Chapter 4 – Sebastian
SEBASTIAN
If you had asked me on the plane, I would have told you I was good.
Now? Now I’m not sure. They found the bloody baby clothes of my little sister, plus more, and Bellamy’s father they feel will do better in a more sedated state because he was so combative and confused, he attacked both his aides and his nurse.
I asked them not to tell Bellamy that last part.
It will only break her heart and make her feel even more guilty that she wasn’t here, and I can’t have that.
But I also can’t have him attacking his daughter without realizing who she is.
She’s pregnant, and while it breaks me to do so, I have to protect her and our children first.
Even from her own father.
“Does he need anything?” I ask Bellamy, wiping her tears as they track down her cheeks.
“He’s comfortable,” she tells me, giving me a smile that doesn’t come close to reaching her eyes, as if I can’t read it from a mile out. So brave. So independent. So fucking beautiful my body aches for her, even now. It’s the sort of ache that will never dwindle, it will only grow.
She’s trying to protect me and I fucking love her so goddamn much it infuriates me all the more. I am the one who is here to protect her. I am the one who needs to keep her safe, comfortable, and happy. She is more than my queen.
She is my home. My heart. My essence.
The reason I am no longer the beast but the man, husband, and father I was always destined to be. Even as I feel that starting to slip away from me. Even as I start to feel some of that old ice refreezing my insides.
“My sweetness, tell me what I can do.” I almost plead. I need a chore. Something big and arduous. Truthfully, I need to go for a run or fuck her hard. Tie her up and spank her and edge her with orgasms and stare into her eyes as I own every inch of her skin.
I need to burn this off. This pervasive, strangling energy. And those are the only two ways I know how to do it.
The only things waiting for me in my office are pictures I don’t want to see.
I don’t want to see Desta’s bloody baby clothes or the blanket she was stolen in.
I remember when our nanny changed her diaper and put her into that onesie.
I remember that blanket hanging from the top part of the crib, a symbol of our family.
Then I remember finding our father bleeding out on the floor by her crib.
I remember that crib being empty. I remember the screams and cries.
The fear. The excruciating understanding that my baby sister was gone and that I might never see her again.
That there was a very strong possibility someone killed her the way they did our father.
“Nothing beyond all that you’ve already done for me,” she asserts, a ferocity in her voice that demands I don’t question her.
“This was bound to happen and he’s in good hands as you said.
” She sits up straight and clears her throat.
“He needs rest and, from what the doctor told me, won’t be awake likely until tomorrow.
Tonight I want to be with the children. I want to make junk food and watch a movie. ”
I smirk, my eyebrows raising. “Junk food?”
“Chicken fingers, mac and cheese, and cookies. It’s Zayer’s favorite now too, not just mine, and even Sabrina will eat it without protest.”
I snicker. “Are you making all this?”
“I am,” she tells me in no uncertain terms. “The cooking and baking will be good for my soul and keep my mind occupied. I can’t fix my father.
I can’t heal his mind or even his wrist. I can’t find your sister or put your mind at ease with that.
There are far too many things beyond my control at the moment.
But for now, we can have a special night with the children. ”
She’s once again putting on a brave face, but does she still not know that her blue eyes hide nothing from me?
There is so much sadness in her. But Bellamy doesn’t deal in sadness.
Being eternally positive and optimistic is her currency.
It’s how she operates, and all I can do is help her keep that going.
I extend my hand and help her stand. “Let’s do it then. Phaedra has already been asking if we can watch that ogre movie again.”
She snorts and rolls her eyes. “Of course she is. Because we’ve only seen it a dozen times.
” She turns to her father’s sleeping form.
“Good night, Dad. I’ll see you in the morning.
I love you.” Bending over, she kisses his forehead and retakes my hand.
“How can life be so beautiful and so shitty at the same time?”
“I’ve been wondering the same thing myself.” Then again, the only bright spot I’ve had in my life other than my children was when she walked into it. The moment I made Bellamy mine, I couldn’t help but question what I had done as horror swept through me.
I loved her. And part of me knew that by making her mine, I had sealed her fate the same as I had Nora’s.
Yes, her father was ill before I entered their lives, but not even a week after Bellamy marries me, he falls and breaks his wrist. Not even a week after our wedding, they discover the place my baby sister was taken to after she was kidnapped.
I believed we broke the curse. That our joined love was all it would take.
I would have sworn to it.
But now, not even two months after I felt its piercing talons unclench from my neck, I feel the curse’s suffocating weight more than ever. And for the first time, I think Rowan agrees with me.
Maybe there is no breaking it.
And if that’s the case, what does that mean for our future? For our children’s future?
Hints of the old darkness, that old crippling fear, have been seeping into my bones like a cancer, determined to take over every cell of my being. But I keep my mouth shut. I don’t mention a word, especially to Bellamy, and with any luck, I’ll be proven wrong and everything will turn out okay.
Bellamy and I wind our way through the palace down to the kitchen only to discover my three little monsters already there, their greedy hands shoved into a large bag of chocolate chips.
I curse under my breath in Latin and loudly clear my throat. I don’t have it in me to scold them or even punish them. They’re safe when they’re in front of me, and after everything we’ve endured today, I just want to see my children and my wife smile and be happy.
Three sets of eyes grow owl-wide, and their hands immediately fly away from the bag. Sabrina, who eternally has no shame, shoves the last chocolate chip she has in her hand into her mouth.
“They were out,” Phaedra explains innocently. “The bag was already open. We didn’t do that.”
“Hmm…” I wipe a hand over my mouth to hide my grin. “And do you feel that’s an adequate excuse for eating chocolate without permission and before dinner?”
Her shoulders sag. “No, Papa.”
Only Zayer and Sabrina cry out, “Yes!” and I can no longer hold in my smile or my laugh.
“Zayer, you cannot be as much trouble as Sabrina is.”
He gives me a curious look as if to say, But she’s my big sister. He walks over to Bellamy and puts his arms up in the air, demanding she lift him. Ever the softy, she does, and he gives me a cheeky grin that tells me he’ll forever get away with murder.
“I’m not trouble, Papa,” he tells me.
“And what about you, my princess?” I saunter over to my beautiful princess and crouch down to her height.
“I’m not trouble,” Sabrina protests with a harrumph.
“Sabrina, you are trouble. And all that means is that you have a wild, uncontained spirit that will forever challenge not only me and Bellamy but the world. Despite the gray hairs and lack of sleep you’ll give me, I wouldn’t change you, and I hope that spirit does, in fact, challenge the world.”
I kiss the tip of her nose, and some of the tightness in my chest unwinds when I see her face light up.
“Now…” I hesitate, turning my head over my shoulder to meet Bellamy’s eyes.
We haven’t yet discussed what the children should call her.
Bellamy feels formal, but I don’t want to push them into Mama or anything like that before they’re ready if they ever are.
So I let it drop and turn back to the children.
“Let’s make dinner and dessert. I know Oncle Rowan is especially looking forward to trying Bellamy’s favorite meal. ”
I kiss each one of my children, then my wife, and leave them here in her capable hands. Rowan and Javier are waiting for me. Bellamy knows about the bloody onesie. She doesn’t know everything, and right now, with her father’s health weighing heavily on her mind, I don’t want to overburden her.
Not until I have to.
Two minutes later I’m walking into my office to find Rowan pacing and Javier behind my desk at my computer. It’s déjà vu to when Samil took Bellamy, and a shiver runs up my spine.
“What is it?”
“A diamond,” Rowan grunts, still pacing. “They found one of the diamonds from her royal tiara.”
I rub my forehead. “Her what?”
Rowan stops pacing, but it’s Javier who answers. “Her royal tiara. It was never reported as missing after the kidnapping, though the blanket was, but each diamond set in it had been certified and registered. One of those diamonds was found and when—”
“And when we challenged our mother on this, since she’s the one who never reported it missing, her reply was she didn’t feel that was pertinent information. Not. Pertinent. Information? Is she fucking high?!”
I think Rowan is a heartbeat from completely losing his mind.
Our mother is a piece of work. She didn’t attend my wedding and when I called to tell her I was engaged, she called Bellamy a money-grubbing, throne-chasing piece of American trash.
I hung up on her right then and there. Since my father died and Desta was taken, she hasn’t been well. Lost to her grief.
Or at least, that was the excuse we gave her.
But after hearing what she called my future queen and learning that she didn’t report a missing tiara, I have questions. And a lot of concerns.
“Do we have documentation of each stone in that tiara as well as the registry for it?”
“Sí, yes,” Javier says. “They’re part of the royal jewels. Other than what you had fashioned for Bellamy for your wedding, nothing has been done with them since Desta’s tiara. Brea never had one made for her as your mother whisked her away almost immediately after she was born.”
My mother was pregnant with Brea when Desta was taken.
My father never met our baby sister. Nor have Rowan and I.
We were never allowed to meet her and were considered to be a risk to her health.
My mother left with Brea, I was king at fifteen, and Althea stepped up and stayed with me as my advisor. That was that.
“And only our mother knew of this?” I question.
“So it seems,” Rowan grouses, still pacing.
“Why was her tiara even there that night by her crib? That seems…odd.”
Rowan gives me a look. “No clue. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me either.”
I meet both their gazes. “I’ve been thinking about it all day.
I want to go look at the cottage myself.
Maybe even go into Valerie Tower after and search through the royal jewels.
Actually, I think we need to do that first. Then I think we need to have a long talk with our mother and see what she knows. ”
“I agree about going to the cottage, but do you honestly think she knows anything?” Rowan shoots back at me.
“Yes,” I say bluntly. “And I want to know what else she’s hidden from us.”
Rowan freezes, and I can see his mind working as his eyes wildly move about my office. “You think she’s the mastermind behind it?”
He’s incredulous, but I can’t help my resulting I don’t know shrug. “Why wouldn’t she report the tiara? Why was it there in the first place?”
His hands meet his head, his dark head pointed down at the ground. “I don’t know,” he admits after a quiet beat. “I know that if it were one of your children, we’d put every piece of information we had out there with the hope that something would catch and lead us to their recovery.”
I take a seat on the end of my desk, folding my arms over my chest. “If it had been one of my children, I would have put a bounty on that tiara, because think of what it’s worth. I would have moved heaven and earth to find them. Do you remember heaven and earth being moved?”
“No. Nor any mountains either. I remember a brisk search, Father’s funeral, you becoming king. After that…”
“Desta was gone.”
“Yes.” He nods, his jaw locked and his eyes hard. “Desta was gone.”
Because the more I think about it, it feels like my mother went from a “complete family” to “your father is dead, Desta is gone, Brea is sick, and we’re cursed.” I remember a man—or child, in this case—hunt. But it lasted all of a couple of weeks, and then I was crowned king, and life went on.
My mother had Brea two months later and retreated.
Brea had some rare health condition, and after my father’s death and sister’s kidnapping, she had her tucked away from us.
That was all we were told. Her condition, something she had been born with, was deemed life-threatening and easily susceptible to illness.
I never thought about it until now. It never once crossed my mind.
But I don’t remember there being a massive search for Desta. And now I want to know why.