Chapter 10
Brett
Furious didn’t begin to explain how mad Brett was. And not just mad. Sad, hurt, embarrassed, and tons of other emotions he didn’t want to acknowledge. Anger was the easiest to explain, though.
As Brett stormed around Windsor, using the excuse of checking on things, his thoughts tumbled end over end.
Felix had promised not to look up Brett’s past. He had promised.
Apparently, promises meant nothing anymore.
He turned a corner and bumped into Christian and Oscar, with their two dogs following them.
“Hey,” he said, and even to his own ears, he sounded forlorn. “How are these two?” He bent down to rub them both between the ears.
“They’re getting along nicely,” Christian said.
“Have you decided what to call her?” Brett asked.
“Onyx,” Oscar said. “I think it fits her perfectly.”
“Definitely,” Christian agreed. “We considered calling her Brett but thought it might get confusing.” He smirked.
Brett chuckled and stood. “Very. Anyway, I’ll let you carry on your walk. Have a good one.”
He’d barely taken two steps past them before a hand clamped on his shoulder. He didn’t jump; he knew exactly who it was. He glanced at Christian, the man having always seen too much.
“I’m coming to find you once this walk is done and Oscar is back in the suite. Understood?”
It was inevitable. “Yes, Your Highness.”
Christian squeezed his shoulder and let go, continuing down the corridor with his new husband.
The wind having been taken from his sails with the interaction, he turned back towards Sec HQ, ready to face Felix once more.
But when he entered, the man was nowhere to be found.
He’d left his bag, though, so he would be back.
Brett settled once more behind his desk and brought up the latest findings on the incident at the wedding.
Nothing had been found on the roses or the headstone, and no one had seen who had left them.
He’d have to get Felix to explain again about this new tech that could make things invisible and to see if there is any way to prove it.
The chapel had been swept, but nothing was found.
Although no one knew what they were looking for.
The door opened, and he looked up, expecting to see Felix, but instead, Maddox entered the room.
“Morning,” Maddox said, a slight smirk on his face. He obviously knew that he wouldn’t be going anywhere after the chat Brett had with Venus. Luckily for Maddox, Brett had the exact busywork he needed him to do.
“Morning.” He rose and fetched a clipboard with a list attached.
“I need you to go through the weapons locker and inventory everything in there. This list provides details of what we should have, down to the last bullet. Get it completely up to date, checking the identity numbers match, and then once it’s all correct, I need all of them cleaned. ”
“Hang on a minute. I don’t—”
“You want to be a guard, then you have to do things all guards have to do. Regardless of whether you want to do it.” Brett stepped closer. “Just because I need to keep you here doesn’t mean I won’t make your life hell if you step out of line.” He paused. “Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Maddox replied through gritted teeth.
He turned and left the room, slamming the door behind him.
Brett could deal with temper tantrums; it was the entitlement he hated.
Some guards got it in their heads that because they protected the royal family, they were better than other people.
Those were the guards who didn’t last long under Brett’s reign.
The door opened again not long later to reveal Christian, holding the little puppy, Onyx, to his chest. “You free to talk?” he asked.
“Yeah, no one’s here right now.” He glanced at Felix’s chair, wondering where he was.
Christian settled on a chair opposite him, stroking the nosy puppy while he waited.
Brett knew all his tricks and therefore knew not to waste time. “I had an argument with Felix.”
“Can you get past whatever it was about?”
Brett sighed and stared out of the window. “I don’t know. He broke a promise. I don’t know if I can trust him anymore.”
“Bullshit.”
Brett jerked his gaze back to Christian, the swear word something he rarely said. “What?”
“Of course you trust him. If you didn’t, you would’ve fired him on the spot.”
He scrubbed his hands over his face. “It was personal, Your Highness. There’s a slight difference. I can trust him as a guard, but I’m not sure as a…friend.”
“I call bullshit again.” Christian leaned forward, readjusting the puppy. “If you can’t trust him as a friend, you can’t trust him as a guard. If you trust him as a guard, you trust him to watch your back. What else is going on?”
Images of their time together flitted through his head, but he shoved them aside. “There is too much going on. I didn’t need this on top of it.”
“Life will only ever throw at you what you can manage. I can’t remember who said something along those lines, but it’s always stuck with me. It might not feel that way—that you can manage—but you’ll always have help if you ask.”
Did he want to admit that he had no idea what he was doing or where he was going in life?
Did he want to explain how messed up his life actually was?
How, on his thirteenth birthday, he’d watched his father push his mother down the stairs and kill her because of a disagreement over how Brett would live his life?
How, on the day after his fourteenth birthday, he snuck out of the house and left after finally telling his father he was gay and receiving a beating for it.
How he had nothing but the clothes on his back when he walked the streets, trying to find shelter.
He didn’t want to relive it, but it seemed he might have to.
But it wouldn’t be to Christian—it would be to Felix.
Once he was back.
“I know I will. I think I’m just getting a little fed up with there always being something. Why can’t we all have a breather for a bit?” He leaned back, his chair creaking.
Christian chuckled. “Because then life would be boring.”
“I’d take a bit of boring right now. Especially as it would allow me ten minutes to fix the fucking creak on this chair!”
Brett’s phone chimed, and he snorted. “See what I mean. No rest for the wicked.”
Christian rose, snuggling Onyx to his chest again. “I’ll leave you to it, but I’m here if you need me, Brett. Okay?”
“Thanks.”
The prince left the room, and Brett inhaled before unlocking his phone to check the message.
JASON: Felix is supposed to be coming over for a coffee. Can you send him over? I have to leave in twenty minutes, and he’s not replying to my messages, asshat that he is. Thanks.
Brett frowned and checked his watch. After their argument, he’d left the room at around nine-thirty. It was now nearly ten-thirty. He sent out a guard-wide message asking if anyone had seen Felix. Several replied to say they’d seen him leave Windsor at nine-forty, but no one had seen him since.
Grabbing his laptop, he set a trace up for Felix’s phone. Normally, he wouldn’t have gone straight to that, but when a friend said they couldn’t get hold of him, then there was more of a chance of it being something serious. Especially with everything that was hanging around them.
Nothing.
The last time it pinged a tower was at nine-forty-five, which had been on the road outside of Book Drunk. Then it had disappeared. That in itself was a red flag that something was wrong. Felix would never make his phone invisible voluntarily. Not without letting people know first, anyway.
Brett paused. Would he have done it because he wanted to hide from him?
He couldn’t rule it out completely, but it didn’t ring true.
It was not the type of thing Felix would’ve done.
He rose and grabbed his phone, striding through the corridors towards the exit.
He left Windsor on the same route Felix would’ve taken and crossed over the road to Book Drunk.
He looked up and down the street, trying to see anything that could explain why Felix’s phone had just stopped working.
There was nothing. He went inside and found Jason.
“Hey, where is he? Did he send you in his stead?”
“I can’t find him.”
Jason frowned. “What do you mean?”
“He left over an hour ago to meet you, but between crossing the road and here, he’s disappeared. I’m going to head to his home to see if he went back.”
“Why would he do that?”
Brett stared at the ground for a second. “Because we had a disagreement.”
“You argued?!”
He huffed. “It was personal, Jason, okay? Nothing to do with work.” Kind of. “Anyway, let me know if he gets in contact with you, please.”
“Will do.” Jason bit his lip. “Do you think he’s in trouble?”
“If he’s not, he will be when I find him.”
With that, Brett left and climbed into his car, telling Dominic where he was going. He had to, yet again, explain why they’d disagreed. It was as if no one believed they could argue.
He drove towards Felix’s house and parked in the driveway. After he got out, he knocked on the door and waited. He could feel the scrutiny coming through the cameras he knew were installed. “I’m Brett Cage. I work with Felix,” he said to whoever was looking at him.
“Felix isn’t here,” a guy said. “He’s at work. You would know that if you worked with him.”
“That’s why I’m here. He came in to work and then disappeared. Can I please come in to talk to you?”
“Show me your badge.”