Page 15 of Cruel Crown

Bas pulled a pack of cigarettes and lit one up. “No, crazy is me killing all the men who had you surrounded. Crazy is dragging your ass to one of the jeeps that were stashed in the trees, and crazy is driving through the jungle to Ecuador all so I could get you out of Colombia alive.”

“Why?”

He finished smoking before he answered my question. “Because I love Daphne.”

Did the fucker just say he loved Daphne?My fucking Daphne. When he laughed, my glare intensified.

“Relax, I love her like a sister.”

“You fucked her,” I added dryly.

He shrugged.

“Shit happens.”

“You’re saying you wouldn’t do it again?”

“Now, I didn’t say that. Look, I like Daph. I love her but not in that way. Did I like the sex? Yeah, but then I love pussy. I get twitchy if I go too long without getting laid.”

Shaking my head, I lay back down, feeling drained already. I wondered why I didn’t hurt as bad as I should.

“Yeah, you go back to bed. I’ll figure out a way to get us out of this jungle,” Bas added with sarcasm. I didn’t have the energy to flick him off.

Gideon

Location:Ecuador

Recovery was a bitch in a third-world country. My eye was fucked; I didn’t need a doctor to tell me my vision would never be twenty/twenty again. There was a faint pink line in my throat, a bullet graze in my arm, and my ribs were slowly healing.

The borders were hot right now and I was the number one enemy. Since Bastian had left camp—or so everyone thought—he wasn’t a suspect, and he killed his loose ends.

Daphne had probably done what she’d set out to do, and the bitch was in her Swedish cottage laughing at how she’d played me like a fool.

My ribs hurt from the heavy breathing I was doing, and my throat clogged with the anger that flowed through my veins. The first few days, I was drugged on some herbal shit the natives gave me, and Bas had given me vitamins to inject. Every fucking little thing reminded me of her. It didn’t matter that our time together had been brief and lapsed time. It fucking sunk into every surface, every pore; it was ingrained in all of my being.

“Okay, I think you should be ready to travel now so that I can charter us a ride out of this hellhole.” Bastian came to where I was seated, looking down at the river that flowed through the hills.

“Does your phone still have juice?”

“Enough for one call,” he replied.

“I have someone who can pick us up,” I told him, not meeting his stare. I inhaled the fresh air, and then I exhaled, knowing I couldn’t just let it go. “I want in.”

There was a smile on Bas’s face. I could see him grinning from my peripheral vision.

“You’re going to specify what ‘in’ means, otherwise I’m going to take it as an indecent proposition.”

“Stop being a wanker.”

I pulled out the cigarette from his mouth and put it off on his forearm.

“Fuck,” he cursed when the ash burned his skin.

I couldn’t help but smile. I had thought long and hard, and I’d finally found something that would give me some peace of mind.

“Last time I went to Moscow, I got the impression Damian had told someone else to proxy Daphne’s vote…”

Bas poured some water on the cigarette burn, cleaning it. “Yeah, and look how well that ended.”

---