starting to relax, and I could move my hands and my legs a bit, I was still feeling the effects of the stun gun that Maggie had obviously used on me. I heard myself moaning and tried to roll over, one hand stretching out to where my phone had dropped when Maggie struck me down.

  One of the Good Samaritans, a middle-aged woman with salt-and-pepper hair, picked up the phone and glanced at it before trying to hand it to me.

  My fingers flexed, but couldn’t grasp it. I tried to say Dmitri’s name, but all that came out was garbled words, most of which were profane in the extreme. The woman tapped on the phone and held it to her ear. I prayed she was calling Dmitri.

  Two minutes later the ladies had me sitting up. A shadow fell over me, and suddenly, Dmitri was there, holding me against him, murmuring things to my neck and hair, his hands running over my body to check for injuries.

  “Maggie,” I said, my tongue feeling like it belonged to someone else. “It was Maggie. She took Valentino. Dmitri, we have to get him back. She threatened ...” I couldn’t go on. I had a policy of not crying in public, but being stunned must have knocked my inhibitions aside, because I clung to him and bawled like a baby.

  And that, of course, brought the paparazzi at a run.

  It took another few minutes before he got me to my feet, and by then, EMTs had arrived to check me out. A half hour later, I sat in the kitchen, both hands holding a cup of coffee, while Dmitri paced back and forth, barking orders into his phone, and periodically pausing to pull me into a hug to tell me it was going to be all right.

  “No luck?” I asked when he ended the most recent call.

  “The police won’t give me access to the street cameras, no.” The expression on his face was as grim as my spirits.

  “Did you tell them that she threatened his life?” I clutched the coffee cup tighter. “Don’t they realize that Maggie is unhinged and wouldn’t stop at hurting an innocent cat? Oh, God, Dmitri! What are we going to do? We can’t let her hurt him. He’s probably scared and traumatized and who knows what else.”

  Tears burned hot in my eyes, making my throat ache.

  Dmitri pulled me off the chair, his hands on my arms as he looked me in the eyes with a steady, unwavering gaze. “She won’t hurt him. She knows we’ll pay to get him back, and you said that above all else she wants money.”

  “I can’t ... I don’t have—”

  “But I do, and I will pay whatever she wants for him.”

  “Thank you,” I murmured, hugging him as tight as I could. “I don’t know how I’ll repay you, but I will.”

  “You will not. You married me, so now your cat is my cat, too, and no one messes with my cat.”

  I smiled into his collarbone, warmed by the anger in his voice almost as much as by his words. I tipped my head back. “I promised you that being married to me wasn’t going to cost you anything. I’m sure not keeping that promise.”

  “About that,” he said, his voice as hard as stone. I pulled myself back so I could look up at him. His eyes were a mossy green, glittering with emotion. “I’ve changed my mind.”

  “About being married to me?” I didn’t think it was possible to feel worse than I already did at that moment, but his words struck me with the impact of a sledgehammer.

  “Yes.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t want to be married to you just to keep you safe from your cousin. I want to be married to you because I want you to be my wife in more than just a legal sense. I want you to want to be my wife because you want to be married to me, and you can’t live without me, and you will spend every second of every day doing things that make me the happiest man alive to have you in my life.”

  “I love you, too,” I told him, and gently bit his chin.

  He was moving in for a kiss, but at that moment, my phone rang. My hand shook with anger and fear when I answered it. “If you’ve hurt so much as one tiny little orange hair on Valentino’s adorable head—”

  “I told you that you could have him back if you ponied up the money. What use do I have for a cat, especially one that sits with its goddamned yellow eyes judging you, and looking at you like it smells something bad? Does your husband have the money?”

  “Not in cash,” I told her, startled. “Will you take a check?”

  “For the love of—no! No checks! I want cash. Or, wait, a what-do-you-call-them, money transfer. Yeah, that’s what I want. Into one of those banks that the embezzlers use, something that no one can trace.”

  “Hold on a minute,” I told her, and pressed the mute button on my phone. “Maggie has gone insane.”

  Dmitri raised his eyebrows. “I wouldn’t have called her the poster child of sanity and rational thought before, but what has she said now?”

  “She has delusions of being some villain who has offshore bank accounts. Any minute now she’s going to demand a private jet, and ten pizzas.”

  Dmitri made a face. “Do you want me to talk to her?”

  “No.” I took a deep breath. “She’s my cousin. I’m going to stall her, and call around to see if I can find where Kardom was staying. I just bet you that she’s sitting back in the hotel room he’s paying for.”

  “Ah, well, as to that ...” Dmitri gave a little embarrassed cough. “You don’t have to call around. I know the hotel where he was staying.”

  “How do you know ... oh.” I didn’t know whether I should be annoyed or amused. “You had someone checking him out.”

  “He drugged and kidnapped you. Of course I had him investigated. I wanted to determine if he was an actual threat, or if he was easily avoided.”

  “Let me guess—you decided the latter?”

  Dmitri nodded. “Checkered as Kardom’s reputation is, he hasn’t used violence in the past, has no criminal record, nor could my people find any relationship with those involved in violent crimes. He doesn’t appear to be overly rec
kless, so I feel confident that he’s not going to risk his life attempting an attack on you. He’s just a midlevel businessman who appears to be fixated on Beck.”

  “One who lies when it suits him. But despite Kardom killing any chance I have of being crown princess—remind me to tell you what he did that ensured we’ll probably never even be able to step foot in the country again, let alone represent it—I’ve come to realize he’s not the real villain of this piece.” I pushed aside thoughts of Beck to focus on what was important, and I unmuted the phone to ask, “You still there?”

  “Yes, but I’m getting sick and tired of you stalling. Either you give me the money that’s due me, or I take out my frustrations on the little orange monster.”

  “It goes without saying that if I find you’ve harmed him, Dmitri and I will rain vengeance down on your head. However, since we don’t want anything to happen to him, Dmitri is arranging for the money to be made available. But it’s going to take half an hour. If you text us your bank info, he’ll make the transfer happen.” I lifted up my hand to show my crossed fingers.

  Dmitri kept his gaze firmly on mine. I knew he wanted badly to take over, but he recognized the fact that it was important to me to handle my own issues.

  As if I couldn’t love him any more, he had to be all supportive and thoughtful, the big oaf.

  “All right, but that’s as long as I’m going to wait. Just see to it that the money is ready then.”

  I ended the call and looked at Dmitri. He was already texting Cove, and took my hand, pulling me after him when he hurried out of the door.

  Twenty long, excruciating minutes later, we stood outside the hotel room that Dmitri’s investigators said Kardom had rented. Dmitri knocked at the door and spoke in Greek, one hand over the peephole.

  There was a rattle of a lock; then the door opened. Dmitri rushed in, pushing Kardom aside in order to run through an opened doorway. It evidently led to Maggie’s room, because I heard her squawk. I was hot on Dmitri’s tail, bumping into him when he came to an abrupt halt.

  She stood with her back to a bed, holding Valentino in one hand, and the stun gun in another, pressed to his neck. “Don’t move, either of you, or I’ll fill this cat so full of volts he’ll be able to light up the whole hotel.”

  Before I could speak, Dmitri moved, throwing himself forward, reaching for the cat with one hand, while the other went for Maggie’s wrist.

  She screamed, and I heard a familiar hiss. Valentino bit her hand, leaping out of her hold to stand with his fur all puffed up. At the same time, there was a faint white-blue flash and a buzz; then Dmitri dropped, falling half on, half off the bed.

  “Oh, you did not just do that!” I had bent to pick up Valentino, clutching him with one hand to my chest. With my other, I made a fist and punched Maggie in the eye. Her head snapped back, colliding with the wall with a painful thunk; then she slid down, her eyes fluttering.

  “Dmitri! My darling, are you all right? Aww, I know, my brave Prince Charming. It hurts, huh? Just try to focus on breathing. It’ll feel better as soon as your muscles stop trying to rip themselves out of your body. Here, Valentino, you go sit on Daddy and give him some love and snuggles while I find something to tie up Maggie.”

  I turned to find a belt or something that I could use to bind Maggie’s hands, and saw Kardom in the doorway. I narrowed my eyes on him.

  His gaze went from Maggie, to Dmitri, who recovered faster than me and was trying to push himself up, a steady stream of what I assumed were Greek oaths coming from his mouth. Kardom pursed his lips. “I don’t suppose you—”

  “No,” I said, not even bothering to wait to hear what it was he wanted to ask. “You don’t need me, Kardom. You won. You get Beck. So just go enjoy being a horrible man who cheated me out of my heritage. I don’t care, so long as you leave us alone.” That was a lie, but now was not the time to deal with my emotions.

  Dmitri got himself into a sitting position, shook a fist at Kardom, then toppled over onto his side again.

  While I helped him sit up again, Valentino strolled over to where Maggie was slumped, making faint moaning noises, turned so that his back was to her, and, to my great enjoyment, piddled on her.

  Kardom quietly closed the door without any further comment.

  SIXTEEN

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Chris’s voice was unusually grave.

  It perfectly matched the expression on Dmitri’s face. “Thyra, I know you feel this is the right path to take, despite our many discussions on the subject—”

  “They were arguments, pure and simple, but thank you for trying to make them sound nicer,” I said, kissing him on the tip of his nose.

  “Despite that, I feel obligated to remind you that I will be happy to put whatever resources I have at your disposal to clear up the situation. What you want to do is unnecessary and irreversible.”

  I nodded, tightening my fingers around his. We stood in a small office in what had once been a modest palace inhabited by my ancestors. Now it was home to the newly re-formed Beck government. My stomach made a few unpleasant flips at the idea of Kardom being somewhere in the building, but even the idea of him gloating at Chris and me couldn’t stop me from doing what I knew I had to do. “I have to do it. It’s only right.”

  Chris sighed. “Well, if you’re going to, I might as well do it, too.”

  “You don’t have to—” I started to protest, but he lifted a hand. At that moment, the door opened to the office of the new prime minister. She stepped out, accompanied by all twelve ministers of the council, almost all of whom had been swayed by Kardom’s underhanded methods to oust me from what should have been mine.

  “Your Serene Highnesses, it is a pleasure to meet you at last.” Prime Minister Nina Schoenberg nodded at Dmitri. “Mr. Papaioannou. I understand that you have a statement you wish to make before parliament is officially opened?”

  “We do,” Chris said. “My sister speaks for both of us. Thyra?”

  I was momentarily surprised to note that Kardom wasn’t with the ministers, and felt that was fate giving me a blessing for what must be done. I lifted my chin a little, and said, “My brother, Christian, and I are saddened that the government of Beck has opted to forgo recognition of our family and our heritage in favor of a distant cousin. However,” I continued quickly when a pained expression passed over her face, “we are not here to decry the decision. Our family has been tied to Sonderburg-Beck for twelve generations, and in that time, from the first duke on, we have only ever wanted what was best for its citizens. Although my brother determined early on that he did not wish to be recognized as crown prince, he feels, as I do, that our family would want us to acknowledge just how unbreakable is the bond between Beck and us.”

  Dmitri gave my fingers a little squeeze of support, and then released my hand and moved back half a pace. I knew he was doing this to show the government that although they might have little respect for Chris and me, he had gallons of it. I made a mental note to pounce on him later and thank him for that show of support.

  “For that reason, Chris and I feel that our family’s prized possessions—Chris’s order of St. Georg, and my tiara from the Grand Duchess Feodorovna—would benefit Beck in ways we are otherwise unable to ensure.”

  Chris handed over the two cases bearing my tiara and his order. The prime minister looked stunned for a moment when one of the ministers opened the leather cases. “These ... these must be worth a fortune.”

  “We value them for much more than just their material worth,” Chris said, looking every inch the crown prince even if he would shortly lose that title to Kardom. “They represent our family.”

  “Our heritage,” I said.

  “Our bond with Beck,” he added.

  “We give them to you freely, and only ask that you use the proceeds of their sale to further the programs that will directly benefit the citizens of Beck,” I said, my throat going tight and painful with a sudden burn of unshed tears.


  “This is most generous, most generous indeed,” the prime minister said, her expression still one of astonishment. Several of the ministers murmured similar statements, but only Minister Martin met my gaze—and she merely smiled sadly, giving me a little thumbs-up sign.

  I wanted to say more. I wanted to run down Kardom’s shopping list of nefarious activities, pointing out not only that was he no stranger to lying and cheating to get what he wanted, but that the ministers who supported him were just as culpable, but I knew it would do no good.

  I simply nodded, unable to speak for the ache in my throat, and turned on my heel, blindly reaching for Dmitri’s hand.

  We left without anyone saying anything else to us. That part of my life was well and truly over.

  But I had Dmitri. And that thought made the future one of love and warmth and happiness despite the loss of Beck.

  One morning, two days later, Dmitri looked up from where he was eating a handful of grapes and figs while perusing his laptop. “Good morning, my delectable—oof!”

  I flung myself on him, kissing his face. “Why didn’t you wake me up so we could play?”

  He smiled, his eyes twinkling with wicked intent. “I decided you deserved a lie-in after the last couple of days. However, there’s nothing to say we can’t go back to bed for a little ... nap.”

  His mouth was so hot on mine that I just let him kiss the bejeepers out of me before I remembered the thought that had been uppermost on my mind when I woke up. “I got a text from the editor at Noblesse. She loved the interview, and asked if I’d take on a column.”

  “Ah?” He eyed me, pouring a cup of coffee for me. “And do you want to do that?”

  I ignored the little spike of pain that jabbed into me at the knowledge that now I had nothing else to do—other than be Dmitri’s assistant. “I might as well, so long as the people I need to interview are wherever we are. I don’t see why I can’t help you and do the odd interview with whatever high mucky-mucks are about.”

  “It’s your decision,” he said in a noncommittal voice, which for some reason had me narrowing my eyes on him.