Page 9 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

Gabriel left his car in the palace’s pri­vate court­yard, toss­ing the keys to the first at­ten­dant he saw as he sprinted up the steps to the king’s pri­vate quar­ters. He’d got­ten a text sum­mons from Tío Luis when he’d been miles away from the palace, try­ing to es­cape Mikel’s words and his mem­o­ries. The king might be his fond un­cle, but Gabriel did not daw­dle when an­swer­ing a royal mes­sage. He had headed straight home at a speed higher than the posted limit. There were ad­van­tages to be­ing a royal duke in a rec­og­niz­able car.

Gabriel pressed his palm to the se­cu­rity pad and nod­ded to the uni­formed guard who opened the door. Two more guards stood in the hall, at­tired in the same palace dress uni­form of a deep red jacket and Cal­e­van blue trousers. Both held ma­chine guns. Gabriel had been told that the guns were more for show than de­fense since the hall­way it­self had ad­vanced weapons con­cealed be­hind the pan­el­ing and mu­rals. Mikel had in­formed him that vis­i­tors’ bod­ies were scanned be­fore they even got to the outer door.

Some of this had been in place be­fore his ab­duc­tion, but Mikel had added to the ar­ray since then. Not that it would have changed any­thing, since he and Raul had not been at the palace when they’d been am­bushed.

Gabriel strode along the cor­ri­dor to his un­cle’s pri­vate study. He walked through the door and stopped. Raul was there, too, his arms crossed and his hip propped against the or­nately carved an­tique desk. His cousin’s mouth was drawn into a hard, grim line.

“Tío Luis.” Gabriel dipped his head in a semi­bow to­ward the king.

“Mi querido so­brino.” The older man smiled with gen­uine af­fec­tion.

Gabriel walked to­ward his cousin with his hand out­stretched. “Raul, good to see you.”

Raul’s ex­pres­sion light­ened very lit­tle as he took Gabriel’s hand and brought him in for a quick man hug. “You too, Gabri.”

As he stepped back, Gabriel was struck by how much his cousin re­sem­bled the king. He’d lost weight, so he was as whip-lean as his fa­ther. Even his face seemed carved into the same an­gles, al­though the king sported a neatly trimmed salt-and-pep­per beard, while Raul chose to be clean-shaven. Of course, the king’s face bore the lines etched by decades of mak­ing the hard de­ci­sions and con­duct­ing the del­i­cate ne­go­ti­a­tions that came with rul­ing a small but wealthy and strate­gi­cally im­por­tant coun­try.

Gabriel was glad he was not Raul.

“Sit,” his un­cle said, ges­tur­ing to the leather chair in front of the desk.

Gabriel shot a glance at his stand­ing cousin but set­tled in the chair.

Luis leaned for­ward, his hands spread on the desk. “Mikel has told you the news.”

Gabriel brushed his fin­gers over the hard out­line of the flash drive in his trouser pocket. “Yes, he did. I will do any­thing I can to help track down the rest of the kid­nap­pers. If it means trav­el­ing to Italy, I will go.”

“No!” The king slammed his fist on the wood, mak­ing both Raul and Gabriel flinch. “Mikel is go­ing to poke the hor­net’s nest. You and Raul will re­main here in Cal­eva un­til I am sure it is safe for you to leave.”

“Pa­ter, I want to be there when they ar­rest Ko­dra,” Raul said. “I might be able to iden­tify him, if I see him in per­son."

Gabriel shook his head at his cousin. “I saw the video and lis­tened to his voice, but I rec­og­nized noth­ing about him. Why do you think you could?”

Raul shoved off from the desk to round on Gabriel. “If not Ko­dra, then oth­ers. Mikel will find them.”

Gabriel was sure that Mikel would. The man never quit.

The king shifted his gaze to Gabriel. “They were not happy when they found out you had tricked them. I don’t want them tak­ing re­venge on you for that.”

“They had their chance when I was their pris­oner.” Of course, they had pun­ished him when they had found out his true iden­tity, but they’d still wanted the ran­som, so they hadn’t risked do­ing se­vere dam­age. “Why would they do so now?”

“Be­cause a cor­nered rat bites.” The king stood, straight­en­ing into what Gabriel la­beled his im­pe­rial pose—shoul­ders squared, jaw tight and lifted. “I have in­formed Mikel that you are both re­main­ing here. He is in agree­ment with my de­ci­sion.”

“Be­cause he has no choice,” Raul pointed out with bit­ter ac­cu­racy.

The king’s eyes gleamed with a hint of amuse­ment. “Mikel does not hes­i­tate to ar­gue with me.”

But the king’s word was the fi­nal one, no mat­ter how much Mikel ar­gued. Or Raul, for that mat­ter. Gabriel didn’t even at­tempt to per­suade his un­cle. He was afraid that he might have felt a tiny flicker of re­lief at the com­mand to stay away from his kid­nap­per.

How­ever, he had not hes­i­tated to pro­tect Raul then, and he would not hes­i­tate now. If Mikel needed him in Italy for Ko­dra’s ar­rest, he would go with­out ask­ing his un­cle’s per­mis­sion.

He would ask his for­give­ness af­ter­ward.

Raul stopped his an­gry pac­ing and faced his fa­ther, his pos­ture an un­canny du­pli­cate of the king’s. “Gabriel may be will­ing to hide here on Cal­eva, but I am not.” He turned on his heel and stalked out of the study.

“I’m sorry.” The king folded into his chair with a heavy sigh. “He’s an­gry with me, not you.”

“It’s un­der­stand­able,” Gabriel said. Since he had no in­ten­tion of hid­ing on Cal­eva, Raul’s words had not wounded him. “I took his place back then. He needs to can­cel that obli­ga­tion.”

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