The crazed look in his eyes scared me into silence. He was coming unhinged, and I wasn’t sure how long he needed to keep me alive. Maybe it was better for me to take some time to figure out a way to get out of this chair and plan a possible next move.
Silently, I prayed someone was on the way to rescue me.
Chapter 29
Preston
“Mr. Scott!”
The words reached me through a haze, and I groaned. A searing pain sliced through my skull, and I screamed, opening my eyes to find Myles kneeling before me.
Myles.
Suddenly, it all came rushing back to me.
The church. The car. Being pulled out and Lucy screaming.
Lucy!
Sitting up suddenly, my vision swam, and I laid back down. “Where’s Lucy?” I begged Myles.
The remorse on his face told me what I already knew as he sighed. “I was hoping you would be able to answer that for me.”
Fuck. “Someone took her.”
Myles remained professional, asking, “Did you recognize who it was?”
My memory was hazy, but I remembered one thing. “It was the security detail in our car. They pulled me out—knocking me out, I’m assuming—and took her.”
Ruefully, Myles remarked, “You do have a nasty gash on your head.”
“Where am I?”
“The side of the road leading out of the city. I tracked your phone the minute I lost eyes on Lucy.”
“Is this the part where I’m supposed to be grateful for the invasion of privacy?” I grumbled.
“Would you like me to leave you here?” Myles countered.
Narrowing my eyes, I allowed him to help me up. Gripping my throbbing head, I pulled my hand away and discovered it covered in blood. There were only so many things that would split your head open like that. Lucy was in real danger.
Helping me into the passenger side of the car he’d driven to the edge of town, Myles hopped into the driver’s seat and sped toward the palace. Try as I might, I couldn’t stop myself from slipping in and out of consciousness as he drove, but I could hear him barking at someone on the phone, sounding the alarm that Lucy had been taken and ordering that the rest of the royal family be placed on lockdown.
Reaching the palace gates, we were stopped by armed guards and given clearance for entry. Judging from the long line of cars we passed on the way up the mountainside, they were refusing to let anyone in who was non-essential. Wedding guests would only make it past the gates once the security team determined the threat level to the royal family.
Racing the rest of the way up the drive, Myles pulled the SUV to a screeching halt at the open palace doors and jumped out, yelling to the rest of the security team within earshot.
Between the jarring motions of the car and the constant loud noises making me feel like an icepick was being driven into my brain, I wanted to throw up.
No, scratch that.
As soon as I got my door open, I heaved the contents of my stomach onto the gravel drive. The two security agents approaching to assist me out of the car paused, covering their noses.
Myles saw their hesitation and barked out, “Oh, for fuck’s sake. There isn’t time for you to be squeamish right now!”
Not wasting any more time, he hefted me up under one armpit, and one of the other two braced my weight on the other side. I swayed like I was drunk as they helped me inside the palace. I wanted to take a nap, but they dragged me through countless corridors until we reached a tapestry hung on the wall in a dimly lit dead-end.
Myles knocked on the wall beside it in a specific cadence. They must have hit me in the head hard because I could have sworn I saw a head pop out from beneath the tapestry. Startled by the hallucination, I jumped back, exclaiming, “Fuck!”
