Page 107 of Stolen Princess

I nod in agreement, then direct my focus to Marcella, who is still in front of me. “I have Sven’s number, but he won’t talk to me, and he thinks I’m dead. He would love to kill me all over again given the chance, though.”

“I have Antonia’s number, and she wants me dead too. And she has her location off so we can’t track her by her number.”

I rub my jaw with my right hand because my left arm is fucked. Good thing I’m a righty. However, whatever they gave me for pain is working nicely. I’m not dead, which is frankly a bit of a shock. It’s a second chance. One I don’t deserve. But with that, I’ll get Desta back. If I have to kill a dozen more people to do that, I will.

“What if you text her and I text Sven? I tell him I’m not dead, but I tell him I have access to you and the necklace and will make a swap.”

She tilts her head at me. “What if I text Antonia and tell her that we have you and that my fiancée will do anything to get the princess back?”

I fall back on the bed and stare up at the ceiling. “Why didn’t she kill her?”

“What?” the king asks.

“All these years, she kept her tucked away in this cottage, telling her the world is scary and dangerous. She manufactured the television so it only showed gangs and violence. Desta had an old flip phone but had never been on the internet until I came there. Why would this Antonia chick do all of that?”

I can feel glances being shared around the room before they finally answer me.

“If you repeat anything, we’ll⁠—”

“I just want her safe,” I cut the king off. “I don’t give a fuck about your shit.”

“Why should we believe that?” Marcella asks, more curiosity than censure in her tone.

“Does the bullet that grazed one arm and went through the other shoulder tell you anything? I was trying to save her.” My eyes close at the memory. She was so scared. She couldn’t swim, and I thought…” I swallow thickly. “Look, I’m not a good man. I know that. I’ve never pretended to be otherwise. But she’s… everything good. She should be here with you. That’s all I know.”

“Antonia is technically her aunt,” the Spanish man says.

I squeeze my eyes shut. “I don’t understand.”

“The original woman who took her was the same Marie you stole the tiara from. She’s Desta’s biological mother and Antonia’s sister,” Marcella explains.

“The woman I stole the tiara from? She stole Desta?” I release a breath as I work this through. “That’s who she was with the night at the festival before Antonia took her. So that was her mother, and I don’t care why she stole her from the palace or even what happened to your father. But why would Antonia bother to steal her from her sister? Why keep her alive and have Desta call her mother and rename her as Genevieve?”

“Antonia had an affair with our father. Marie did after our father ended it with her, and Marie became pregnant,” the prince reveals. “Marie took Desta. Antonia is the one who killed our father. We don’t know what happened that night. None of us saw what went down in Desta’s bedroom.”

“When Desta confronted Antonia over text, she said that Desta was always supposed to be hers.”

“Maybe Antonia felt Desta should have been hers and not Marie’s?” Marcella guesses.

I swallow. “Antonia loves Desta. She thinks of her as her daughter. It’s why they took her instead of killing her when they tried to kill me. She’ll likely kill Sven. I would. He’s got nothing for us to bargain with and is no use to her.”

“The fingerprints at the tiara robbery match Marie’s.”

I shake my head and sit up, staring at the large Black man in the corner. “Marie had no clue I took it. Antonia did, and she tried to kill me before I ran off with it the first time. She wanted that tiara. Badly. Then again, after Desta and I left the cottage, Antonia texted and told me her sister is the one who stole the tiara from me and that if I killed her, I could keep it.”

“But you don’t think Marie took the tiara?” the king questions in disbelief.

“No. I don’t. I think Antonia wants her sister dead and wanted me to do it and dangled the tiara over my head because she knows I wanted it back.”

“You’re telling us that finding the cottage and our sister after you’re the one who stole the tiara from Marie years ago is a coincidence?”

The prince is incredulous, but I only have one answer. “Yes. Or fate.” Something I never believed in before I met Desta.

He whistles through his teeth and exchanges a look with his brother.

“Maybe she planted her sister’s fingerprints to throw us off,” the younger bodyguard adds. “Or maybe the sister discovered it was you and came after it.”

“Maybe. Only something about it doesn’t feel right. I linked up with Sven and Lars four weeks before the tiara was stolen from me. They had a house, and I didn’t. They offered for me to put a safe in their place when I mentioned that I had things I wanted locked up. It was their trust measure, and I went through with it because no one else had the code for the safe but me. They had a place to house it, and we were building toward the necklace job. But what if they knew Antonia all along? They had to have. She got in contact with them almost immediately. She broke in when the three of us were gone, scoping out the warehouse. How would she have known we were gone the whole weekend unless she was in contact with them? It’s not as though we informed the neighbors of our comings and goings.”