Damaged Kingdom (Gilded Empire Book 2), page 1
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DAMAGED KINGDOM: GILDED EMPIRE
Contents
About this Book
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
About the Author (Janie Crouch)
Also by Janie Crouch
About this Book
Damaged Kingdom
Gilded Empire Book 2
I always knew I would die young, so being left to bleed out on a warehouse floor is no shock to me.
But as the blood seeps from my body, my thoughts aren’t of the Marcosa empire I’ve ruled for years, or the city I’ve given everything to protect.
It's on the three men who’ve stood by my side:
Greyson: my soul, my foundation. So hard and reserved, showing emotion only to me.
Dominic: my heart, my first love. He’s a dreamer but can wreck me in the best ways possible.
Nate: my comfort, my peace. He soothes and calms me even though I’ve only known him a short time.
My enemies have done their best to destroy me, and now it’s up to my men to piece me back together.
They will do anything to make that happen. But they can’t protect me from the threat none of us ever saw coming...
•••
Passionate alpha heroes and the women they’ll do anything to protect.
The perfect mix of sexy and suspense…plus the happily-ever-after you love. That’s the Janie Crouch—and MJ Crouch—book promise.
Click here to join Janie’s VIP reader email group and get a free book today.
Romantic suspense and reverse harem for readers who still believe in heroes.
Even when they’re rough around the edges.
Chapter One
Mari
Ialways knew I would die young.
No matter what I did or where I went, I couldn’t shake this notion that old age wasn’t in the cards for me. It lingered in the back of my mind as I had lunch with school friends as a teen and echoed in each fake smile I offered my allies. I would never know a peaceful or happy life, never grow old. I would die early, in my prime.
Knowing it my whole life meant I’d had time to accept it. That was why I wasn’t shocked when Cash left me alone to die. Cold and bleeding on the floor of the warehouse, with ribs that were desperate for a fucking break, I felt it. That inevitability. Fate was a hard press on my chest, forcing me to acknowledge the end with every tight breath.
This is it. There was no doubt about it. Everything had fallen into place exactly how I’d always thought it would. But for the first time, it didn’t feel right. The Mari destined to meet her maker early wasn’t me. I had too much to live for to go so soon.
It hit me like a sledgehammer as warm blood seeped through my fingers before dropping to the ground like sands through an hourglass. I didn’t want to die. I had too much to do to succumb. I had to survive.
Once again, I was grateful for the damn tracker. Sooner or later, it would guide my men to me. I just had to make it until they arrived. I could do that. While I did, I’d try to save myself.
Grief had shackled me for long enough. It was time to let the real Mari out again. The woman who’d taken the city and rebuilt it the way she wanted. She wasn’t the type to lie around and wait. She was a woman of action. I never wanted to forget her again. I wasn’t a damsel waiting for saving. I was a motherfucking queen, and I would claw my way home from hell if I had to.
Peering around the neglected warehouse, I grimaced at the state of it. The lights overhead were too bright and my head too foggy to make much out, but I could see dirt-covered floors and windows, while random reels of what looked like rusted wire lay discarded in the corners. That wasn’t even counting the dark mystery piles in shadowed corners that my eyes couldn’t quite make out.
Note to self, get a tetanus shot when you get home.
Squinting harder, I saw a door in the same direction Cash had left from and smiled. If I could get out there, the tracker would work better than it would inside the building. I was fairly certain the walls weren’t thick enough to stop it from working, but it would give Grey a better chance of finding me in time.
Plan in place, all I had to do was figure out how to get across the floor. My arms were still locked together, the metal cuffs digging into my skin with every movement. They latched my palms together, so I couldn’t do too much with them. I couldn’t walk either, not without risking even more injury.
“Thank god for leg day,” I murmured, wincing at the pain just whispering created. Pressing my legs to the floor underneath me, I shoved myself forward, trying to keep my core stable so I didn’t make my injuries worse. I had no other option, especially with my ribs still damaged from the first time Cash had ambushed me, but I tried to be as gentle with myself as I could. The last thing I needed was to end up with a hole in my lung because I got too cocky.
Every movement was agony, pure and simple, and I had to stop often.
Greyson won’t leave you here, I reminded myself every time. He’ll come. He always comes, and this time, Dominic will be with him. They’ll be here soon. They’re coming for you.
Except, I didn’t think they would. Or could. The longer it took, the harder it was to move, and the more my heart sank. Was Greyson even okay? Had Dominic even made it out? If Cash had been telling the truth, they both could’ve burned. And then there was Nate. Was he panicking inside my home after we didn’t return on time, or was it the first place Cash looked after he left? Did I damn Nate’s soul the first time we met?
I didn’t know, but I vowed to find out. And if anyone had hurt my men, I was going to survive long enough to make them wish they’d never met us.
Even though I mostly used my thighs to do the work, my fingers dug into whatever crevices and cracks they could find to help me on my way. Every inch felt like a mile, but I didn’t give up. Still, the longer it took, the harder it was to move.
Time hung in suspended moments I couldn’t measure as I grew cold enough that my fingers stiffened and shook against the concrete as I tried to find a handhold. My nails were broken and bleeding, absolutely ravaged from my attempts to help heave my body forward. To find help. To survive.
Black sharpened at the edges of my vision, and weakness weighed down my limbs like heavy boulders.
A break, I promised myself. Another short break and then I’ll get back to it. I’ll get out and find the guys.
I didn’t know how long I passed out, but I woke dizzy and exhausted, with no clue how I was still alive. A glance at the smeared blood trail behind me told me it was a miracle I’d survived this long, but my time was running out. If I didn’t get out soon, I wouldn’t make it at all.
No more breaks, I commanded myself. It’s do or die. Literally.
I was so focused on what I was doing that the scuff of shoes and the quick tap of footsteps startled me. Listening harder, hope brightened in my chest. At first, I was sure it was Greyson or Dominic, maybe both. The longer I listened, the more I realized how wrong I was. The tread was too heavy for anything my men wore. Ignoring the despair, I assumed it was Cash coming to gloat. He was just the type of asshole to do it.
I’m going to make him pay, I swore. I’ll use every last bit of strength to give him something to remember me by. However he grabbed me, I’ll make it work. Even a single scar on his pretty little face would be worth the effort.
“Back to watch me die, Cash? How clichéd of you.” Pain was evident in my voice, but there was no point hiding it. I hurt. I ached. I was dying. We both knew it, even if I loathed the idea.
I’d just decided to live, but my mind wanted what my body didn’t have the energy to offer. It was bullshit.
Silence was Cash’s only answer.
Not wanting to die on the floor, I hauled myself to my knees, breathing through the vertigo that threatened to flatten me again. My limbs were so weak, I shook hard enough for anyone to see, and my teeth were chattering.
“You’re a coward, Cash. Even if I die, I’m going to haunt you until you’re begging for death.” With no a
Lifting my head to spear Cash with a wish so fierce his grandchildren would feel my wrath, I expected the last face I saw to be an asshole. Instead, I looked up and saw an angel.
“Antoni.”
The word was barely more than a breath on my lips, but it felt good to say out loud. The meaning of seeing him hit me, and I sucked in a breath. Amara always said angels carried the righteous to heaven themselves. I was neither righteous nor a true believer, so maybe he was really a fallen angel. Truthfully, I didn’t mind either way, as long as I got my brother back.
Seeing him was bittersweet and beautiful. Even if I grieved what could have been true happiness for me, I was happy to see him. So damn happy. I’d missed him more than words.
He dropped to his knees at my side and mumbled low enough that I couldn’t make out the words themselves. The tone told me he was swearing, though. Callused fingers brushed my hair from my face then worked on the manacles at my wrists. The soft whir of a Dremel, accompanied by pinpricks of what felt like burning, was the soundtrack just before the chains linking the cuffs together broke. My shoulders screamed at the unexpected release, but having my hands free tamped down some of the panic I’d refused to voice that lingered at the back of my throat.
“Thank you,” I croaked, tipping my head back. I wanted to see Antoni, to refamiliarize myself with the face that had been at my side my whole life, but the lights were too bright and my vision too hazy. I cursed, annoyed that blood loss was getting to me.
“Time to go, tesorita.”
In the back of my mind, I wondered why he called me that instead of the snarky princessa he’d always preferred, but as he lifted me into his arms, I found I didn’t care. My twin was with me at the end. That was all that mattered.
Though he tried to be gentle, Antoni’s movements sent agony rippling through my stomach, and I winced. “I thought dying was supposed to be less painful,” I panted. “This shit hurts.”
“I know,” Antoni soothed, bundling me closer. “Breathe through it just a little longer.”
Right. Because I was dying. It would all be over soon.
I let him carry me out of the warehouse until the cold brush of night air graced my skin. Every step, I felt myself slip closer and closer to the place where we would be united again for good. I welcomed it. I was so tired of being alone.
But was I alone?
No. I’d had Grey, always. The thought of him—of Dominic and Nate, too—sent more pangs through me, though they were of the emotional variety. I debated keeping my questions in, but I didn’t want to. If I was going out, I wanted to go with nothing left to be answered. “Are they alive?”
Thankfully, I didn’t have to explain. Antoni knew whom I meant. “Yes.”
Relief bowled me over, and grateful tears ran from behind closed eyes, though I had no clue when I’d shut them. Barely there mist caressed my cheeks as the faintest sprinkle of rain fell. It felt cleansing. Like if I stayed in the mist for long enough, all the blood would wash away, and I would be clean again.
A beautiful lie.
“I miss them already,” I admitted. It felt like a dirty secret, but Antoni was my vault. My home. He would hold my secrets for me until I was strong enough to carry them again.
Warm air coasted over my forehead, followed by the press of dry lips and an unshaved cheek. “It will all be okay. I promise.”
And I believed him.
I tried thinking of all the things I wished I’d done, but regrets didn’t matter. What mattered was what I had. I’d cleaned up the city, rebuilt it strong enough that I had faith it would withstand Cash. I couldn’t say I’d fallen in love, but I’d finally let myself take the love that had been offered to me time and time again. I’d had Greyson—and even Dominic—for a time. I’d had Nate close, and in those moments when it was just us, he’d seen me. I knew he had. I had family like Cameron and Rey, friends like Shara and Aislynn. They’d guided me, kept me on the path I wanted to stay on, helped me become the person I was.
For all the blood and death of my life, they made everything worth it.
With nothing more to do, no last words to say, I curled against the chest of my brother and waited for him to take me home.
Chapter Two
Nate
Thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four…
Once again, I paced the foyer, waiting for Mari and the others to get home. At first, I let the sound of my footsteps on the tile soothe my worries. But the longer they were gone, the less it worked. So, I counted. Forty steps to one end of the room, forty steps to the other. Over and over, and over again.
No matter how many times I did it, the tightness in my gut wouldn’t ease.
It’d started about the time Mari had called to tell me they were planning to infiltrate Cash’s den. This unrelenting twist of my stomach screamed at me: something’s wrong, something’s wrong, something’s wrong.
Regrets wormed their way into my mind about the same time as visions of a bleeding Mari rushed through my head. I should’ve pushed harder to go with her, not taken no for an answer. My only excuse was I wasn’t awake, and she’d already been out of the house when she’d let me know what was going down.
Never again, I vowed. It was Mari’s choice, but I’d do my damnedest to make it happen. If she let me, I was going to be so far up her ass, she’d have to pry me off like a barnacle if she wanted space.
Raking a hand through my hair, I felt my fingers clenching at the strands as the urge to call her nagged at me until I couldn’t take it anymore. The first glimpse of dawn crested the horizon as I pulled up her number and hit send.
Voice mail.
I did it again. Same thing. They were busy, I knew that, but I couldn’t help myself as I did the same to Dominic, then Greyson. Hell, I even called Moore.
No one answered.
The unease twisted harder, like a wraith trapped beneath my skin. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong.
“Fuck it.”
I ran for the living room, running my fingers over every nook and cranny to find the weapons cache I knew was there. I wasn’t an idiot. This was a kingpin’s home; there were guns everywhere, and I just had to find one. Then I could go find my girl.
Not your girl, the little voice in my head reminded me, but I shoved it aside as I kept looking.
I was on the second to last piece of furniture, a side table next to the window, when I felt the slight give of a hidden drawer. It took a minute, but I pried it open just as someone knocked on the front door. Knowing it could be Aces coming for the Marcosa seat of power while Mari was occupied, I prepared to do battle.
Running through the motions to arm myself was like riding a bike, and I stuffed my pockets with extra ammo before closing the hidden safe again. If it was one against a dozen, I doubted I’d survive, but at least I wouldn’t let them take Mari’s home without taking some of them with me.
If that was all I could do, I’d do it well.
Another knock brought the sound of tense footsteps from the back of the house as Amara went to answer. She caught sight of me, armed and admittedly semi-feral, and blanched. Holding up a hand, I motioned her back and away from the door. Once she realized I wasn’t armed against her, she nodded and retreated to the kitchen, where I was sure she had her favorite toys stashed too. She wasn’t the type to let someone trash a home that was just as much hers as it was Mari’s.
Gun at my side, I opened the door a crack, surprised when instead of the pack of Aces ready to knock down the door and take what was Mari’s, it was a girl.
A glance showed she wasn’t much younger than me. Twenty-two at least, but she had that air of sadness about her that made people seem younger. More fragile. She twisted a bracelet around and around her wrist like it was her version of a worry stone. Gaunt cheeks and hollow eyes set into skin that looked unnaturally pale for her skin tone made me wonder when she’d last seen the sun. Even the clothes on her body didn’t fit right, though they were streamlined and expensive.
