What were you thinking? The last place I will put my ass is over my parent’s dead bodies. And how long did you expect me to sit on that throne? All my life? Did you not want me to live? Get married? Have kids?
His instructions would be ignored. Both of my parents would be placed in very expensive caskets and buried in the family cemetery behind the castle. Perhaps, the castle would finally get some peace and the fog of death would lift from that property.
And I don’t know where all his followers are going to go, but they must leave. I will not serve them. I am no king.
At the castle, everything moved surreal like the strangest Salvador Dali piece. Deserted land. Double exposure—one image with another vision inside of it. Nothing was what one thought. Animal masks and bonfires. Prisoners in chains and confused women voluntarily enslaved. Death and things to do with pain. Sorrow. Loneliness. Desperation.
That was my father and his home.
This legacy must stop. I won’t carry any of it over into my life. It ends with my father.
If I was being truthful, it hadn’t begun with him. My grandfather found his wife dead in the bathroom. She’d killed herself, probably due to his mistress being moved into the other side of the castle.
Even further back, there was my great-great-grandfather. He’d killed all of his five wives. No one knew why, just that he’d been displeased with them the morning of their deaths.
Power did odd things to humans.
I had no taste for it.
And all this went down in that dark castle off in Prague. Like I’d told Ava, we’d been poor sometimes in my childhood. We’d lost the castle a few times, and then immediately gained it back. My father had pride in getting that dark property returned, while I thought of it as a physical embodiment of the craziness in our lives. A constant structure twisted into death and nightmares. The devil’s domain.
Father left the castle to me. Now it’s all mine.
I frowned.
Yippee?
I made a promise to myself that I would never suffer like the men in my family had. Deep in my subconscious, I believed Ava was the answer to stop this legacy of mad kings.
My phone rang. Kazimir’s number showed again. A bad feeling settled in my stomach at the possibility that the Kremlin and Kazimir calling on the same day could be related. There could be many reasons for that, but I didn’t plan on assessing any of them.
The both of you must wait.
I had my surprise in place for Ava. It was time to focus on the happy things in life. The past week had been a war. I’d lost my father and other long-time friends. I’d helped Kazimir defeat his throne.
It was time for me to take a break!
Kazimir and the Kremlin can wait. And Prague will definitely not be on my radar today. Father is dead. What other trouble could his followers get in?
I ignored the rest of the numbers and decided to see what my top security guy in America wanted.
His name was Naveen. His family had sought refuge with my father, when he was young. His mother had been considered the most dangerous, and feared women in India. She’d been charged with over a hundred crimes. Many of them resulting from a heinous moment. She’d been gang-raped in a small village. Later, her sisters, older kids, and her caught those men. They dragged the evil men out of their homes with guns pointed at their faces. And one by one, Naveen’s mother shot down over twenty men.
Her family fled the country after that. Somehow, they landed in Prague where my parents caught wind of their appearance. With pressure from my mother, father moved them into the castle and told the India government to stand down when it came to Naveen’s family.
His mother passed away many years later from old age, but our families continued to support the other. Meanwhile, Naveen and I grew up together. When I built my own empire, I had Naveen join my team. He had a knack for guns and security.
I dialed him.
Naveen answered on the first ring.
“What’s up?” I asked. “I saw that you called several times.”
“Why did you go to Fuego for the witness pick up?” Naveen asked.
I squinted my eyes. “What witness pick up?”
“In the Bronx. Fuego said you called him last night to pick up a witness in the Bronx.”
I scratched my head. “What?”
“New York.”
“I know where the Bronx is. I’m referring to this witness pick up.”
“You asked him—”
“Wait.” I shook my head as things began to make sense. “That wasn’t a witness pick up. I asked Fuego to do something else for me.”
“You should’ve had me do it.”
Why won’t everyone leave me alone?
I groaned. “I didn’t call you because you’re in LA right now. I called Fuego because the situation dealt with New York and that’s where he lives. Plus, it was late at night, and the last time I woke you up, you messed up the cargo.”