25. Rowan
twenty-five
Rowan
I ’m back in front of the church where Dove and I sinned two nights ago to officiate our marriage before God.
Save for the president and his wife, who are about to arrive, everyone else is already in there, finding their seats. They’re all waiting for us, for me to take my place at the altar. I took a moment outside to make a call, but now I’m ready to go in and see the prettiest woman in the world walk down the aisle… and be mine.
I don’t know how the fuck I got here, but I’ve never felt more accomplished than I feel at this moment. None of the ranks, recognition, or riches I’ve worked for feel as rewarding as knowing I’ve got the woman I want. And nothing else will come close to knowing I’m the one she craves just as much.
I’ve won. I’ve fucking won.
I’m taking in the Gothic archways and the sharp towers of the church when behind me the screech of a car makes me lower my gaze back down. It’s a black van, and it’s followed by two more just like it. We specifically hid the wedding date from the media, not wanting any press around. So if this isn’t journalists and reporters, it only leaves me with one other thought.
The vans come to a stop, and a single person comes out. My body tenses and my pulse ramps up. I almost laugh to myself at the gravity of the situation—of course they’d show up early, wanting to take my last bit of happiness, wanting to shit on my dreams and drag me into that hole with them. Why wouldn’t they?
The man opens the back doors to the van then comes before me, folding his hands in front of him. I swallow, feeling my tux tighten around my lungs, making it hard to breathe. This isn’t even about me. If it weren’t for the wedding, I’d be fine with it. I’ve made my bed, and for Dove’s sake, I’m willing to lie in it. But not now, not when she’s in there and she’s waiting for me to make her mine.
Fuck.
“We can do this the hard way, or you can play nice and get inside,” the man says.
I step forward and shove my hand in my pocket, where I’m hiding a knife.
“Leave now, before I call in the others and you all die,” I bluff.
He knows I can’t do that. Not in the public eye. Not with so many government officials present. The smug face he makes tells me I’m right.
I sneer. “Two days from now. It’s what we agreed on.”
He shrugs, looking to the side. “Plans change, Commander. Salister needs you now. Get. In.”
I clench my jaw, staring him down while trying to come up with a way out. Cole and Hawke are in the church. I could dial Hawke’s number and he’d come out. But then… what? It would turn into a fucking bloodbath right here on the sidewalk. The police would come. Reporters. My angel’s perfect day would turn into a nightmare, and everything would go to shit.
Everything has already gone to shit the moment you came up with this plan.
“My wife is in there,” I tell him. “Give me one hour, and I’ll go with you then.”
He nods, smiling, making me want to push his head into the streetlight pole nearby. “Funny how you still think you’ve got the upper hand. We gave you the cure. Now you come with us. You know what happens if you refuse.”
Hunt her down until the day she dies.
And the only way I can stop them… is if I finish what Cole started when they faked his death. My only advantage is knowing they won’t kill me. They need me alive, even if just for a while, and working with the White House has ensured that. I know things they don’t, and that’s my true bargaining chip.
But knowing I’ll be forced to leave Dove at the altar fills me with a wave of indescribable rage. Just like that night in those fucking tunnels, when I thought she was nowhere to be found. When I thought I’d lost her.
The black presidential car approaches the church from the right, getting my attention. And all it takes is that one fraction of a second for this man to strike. I bend over from the punch in the gut, then push my body into his, trying to knock him down. Car doors fly open. Two men slam me into the van. I smash one’s nose with a headbutt and wrestle free.
Maybe I can fight them off quietly. Maybe I can stop this before it starts.
I can hear Maddox’s voice calling out for me in the distance.
But he won’t make it here in time, and neither will the secret service.
I’m stabbed in the side of my abdomen with something sharp.
It twists, living me breathless for just a second.
And in the moment it takes for me to acknowledge it, I’m already shoved into one of the vans.
Dove
Sterling, my mom, and Rowan’s mother are waiting with me in the chapel by the main church. The same church Rowan brought me to two nights ago to do something I can’t tell anyone about. My cheeks flush at the memory, and I know part of why he did it was to remember it as I walk down the aisle. We fucked this morning too, before I put on my wedding dress. His cum is soaking my panties, just like he wanted, so I can walk down the aisle knowing he already owns me. I still feel the heat of his touch, and I can’t wait until we’re alone again.
“He’ll be here, honey,” my mom says from her wheelchair. “Stop pacing like that. You’re making me nauseous.”
I sigh. “Sorry. It’s just… He’s always on time.”
He wouldn’t be late in general, much less to our own wedding. But it’s been twenty minutes past the time we were supposed to start, and he’s nowhere in sight. Something is wrong. It has to be.
Sterling sneaks over next to me. “You think something happened?” she asks quietly.
We both look outside through the window, at the sunny park surrounding the chapel.
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m just being paranoid. Maybe—”
Cam bursts through the door, her face pale as death. My knees buckle under the weight of her words before she even speaks.
“Dove,” she says, swallowing. “I’m so sorry. But you need to come with me.”
Instantly my heart drops, and I know today is about to turn into the worst day of my life. With Cam’s and the Secret Service’s help, I figured out what Rowan was up to, what he didn’t tell any of us he was planning to do. Rowan may be paying attention to everything about me, but I pay attention to him, too. I know when he’s keeping things from me, and my suspicions turned out to be true.
I now know exactly what he did to save me. That the reason I’ve been feeling better isn’t because of the IV drips, but because of the cure the doctor administered to me silently.
Panic coats my hands in a light sheet of sweat. Panic… and the rage that’s screaming at him in my head.
How could you do this? How could you let them take you from me?
Rowan
I lie on the cold concrete, spitting blood from my broken lip as I welcome another kick in the liver. Although sudden and blinding, I laugh through the pain, because at this point, it’s euphoric. This isn’t meant to break me, not yet. But they fucking love seeing me move closer to death right here at their feet.
Images of my perfect little angel wearing her wedding dress flash through my mind. I haven’t seen her in it—not once. But my mind conjures it up, and every time it does she looks like the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I wish I could tell her, but I’ll probably never get the chance. Even if I make it out alive after ending Salister’s reign, I’m pretty sure she’d never wear a wedding dress for me again.
She’ll never forgive me for walking away to save her life. My only consolation is her being healthy and having all the money she needs to live the life she wants—the life she deserves. And even though I was desperate, desperate to tamper with her birth control and breed her during any of the past nights, I couldn’t bring myself to leave her with a baby in her care. A baby she’d have to look at and hate for the rest of her life—because it would remind her of what I’d done.
I push my side and hip into the concrete, lifting myself up to my knees with a groan. They took my knife and phone and cuffed my hands behind my back. Blood drips down my face, making my hair stick together and hang above my eyes. I kneel in the middle of a large, abandoned warehouse, struggling to push air in and out of my lungs.
A pair of black polished shoes enters my visual field. I don’t lift my head to see who it is. I don’t give a fuck. “Rowan King… on his knees. For me. Now this is a sight to see. Look at me, boy.”
A hand fists my hair and pulls my head up from behind. I grunt, fighting it with my upper body, but my vision blurs as I dip in and out of life, the last drops of my adrenaline running out. A face I know too well pokes through my consciousness.
Ash-green eyes.
A smile that doesn’t reach the smirk on his face.
And not nearly enough lines on his face to justify his old age.
“There you are,” Salister says, his eyebrows raising in question at the sound of my muttered words. “Speak louder. I’m an old man, Commander. Let me hear you.”
“I said…” I spit out my blood to the side when the hand in my hair retracts. “I kneel for no one. And especially not for the man who tortured my wife.”
He barks out a sharp laugh. “What noisy vermin you are.” He walks somewhere to my right, and I still don’t care enough to look at what he’s doing. He returns, crouching in front of me with his red robe pooling around him. “And an arrogant one. This is my victory, whether or not you’re man enough to admit it to yourself. Just like it was my victory when I took Dove. And Cole. And thousands of other soldiers I’ve recruited over the years.”
My eyes snap to his. Cold metal touches my skin when someone else wraps something around my neck. I grunt and thrash, but a loud click tells me it’s now set in place and I won’t be able to take it off.
“We own you now.” He smiles broadly, sweetly, then nods at the men behind me. It takes everything in me to lash out at him with my teeth, but he moves away just in time. “The big, bad wolf of this country. All mine.”
“It’s gonna take…” I inhale, my breath ragged when I let it out. “…a lot more than a fucking collar around my neck to break me.” I straighten up, grinning, tasting the metal on my teeth. “Now who’s being arrogant?”
“Oh, I’m well aware of that.” He hums. “Maybe I’ll make you dig your own grave after starving you for a month, like I did with Cole. Or maybe I’ll convince you that you’re a fucking murderer, like I did to that whore you call your wife.” My blood roars back to life, threatening to flood this fucking room with everyone in it. “Every single person in this room has a breaking point. I think yours might be losing every ounce of control you have. I suppose we’ll find out.”
Pain like nothing I’ve known erupts through me when the collar burns like fire against my skin, sending shockwaves that sear through my veins, twisting my muscles into submission. A scream ravages my throat, and I know that all I can do is wait it out.
One.
Two.
Three.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
“Again,” he tells them.
I curse, low and vicious, as I writhe in pain on the ground. The pain stops for another second, long enough to conjure the image of Dove in my mind.
“See how easy it is?” he laughs. “And I’m only just getting started. You’re strong, Rowan, I’ll give you that, but we’re about to make you stronger. And then… then you’ll help us get Every. Single. Thing. We want. One global government. One system. No borders, no wars,” he drawls. “No crime.”
No freedom. No love. No life.
My bones feel as if they’re shattering when my body bends under more electric shocks. A foot lands on my ribs afterward, urging me back to life.
“Or maybe I’ll just kill you. You murdered my people, after all. Been a goddamn thorn in my side for so many years. Maybe I don’t need you at all.”
A lie. A blatant lie.
“Your people?” I laugh as I cough, my voice slowly dying out. “You didn’t lift a fucking finger. You knew I was hunting them. And you lured me into that shithole to get Dove, wanting me to take her back in the state she was.”
“Get the car ready,” someone says.
“You killed your own people,” I groan. “Deceived them, then killed them like they were nothing.”
Salister admits calmly, “They were nothing. Nothing compared to the mission we have ahead of us—everyone serving our cause understands that. Again.”
Another wave of electricity, far more powerful this time, strikes me. My vision blackens, and I fight to remain conscious. I fight, but I don’t know why… he’s either going to kill me or he won’t. I just wish I knew beforehand.
Water splashes on me from a bucket somewhere to my side. It’s ice cold, and it makes the wound in my side sear with pain. A shiver runs down my spine, my tux and my white shirt clinging to me like a second skin. I jerk my head left and right, getting rid of the excess water from my hair.
“Let’s see if you , perhaps, are something more than the vermin you look like right now.”
“Sir, we might need him alive. He could die—”
“Silence!” Salister shouts, his voice reverberating against the walls. My heavy breathing is the only sound after that. “It’s up to him if he dies or not. Let’s see… let him put up a fight. He always finds a way… don’t you, Commander?” He spits out the last word.
I say nothing. Fragments of my life flash through my mind at the speed of light. I want to catch a thought and bring it close to my heart, but they’re all moving so fast. So unbelievably fast.
I push into my lower body again, trying to get up, as my father’s voice booms in my mind.
“Stand up. Do it again. Embarrass me in front of everyone and see what happens.”
My hand slips on the blood-slicked concrete at my back.
“You think we can do it?” Cole’s voice whispers in the recesses of my mind. “Think we can rise to power and fight them off?”
And then, Dove’s voice, soft as a prayer as I groan.
“Rowan, I… I love you.”
“It’s okay if you want to kiss me.”
“You asked me to be your wife.”
"Show us, Rowan," Salister says, "show us all you've got."