Not Juliet Read Free Page A

exactly
do you think you know?”
    “I know about
the threats.”
    “Who told
you?”
    “It doesn’t
matter. I doubt there is one person in this camp who doesn’t know.
A king being challenged is a big deal, Dad, and you’re in no
position to fight.”
    “Don’t you
think I know that?” he snapped. Riella averted her eyes to the
floor, ashamed for being so blunt and disrespectful, her father’s
hard stare boring into her skull like it always did when he was
reprimanding her.
    She felt it
when he looked away, like a physical weight lifting off her
shoulders, and she searched his face in earnest. “I didn’t mean it
like that, Dad. I love you, and if I could, I would fight the world
for you. I would do whatever I could to keep you with me.”
    He grabbed her
hand and pulled her down to the bed, then lifted his skinny fingers
to stroke her cheek gingerly. “I love you, too, baby girl, but
there is nothing you can do. About any of this. I will not disturb
the order of the universe by fighting the inevitable. And as for my
challenger… it is only fair the people get a new, worthy leader
when I’m gone. They’ll need a king, and as you’ve just pointed out,
I’m not much use to them or anyone else anymore.”
    “Dad…”
    “Shhh. No
words, baby girl. It is the way it should be. My only wish is that
I could go in peace, without struggle or humiliation. This,” he
gestured along his disease-racked body, “is enough to deal
with.”
    Riella held him
closely, yet gingerly, her brow pressed to his, until his grip on
her hand slackened and he fell asleep.
     

Chapter 3
     
    The train jerked
sideways on the tracks, but didn’t slow any. Riella swayed in her
seat, her eyes flickering over the scenery unseeing, blind to the
beauty of the Tuscan landscape, fuzzy with tears. This was her
seventh trip away from Rome. Today, she was on her way to Florence.
The Romany campsite on the outskirts of Rome had been her first
port of call, as the information she and Kai had managed to pull
together seemed to point at the very powerful Italian patriarch,
Cosimo Anziano, but she had not been able to get any closer to
talking to him than if she’d stayed in England.
    Each day, she’d
entered the strange camp, and each day she’d been sent to a
different destination. She’d had no reason to doubt their
intentions at first; no one had thrown a party in her honor, but
then again, no one had stabbed her, either. After the first two
fruitless days she did suspect they were wasting her time, but she
persevered. It was probably done as some form of protection for the
king. They were watching her from afar, trying to determine whether
or not she might be dangerous. Whether or not she might give up and
go away. So she kept going back, day after day, thinking she was
bound to trip over some clue or other, or perhaps find a more
helpful person, someone who would finally point her in the right
direction, or maybe they would, at last, decide she was no danger
at all.
    But enough was
enough. This was going to be her last trip on the say-so of some
minion of the gypsy king. If she couldn’t find him today, she was
going to put on her battle gear and stomp through every trailer on
the site until she found him. This journey wasn’t some holiday tour
around Europe. She had a purpose: to talk to the man that mattered
and ask him – beg him if she had to – to call a ceasefire on the
assassination attempts on her father. He deserved some peace in his
final days.
    Kai had
confirmed it with the fire crew – it had been arson. The arsonist
had not even attempted to make it look like an accident or a
natural occurrence, and Riella had every intention to do everything
in her power to make the threats stop, by any means available to
the scared-stiff daughter of the English Romany king.
    She’d sell
herself, if it came to it. Seven days on long train journeys had
provided plenty of opportunity for pondering her options, so she’d
done a lot of