The Royal Guard Read online

  “Are you talking about blackmail?” Marisa stepped back, the light of the lamp hitting her directly now.

  “Let’s call it pressure, shall we?” She raised her eyebrows and dug into her purse. “I went out with the captain a few times.”

  “You did?” Marisa blurted. She couldn’t imagine the captain dating anyone.

  “Yeah, well, when I discovered he was off limits, if you know what I mean, I gave up on him.”

  “Yeah,” Marisa said. “No marriage or serious relationships for the captain of the guard. That is strictly enforced. It’s a security issue.”

  “In any case,” she pulled out a photo from her purse. “Being the researcher I am, I couldn’t help snooping a bit while at his place, you know?”

  “No,” Marisa said, eyes wide.

  “Yes. And I found something.” She handed the picture to Marisa, and they stopped under a street lamp so she could look at it. It was a picture of a little girl.

  “Who is this?”

  “Turn it over.”

  Marisa did. On the back was a name and date. She looked at Tara confused.

  “That,” Tara said, “is Captain Di Stefano’s daughter.”

  Marisa’s jaw hit the ground. “No.” She turned it over and stared at the picture more closely. The girl did seem to have the captain’s eyes and nose.

  “I’ve thoroughly researched it. She is his daughter. She lives in France with her mother. It’s the dirty family secret.”

  Marisa handed the photo back, her hand shaking. Tara refused to take it.

  “Look, Marisa, this is my gift to you. Use it to persuade the captain to give you what you deserve.”

  5

  Marisa sat at her kitchen table staring at the photo of the little girl. She and Tara had exchanged phone numbers and separated not long after Tara had given her the photo of the girl she claimed was Captain Di Stefano’s daughter. If the king or queen found out about it, he would be sacked immediately. The captain of the guard signed his freedom of family away. It was another layer of protection for the royal family. If the captain had no one he cared about or had ties to, it made it less likely that anyone could blackmail him into giving away royal secrets. This was a powerful thing. Did she dare use it? Her dad would kill her if she did and he found out. He had taught her to be honorable and to do the right thing always. Blackmailing the captain was the wrong thing to do.

  She sighed, latching on to another plan. She would send him an email with a well thought-out and executed argument about why she deserved the promotion. She would not use the smoking gun photo. She couldn’t.

  When morning came, Marisa felt she had a pretty good chance at getting the advancement. She’d done a really good job in all the trainings, and she thought she’d written a compelling argument as to why it shouldn’t matter that she wasn’t “one of the guys.” She tucked the photo of the captain’s daughter into her left front pocket. She would return it to him after she got her promotion.

  ***

  Marisa held her breath as she walked into the debriefing room, only exhaling after taking her seat between two hulking guardsmen, Wakesha and Scavo. The captain was not there yet. He liked to enter from a back door exactly on time. She looked at the training leader board. Her name shone at the top. A thrill moved through her, seeing the date next to her name. It had been there for eleven months already. Certainly she would be chosen. There was no other possible outcome.

  The clock on the wall ticked quietly, telling her she had five minutes to agonize. She watched as all the empty seats filled in the next five minutes. A little burn settled into her gut seeing, as always, that she was the only girl there. She told herself that it didn’t matter and looked back at the leader board for comfort. Right on time, the door swung open and a perfectly dressed and put together captain of the guard entered the room and stepped up to the podium.

  Marisa’s heart thundered, and she put her hands under the table, clenching them tightly together.

  “Good morning. I need your undivided attention for the next while as we have some major changes coming at the end of the week.” He pressed a button on the remote in his hand and light illuminated the screen behind him. “Two of the royals are heading for America to be on a popular dating TV show for a little over six weeks. That means we will need more of you to join the Fiorelli’s personal guard for at least the next seven weeks. Whether or not the appointments will stick after that time cannot be said. I have created two new sectors of guards, taking from those already in the personal guard and those of you who I believe are ready for such an assignment. The remainder of you will be put on twelve hour shifts and will most likely only receive one day off each week over the next seven weeks. You will be compensated for this, of course. This will stretch us thin, but I have written the schedules to maximize our efforts with key people in key places.”

  He clicked the projector to the next slide. “I have listed the various team leaders here.” He nodded to his secretary who brought a packet to eight different guards around the room. “Trucco will bring these leaders their team members’ names. They are also on the next slide.”

  Her name was not there. So she wouldn’t be a leader. That was okay. They wouldn’t listen to her anyway. Her eye swept over the four personal guard team leaders. Of the four, she was hoping for Elia. He was always a worthy opponent in the trainings, and he never seemed to get caught up in the power plays within the guard. Once the lists were handed out, Christian clicked to the next page. “We’ll start with the four personal guard teams. Next to your leader’s name is listed the room I’d like you to go to discuss your duties for the next seven weeks as outlined in the packet.” She put her hands on the table, ready to stand as she scanned the names. Her name wasn’t in the first column, nor the second, nor the third. Sweat slicked her hands, and she wiped them on her pants before she finished looking over the fourth column. Her name wasn’t there. She had to have missed it. People were standing all around her and leaving the room. Her eyes scanned the columns again, a little slower this time. Still, her name was not there. She blinked rapidly and looked again. She shook her head as her stomach hardened. She brushed her hands over her pants again, and she pulled hard for air.

  “That can’t be right,” she whispered to herself. Her mind scrambled to make sense of what she was seeing as the noise of chairs scraping the floor and bodies leaving the room diminished. The list on the screen seemed to go out of focus as she stared, and she blinked again, over and over trying to clear her vision and make sense of it.

  The booming voice of Captain Di Stefano sounded over the room, but she couldn’t make out what he was saying at first. She fisted her hands and closed her eyes tight, head angled down. She counted to ten before she dared open her eyes and when she did, the room was in commotion again. She whipped her head around trying to figure out what was happening, until her eyes lit on the captain, whose eyes were upon her.

  She cleared her throat and then looked above him. There, listed under the royal castle guard under Laterza’s name as leader, was Marisa Donati. Her nose flared, and she breathed deeply in, her throat burning. She looked away from the list as if that alone would change her reality. A choking sensation gripped her as her stomach soured. She was going to be sick. She dashed out of the room and to the washroom down the hall. Every bit of her breakfast left her in five heaves. Sweat beaded at her forehead, and her body felt like a furnace. She closed her eyes and leaned up against the stall wall, quick, shallow breaths leaving her. Dying right there on the bathroom floor seemed preferable to going back into the debriefing room. She reached behind her and grabbed some toilet paper and wiped her mouth just as footsteps sounded on the tile outside her stall.

  “Donati?” It was the captain. In her mind, Marisa scrambled to her feet and flushed the stinking contents of the toilet away, but her body refused to do her bidding. Instead, she hung her head and brushed her forehead with her hand.

  “I saw you come in here. Your new team is
waiting for you.”

  That was all it took. Anger swelled inside her, adrenaline kicking in. She could no longer stay seated. She stood and pushed the toilet lever with her foot. The door was slightly ajar already; she hadn’t had the time or the forethought to lock it. Her fingers curled around it and jerked it open. The captain took a quick step back. She scowled, realizing that winning every training exercise, beating every opponent, and following every rule would not get her what she wanted. The captain of the guard saw her as less, simply because she was a woman. She stalked past him, trying to ignore the fresh smell of spearmint that seemed to follow him around. She put her hands under an automatic tap at one of the sinks and washed her hands before cupping them and rinsing out her mouth several times. The rough paper towels got rid of any trace of water on her hands and face. She looked at herself in the mirror.

  Even though her skin was olive, it had a gray tinge to it at the moment. Her usually shiny eyes looked dull, almost lifeless. She checked her teeth for any sign of food particles and headed for the door. The captain’s hand landed on her upper arm. She stopped. “Are you seriously going to do that again?” She couldn’t believe the words had come out of her mouth. No wonder she hadn’t been promoted.

  “Wait, Donati.”

  The rebellious part of her rose up, and she almost ignored him, letting her hand grab the door handle, but she restrained herself at the last second. She clasped her hands behind her back and stood at attention, forcing herself to hold back.

  “Your letter made a compelling argument. I know you were expecting something different.”

  If he knew that, then he should have done something different. She swiveled her head toward him and gave him an exasperated look. Her anger and disappointment would not let him get away with it. Not again.

  She licked her lips. Her insides quaked with her insubordination.

  He clenched his teeth. “It has to be this way. I’m sorry. Your group is in room 102. They’re waiting for you.” The look on his face as he opened the bathroom door to go was one she had never seen on him before. Was it contrition?

  Despite her anger, she gave a sigh of relief. He really could have raked her over the coals for speaking too boldly with him. She had never seen him back off someone who challenged him, ever. It hadn’t been a smart move, but she’d let her anger get the better of her. She hated it when she was treated unfairly. It was worse when she was treated unfairly for being a girl. There was no good reason to keep her out of the personal guard—nothing but the good old “boy’s club” mentality.

  She knew, however, if she was going to change things, she was going to have to swallow her pride and show them that she was more than capable and couldn’t be put into a box. She pushed her shoulders back, let her feeling for revenge soften, and lifted her chin before heading into room 102.

  ***

  The captain’s words bothered her throughout the meeting. She barely paid attention as she was assigned—no surprise—once again to guard the women’s chamber. Every time she tried to focus on something else, the memory of his words, “It has to be this way. I’m sorry,” raked over her skin, making it hot and itchy. It didn’t have to be that way. She had to tell him. She had to make him change his mind. If she had to, she would use the photo. It would be his fault. He would have forced her to use blackmail.

  After the meeting, she had fifteen minutes before she had to be at her post. She hurried to the captain’s office, only to find it deserted. She’d have to catch him at lunch. After a quick trip to her locker, where she retrieved her staff, her gun, and her radio, she found herself outside the women’s chamber standing perfectly erect and silent.

  The women behind the doors, however, talked excitedly about the show and about the upcoming centennial celebration. Apparently the entire event would revolve around a hundred-year-old document signed by the king of Monterra and the governor of Aligard. They had been fighting over ownership of a valuable mine, but had finally come to a peaceable agreement and set it in writing. The document was kept in the royal vault off the men’s chamber for all one hundred years and would be retrieved the day of the celebration. After a dinner and a cultural celebration, they would read the document to those in attendance. The celebration was in a few days, and the castle had been overrun by distant relatives and other help. Marisa liked having new faces to look at and learn about.

  She let her mind wander to the captain, wondering if he would be visiting the women today. She hoped that if he did, she would be able to control herself and not confront him right there in the hallway. The picture was still tucked away in her left breast pocket. Her worry was irrelevant, he never came. As soon as the women vacated the chamber for lunch and she sealed the door with her key, Marisa made for the captain’s office again before heading to the staff lunchroom. He wasn’t in his office, however. She saw him turn the corner to the guard exit at the end of the hall. She picked up her pace. Using her proxy card, she exited the building into the underground parking garage, and she could hear her captain’s voice not far away. He was whispering, but his voice echoed off the cement walls and ceiling.

  As his words crystalized, she slowed, not wanting to interrupt his call.

  “I know. I’m sorry, but something has come up with work, and I won’t be able to come for a couple of months now.”

  There was a pause.

  “You be a good girl and help your mommy, and Daddy will be there before you know it.”

  Marisa furrowed her brow. Was he married to the girl’s mom?

  “I love you, too. Can I talk to your mommy?”

  After a pause, he continued. “I’m sorry, Juni. I know this isn’t ideal, but I promise to come get her in about eight weeks when this new assignment is up.” Silence. “Okay, I’ll call as often as I can, but you know how that goes.” Pause. “Goodbye.”

  He huffed. Marisa leaned on the barrier that stood between them. She waited for Christian to start his car and drive away before she moved.

  6

  She got home bursting with anticipation. Her goal of over twelve years was about to be realized. When she stepped out of her room after showering, she was pleased to see Tara had called.

  She called her back immediately. “Hey, Tara.”

  “How did it go today?”

  “Not so great. I didn’t get the post.”

  “What? How could he deny you after showing him the photo?”

  “That’s the thing. I didn’t end up showing it to him. I wrote this perfect email—.”

  Tara interrupted her. “What? Why not?” There was something strange about her voice.

  “I didn’t feel good about it. I mean if he loses his job, I’d not only be hurting him, but his daughter too.” Marisa thought she heard Tara breathing fast and hard on the other end, but when she spoke, her voice was even.

  “It’s just so unfair. I want you to succeed. It’s wrong for you to be kept out of this because you’re a woman. I want a win for women everywhere. You would not believe how hard it has been for me to rise up in my law firm. They keep me in research because I’m a woman and don’t think I can lead a case.”

  “I told you I never wanted to be the poster child for women’s rights. I just want to do my job the best I can.”

  “I know. I know. But a girl can hope, right?”

  Marisa chuckled. “We have to.”

  “I mean it’s their loss not using me. I’m a forgery expert after all, and they have the biggest case they’ll ever have involving forgery, and they won’t let me lead. Insanity.”

  “That’s terrible. The worst thing about it all is that they are all wasting talent. They’re hurting themselves as much as they are hurting us.”

  “Hey,” Tara said. “Want to meet me at that new Thai restaurant on via Guilia and via Lata? I’m starving. You haven’t eaten yet, have you?”

  “No, that’d be great. I just got out of the shower and need to get ready. Give me twenty minutes, that’s only a couple blocks from my plac
e.”

  ***

  After ordering, they leaned in close together to talk. Marisa was surprised at how quickly she had become friends with Tara. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed having someone to talk to. She’d been lonelier this last year than she’d realized.

  “I’ve been thinking and thinking,” Tara said. “And I know how you can get your promotion without blackmail.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. And—it’ll be fun.”

  Marisa screwed up her face.

  “Seduce him.” Tara grinned and leaned back. “You want something from a guy, you just have to give him a little something, if you know what I mean.”

  Marisa’s jaw dropped and a shocked laugh escaped her. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “What’s the big deal? You’ll have fun. He’ll have fun. And you’ll both end up getting what you want.”

  “No way. I’m not that girl.” The thought repulsed her. And if she was being honest with herself, she’d admit that the captain had no interest in her whatsoever. She would never be able to seduce him or any other man.

  “Come on. Girls do it all the time. Guys, too. I’ve even seen your captain do it to women at the club.”

  Anger rose up in Marisa, and she wondered why. It was none of her business what the captain did with his free time. “The captain would never do that. He’s sworn to celibacy and has such integrity that he would never—”

  “Uh, hello? Where do you think I got that photo?” She looked around the restaurant as if trying to see if anyone was looking. “That man leads anything but a celibate life. Believe me.”

  Marisa opened her mouth to respond, but there was nothing she could say. She didn’t know how to explain how Tara got the photo.