Page 100 of Roaming Holiday

“Is there a reason we can’t arrest him for everything else he’s done?” I ask.

“It’s a waste of our court system’s time and money,” Jack explains. “He has enough lawyers to drag it out for years. Meanwhile, he’ll make bail and continue business as usual.”

“The police have an investigation started on him, though?” asks Gregory.

“Yes. We could kick this to them, but it doesn’t solve the fact that we’re waiting for Arlo to green-light Beck.”

I mask my distress. The meeting goes on for another hour until we stop to eat. My family keeps their distance, almost as if they don’t know how to act around me. It’s the first time I made a decision wholly for myself, and I force down the guilt. In spite of being princess and starting a career in service for others, Wesley is the one thing in my life I won’t compromise on.

50

WESLEY

By four o’clock, I convince Nina to eat dinner and rest. She agrees only if I spend the night with her—which I’ll never turn down.

When the rest of the team is off-duty, I sit with Jack on his office patio.

“As much as I hate to admit it,” he says, taking a drag of his cigarette, “it makes sense.”

“What does?”

“You and the princess. I can see why during the meeting.” He releases a sharp breath, shaking his head at himself.

I cough over my surprise, surveying the perfectly landscaped garden in front of me. The citronella candle on the end table crackles. “I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

He snorts. “No one ever does.”

“What I said earlier?—”

“It’s okay,” he interrupts, twisting his wedding band. “I’d do the same.”

It wouldn’t feel right to sacrifice Jack—to let Arlo live and cause this chaos. “I was going to say that I can’t picture myself giving you up. Arlo will be dead just for touching Nina.”

He chokes out a sardonic laugh and mutters, “Jesus.”

I sometimes forget how straight-and-narrow Jack is even though he’s the one who shot Santiago in cold blood. Silence falls over us as we pass the cigarette back and forth. I make a note to brush my teeth before seeing Nina. She hates the smell.

“The only way out of this involves something illegal,” I say.

“You could go into hiding.”

I shake my head and return his cigarette. “Nina would kill me.”

“Then disappear. I can get you out on a plane tonight.”

After what happened today, I would leave in a heartbeat if it meant keeping her safe. She shouldn’t go through that again, but her defiance is groundbreaking and I have no desire to test it. The way Maximo’s head snapped aside when Nina cracked it with a metal pipe and said, “I hope I killed him,” afterward left me slightly shaken. I’ve seen much worse, but I’ve been thinking of her as fragile when I shouldn’t.

“Nah, I can’t do that to her,” I say lowly.

“Then what are you thinking?”

The only thing Arlo might want more than his brother’s shooter is a profitable business deal. As much as I dread the possibility of doing this, I don’t see another way. I’m not sure if he would be dumb enough to green-light the princess of a country, but he’ll definitely put a hit on me. He has the tenacity of a stubborn child and would burn the world just to get what he wants, even if it bites him in the ass by shelling out a million-dollar bounty on my head.

“A deal. I… take out one of his opponents.”

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t see another way. We spent the entire day trying to come up with a solution. There’s nothing else.”

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