Page 39 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

“Only if we ask nicely,” Raul said.

She opened her eyes. “Can’t you just com­mand her to make it?”

Raul and Gabriel burst into laugh­ter, Gabriel’s deep, mas­cu­line rum­ble vi­brat­ing in places Quinn didn’t want it to.

“Marta would quit and go to work for some other royal fam­ily,” Gabriel said.

“One with a king,” Raul said. “Marta isn’t im­pressed by queens. She’s a bit sex­ist that way.”

“I think she’s hold­ing out for an em­peror,” Gabriel said.

“She’ll have to learn to make sushi, then,” Raul com­mented. “Japan’s got the only re­main­ing em­peror in the world. Not that he has any power, of course.”

Quinn lis­tened to their ban­ter in fas­ci­na­tion as she worked her way through the gourmet del­i­ca­cies on her plate. She wanted to ask how a gen­uine monar­chy had sur­vived into mod­ern times in Cal­eva but de­cided that would be less than tact­ful.

As soon as Isaac had cleared the ta­ble and ev­ery­one set­tled back with their cof­fees, Mikel said, “I don’t know how quickly Ko­dra is go­ing to meet with his con­tact, so we need to get some ground rules set. Then I rec­om­mend that you all try to rest. We may have a long day ahead of us.”

As a com­bi­na­tion of nerves, an­tic­i­pa­tion, and ex­hil­a­ra­tion os­cil­lated in her chest, she un­der­stood Mikel’s weird, in­tense vibe. To­day they might iden­tify the per­son who had mas­ter­minded Gabriel’s kid­nap­ping.

Her gaze shifted across the ta­ble to see what emo­tions Gabriel might be feel­ing. His jaw was tight, his lips pressed into a se­ri­ous line, and his sil­ver-gray eyes were fo­cused on Mikel. She could read noth­ing other than con­cen­tra­tion on his face.

Raul wore much the same ex­pres­sion. It must be some kind of royal train­ing that gave them such out­ward con­trol.

“We’ll be land­ing about an hour be­fore Ko­dra’s plane is due. I have cars wait­ing for us,” Mikel said. “Two of my team are on the same flight as Ko­dra. They will tail him and keep me up­dated about his move­ments through­out the air­port. Once he ex­its, we will fol­low him us­ing var­i­ous ve­hi­cles un­til he meets his con­tact. That could hap­pen to­day or in three days. We have to be flex­i­ble.”

Quinn had never seen her boss in “field mode” be­fore. His de­liv­ery was clipped, and he showed none of his usual cour­te­ous def­er­ence to the two roy­als op­po­site him. He was the gen­eral, and they were the foot sol­diers.

“I am go­ing to re­it­er­ate what Señor Luis said this morn­ing.” Mikel’s gaze rested first on Raul and then on Gabriel. “I am re­spon­si­ble for your safety, so you will fol­low my in­struc­tions in­stantly and with­out ques­tion. If I give the com­mand, my team will not hes­i­tate to en­sure that you do so. They re­port to me and no one else.”

Quinn sucked in a sur­prised breath. Now Raul and Gabriel weren’t even sol­diers. They were an­noy­ing civil­ians who didn’t know how to fol­low or­ders. Would Mikel’s team mem­bers re­ally lay hands on a royal? The waves of grim cer­tainty ra­di­at­ing from her boss made her be­lieve they would.

“Agreed,” Raul said with­out any ev­i­dence of be­ing of­fended.

Gabriel nod­ded, his face still im­pas­sive. She glanced down to see that his hands were curled into fists on the table­top. The pres­sure must be tremen­dous. Af­ter the pass­ing of roughly twelve months, he was sup­posed to de­ter­mine whether or not the per­son Ko­dra met was one of the kid­nap­pers whose faces he’d never seen. That meant re­vis­it­ing the most ter­ri­fy­ing episode in his life.

She wanted to reach across the ta­ble to take his hand in the same kind of com­fort he had of­fered her ear­lier. How­ever, the pres­ence of her boss put the ki­bosh on that idea.

Mikel leaned back in his chair. “Now, take ad­van­tage of our re­main­ing flight time to rest.” He turned to Quinn. “The seats far­ther back in the cabin flat­ten into beds. Isaac will give you a pil­low and blan­kets.”

She was too keyed up to sleep, but she didn’t want to ar­gue with Mikel, es­pe­cially not when he showed no qualms about or­der­ing around princes and dukes. She nod­ded and then waited for Raul and Gabriel to stand and choose their seats. No way would she lie down in a seat right be­side ei­ther one of them.

Mikel raised his eye­brows at the three of them.

“You go ahead,” Quinn said to the men across the ta­ble. “I need to speak with Mikel for a minute.”

Gabriel un­clenched his fists and flat­tened his palms on the ta­ble to push up. “Some­thing too se­cret for us to hear?” His slight smile said he was teas­ing.

“Some­thing too triv­ial,” Quinn said.

“I’ve never known you to deal in triv­i­al­i­ties,” he said, but he walked down the aisle, fol­lowed by the prince.

She turned to Mikel and low­ered her voice. “I read ev­ery­thing you emailed me, but I still don’t know ex­actly what the plan is.”

“There can be no plan un­til we know where Ko­dra is meet­ing his con­tact,” Mikel said. “I have my best peo­ple ei­ther al­ready in Lis­bon or ac­com­pa­ny­ing Ko­dra there.” His eyes lit with that eerie, al­most elec­tric an­tic­i­pa­tion. “We have to be pre­pared to im­pro­vise.”

“I hate to im­pro­vise.”

The cor­ners of Mikel’s mouth lifted in a faint smile. “Con­sider it mak­ing plans on the fly.”

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