Page 49 of A Princess, Stolen (A Kiss of Revenge, Blood, and Love #1)

“Good evening, little lady,” he said, pointing at me with two fingers.

“I see you!” A sly expression appeared on his noble face.

Behind Nathan, I made myself even smaller, but I still had the feeling that his gaze was slithering into me like a snake.

It felt intimate as if I was standing stark naked in front of him.

Nathan promptly changed his position so that he covered me completely. “Leave her alone!” I heard him growl. I peered past his upper arm.

Isaac looked at him sharply. “Perhaps you’ll finally explain to me what this puppet show is all about. You secretly changed course as if we weren’t a cohesive unit. Not a team! What have you become? Willa Nevaeh Rae’s puppet?”

“I have…” Nathan began but Isaac immediately interrupted him.

“Did any of you seriously believe that Nicholas Garrett Hampton would hand himself over like a condemned man, voluntarily laying his head under the axe?” He looked around. “Where did you think this was all going? We’re not playing cops and robbers!”

“We all agreed to this plan,” Nathan replied now in a firm voice. “You too.”

Isaac didn’t respond. “You honestly thought you could impose your rules on one of the most powerful men in America by kidnapping his daughter, sailing down the coast with her on a fishing boat, and sending him a nice photo every now and then?”

It didn’t sound like he wanted a peaceful end to this encounter and that made me shudder. And what did he mean by nice photo ? I had been in a sorry state.

In front of me, Nathan folded his arms but he was shaking with anger. “Why not?”

“Oh, yes, good question. Why not? Maybe because he’s a self-righteous asshole? Do you believe someone who calls themself a god and benefactor would go to jail for anyone? Let’s ask his little daughter?”

“She didn’t do anything to you, damn it!”

“Ah, listen to this!” Isaac laughed. “You of all people, are saying that? A few weeks ago, didn’t you say that you wanted to teach Hampton’s little daughter to fear? You wanted to hold her hostage, didn’t you? Bread, water, and shackles so she would learn what deprivation meant?”

Nathan remained silent but held out his hand and I took his fingers even though Isaac’s words disturbed me more than I cared to admit.

Isaac looked intently from one to the other.

“This plan was doomed from the beginning, but if I had told you that beforehand, you wouldn’t have gone along with it.

It was that simple. Just look at you!” He walked past Nathan’s men, men who had scared me to death weeks ago but now seemed as harmless as schoolboys when I compared them to Isaac’s henchmen.

“You give yourselves names from Greek mythology. Troy, Pan, Apollo, Taurus… I was against this farce from the beginning.” He pointed to Troy, whose eyes widened in shock, and then he looked in my direction.

“Willa Nevaeh Rae, this is Noah Van Veenstra, and this”—he pointed first to Pan and then to Ilias—“is Kjertan Johannsson and his twin brother, Rayk.”

“Stop!” Nathan yelled and let go of me, taking a step forward, whereupon the giant next to us immediately pointed the barrel of his gun at him.

Isaac didn’t even pay attention to him as he strolled down the line. “Thomas Tremblay, aka Taurus. I repeat: Thomas Tremblay, remember it for your police report, little lady.”

“Stop, damn it! Have you gone mad?” Nathan yelled at him. I could almost physically feel his desire to attack Isaac, wanting to pummel his face. But that was prevented not only by the giant next to us but also by the dark-haired man on the bollard, who was also aiming his Glock at him.

Isaac stopped in front of Icarus. “Should I stop? I didn’t change course to betray my brother and my own friends. It’s not my fault that the little lady now knows all the faces inside and out. Why no names then, Nathaniel McCormack?”

He pointed at Icarus and the man with the iron-hard mercenary face standing by his side pointed his gun at him as if to stop any further protest. “Our trickster Icarus, alias Ian Lee…and this, our Castor, is Jack Wilson.” Castor was the grumpy man with the goatee and emerald-green eyes, whom I had only ever seen briefly, as well as Apollo, the nondescript banker type, whom Isaac now passed.

“The good Alvin White and next to him we have Mykonos, whose real name is Owen Williams, a man who should hate you with all his heart, Willa Nevaeh Rae, because he will die miserably in a few weeks.”

Owen, with the razor-short army haircut and mushroom-like skin, looked at me, and in his eyes, there was that same glow as Sparta’s. Icy water ran down my back. He certainly wouldn’t take my side.

Isaac continued walking and nodded to the hobbits. “Ben Baker and Jerry Millman. Next to them is our Delphic oracle, Raphael Gauthier.”

I could only guess why he was doing it. He wanted to give the men a reason why I had to disappear. For good.

Instinctively, I dug my nails into my palms. Now, I felt like I had been locked in a container with a bunch of psychopaths. Anything could happen. Over Nathan’s shoulder, I saw Isaac stride to the middle and bow with a sarcastic smile.

“Allow me, little lady, Isaac McCormack.” As he straightened up, I was met with that possessive look again, a flicker that made every cell in me tremble.

I want you , his eyes said even though I could hardly see them.

But that was not all. They also promised to inflict the greatest possible pain on me that he knew.

A suffering that had something to do with the personal hatred of me.

I want you, body and soul: to possess, to destroy, and to kill you . He radiated it from every pore.

“Why are you doing this?” Nathan asked challengingly and I was sure that he interpreted Isaac’s expression the same way I did.

“Why?” Isaac came closer, running his hand through his hair and laughing.

“I offer you plan B. No more games, no more false names, just brutal reality.” The moon had risen and cast its silver light over Isaac’s face, his high cheekbones and confident, thin lips.

It frightened me even more that he looked highly intelligent.

He snapped his fingers casually and his mercenary handed him a piece of paper, which he unfolded agonizingly slowly.

It looked like a torn page from a newspaper.

He looked at me. “Do you believe, little lady, that your father would turn himself in and turn the machinery of the press, environmentalists, and envious people against him? Even if he did, maybe he would talk his way out of it as soon as you were free again. He could claim that strangers forced him to give false testimony because otherwise, they would have killed you. The world and the economy would certainly love to believe him, after all, they would lose all their oil.”

My mouth went dry. Of course, he was right.

He held up the paper. “Why don’t you read us the answer we’re all curious about? Come on, come to me, little lady!”

“The devil she will!” Nathan spat at him.

The man next to him stepped closer and the muzzle of the revolver almost kissed Nathan’s temple.

Blood pounded in my ears. Suddenly, it was as quiet as a ghost ship.

Before, someone had been coughing here and there, scratching themselves or shifting their weight, now, however, it seemed as if an invisible animal had eaten all the sound.

In the silence, someone cocked their weapon, but I didn’t know who they were aiming at.

Fear consumed all my senses. All I saw was Nathan storming forward, only to be stopped by a giant and the mercenary.

There was a scream, the sound of blows, and then Nathan was lying on the ground, the barrel of the gun against his neck.

I wanted to run to him, but his piercing gaze held me back. No!

Nobody moved. Nobody seemed to be breathing. All the men on the crew stood there frozen as if pillars of salt while the mercenary with the rifle ripped the headband from Nathan’s head and handed it to Isaac.

For a moment, I thought he was going to put it on like a captain’s armband, but he waved me over with it.

It was pointless to resist, downright ridiculous.

My heart galloped away with me. I have no idea how I made it to him, if I was shaking, or how many steps I took.

I also barely felt him put his arm around me from behind just below my neck so that his hand was on my collarbone.

The hug felt caring, protective, but it made the blood in my veins freeze.

“Read!” he ordered and his breath ran like fire across the top of my head. With his free hand, he held the sheet of paper in front of my nose, but it took me a few seconds to find the beginning.

“Nicholas Garrett Hampton files criminal charges against unknown persons.” I paused, hesitating, and heard the murmur of disbelief.

Isaac ran his fingers along my collarbone and I stiffened. “What are you waiting for, little lady? Read what your father did.”

I had to search for the line again because the letters were dancing back and forth.

“The world is appalled,” I read, trying to speak clearly despite my fear.

“And with it, Nicholas Garrett Hampton, prominent oil magnate and multi-billionaire from New York. As he announced yesterday…as he announced yesterday, one of his most profitable companies, the Hampton Oil Company of Alberta, Canada, is guilty of one of the most serious environmental crimes in living memory.” For a moment, I felt dizzy.

Dad had reacted! Finally! Tears welled up in my eyes.

Maybe he wasn’t guilty after all and this was all a huge misunderstanding.

Perhaps he had been forced to do so by someone higher up?