Royal Mess (Devil's Knights 2nd Generation Book 3) Read online

  “I just figured you were probably going to want to talk to Leo,” Apollo shrugged.

  Marco waved his hand. “I’ll get in touch with him later. Last I heard, he was dealing with something with the Bastards.”

  “That’s putting it bluntly,” I scoffed. Talk about calling it like you saw it. Marco was just calling people bastards.

  “It’s another motorcycle group,” Marco explained. “It seems those types always need some kind of help and a bail out,” he smirked.

  I didn’t really know anything about the Devil’s Knights, but I was offended on their behalf. “There’s nothing wrong with needing help every now and then.”

  Marco growled.

  “Well, I’ll just leave you two to it. I did call ahead to the staff to let them know we were coming in so I’m sure they’re freshening everything up still.” Apollo hitched his thumb behind him. “I’ll just be in the command room if you need me for anything.”

  Marco flitted his hand at Apollo. “We won’t need you.”

  Apollo nodded and headed the left.

  “I don’t know why you’re so rude to him. He’s just being nice.”

  Marco unbuttoned his jacket and shrugged it off. “There is no room for nice around here, Royal. He’s doing his job.”

  “His job is to be nice apparently,” I whispered.

  Where had the man gone who had rescued me days ago? He was much warmer than he was now. Not like he had been overflowing with niceties, but he was much more approachable then.

  “Don’t worry yourself about what anyone’s job is around here, Royal. It has nothing to do with you.”

  “And what exactly does have to do with me around here?” I blinked and replayed what I had just said in my head. “That didn’t make sense, but you know what I mean. What am I supposed to do while I’m here?” There, that made sense. “I know this is my prison, but I didn’t really think I was going to be confined to a room with no one to talk to.”

  “It’s not a prison, Royal,” he drawled.

  I rolled my eyes. “We’re not going to talk circles around this again, Marco.” I couldn’t leave whenever I wanted, so it was a prison.

  “Then let me show you around so I can get to work.” He motioned to the stairs. “Your room is up here.”

  “Do I get to choose my room, or has that already been decided for me?”

  “There are three rooms you can choose from.”

  “Where do you sleep?” I asked. I was going to pick the room farthest away from him.

  A smirk spread across his lips. “You plan on joining me, Royal?”

  “No,” I grumbled. “I plan on staying as far away from you as I can. I want to know which one is yours so I can avoid it.”

  Marco chuckled. “Pick any of them. I won’t have time to bother you.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You lead the way. I don’t know where I’m going in this mansion.”

  Marco shrugged. “Mansion is a bit of a stretch.”

  “Wyndemere Estates, Marco. This place could have its own zip code.” It looked like a log cabin on the outside, but a log cabin for the rich and famous. Inside, everything had a rustic touch to it, but it still screamed money. I had only seen the entryway and stairs, but I was already afraid if I touched something, it would break. I didn’t have enough money in my checking account to pay for the front door knob, let alone anything else. “It’s a freakin’ mansion.”

  “Call it what you want.” Marco turned and climbed the stairs.

  When I was halfway up, I looked to the left and saw a glimpse of a massive kitchen and a dining room with a huge table. Beyond that there was a hallway, but I couldn’t tell where it lead.

  “You coming?” Marco was five steps above me with a frown on his face.

  “After I take a nap, I am going to have Apollo give me a tour.” I had gone from the excitement of hanging out with Meg and Indiana, to the low and despair of finding out Grit was dead, to now being thrown into a mansion with the guy who was responsible for Grit’s death. Talk about a whirlwind day.

  “I will give you a tour when you want one.”

  I moved up the steps and stood on the one next to him. “I thought you won’t have time to bother with me?”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Pretty darn close to what you said.”

  “I said I won’t have time to bother you. Not that I won’t have time to bother with you.”

  I reached out and pressed my hand to Marco’s shoulder. “You sure do know how to split a hair, Marco.”

  He looked at my hand and then back up at me. “When I speak, I know what I say and what I mean. If I don’t, I don’t speak.”

  I dropped my hand. “Well, I guess that’s good, right?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  I shrugged and moved up the stairs. I had wanted Marco to lead, but I figured I would find my own way. “I don’t know. I guess sometimes it’s good to just speak what you’re feeling and not have to analyze it. Do you really say what you mean all of the time, or are you saying what you think is right?”

  I reached the top of the steps and looked each way down the hallway. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to figure out where I was going after all.

  “This way,” Marco called. He turned right and headed down the hallway.

  “How many rooms do you have here?” I asked. We passed three closed doors, and it seemed like the hallway went on forever.

  “I don’t know.” Marco glanced over his shoulder at me. “Maybe you can count them if you get bored.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Is that was the rich do? They count their bedrooms because they have so many that they can’t remember?”

  Marco stopped in front of a door. “I don’t. I have you to do it for me.” He twisted the knob and pushed it open. “This is your first option.”

  I stepped in the room and spun in a slow circle. “Wow,” I whispered. “This is bigger than my whole apartment in Destin.”

  “You lived in a hellhole with a slum landlord,” he murmured.

  “You’re not wrong on either of those.” After Marco had rescued me from the Meeks, he had agreed to go to my apartment to get my things before heading to Rockton. The instant we had stepped inside my apartment, I knew I had made a horrible mistake. Marco had looked at what I thought was a decent place to live and couldn’t wipe the scowl off his face. “This place is definitely more your speed, Marco.”

  The room was huge, just like the rest of the house. The carpet was a plush, pillowy smoke gray while the walls were painted a crisp white. The king size bed on the opposite wall was covered in a pitch black comforter and a mountain of black and gray pillows. A larger, oak dresser was pressed against the wall with a matching vanity between it and a closed door. “What’s in there?” I asked.

  “Either the bathroom or closet.”

  I glanced at Marco. “You don’t know?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I haven’t been in here much.”

  “This is your house and you don’t know how many rooms it has or where the doors lead?”

  Marco shrugged. “It’s not just my house. It belongs to the Banachi name.”

  “I don’t even know what that means. So anyone with the last name Banachi can live here?” What the hell kind of nonsense was that? I could tell you right now, if my last name was Banachi, I would stake my claim here and never leave.

  “More or less.”

  I walked over to the bed and ran my fingertips over the black comforter. “You live a life I don’t even know where to begin understanding. Private planes, fancy cars, huge mansions that belong to, well, a name.”

  “It is what it is.” He cleared his throat. “Do you want to go to the next room?”

  The comforter was so soft, and it called to me to lay down. “Uh, are they all like this?”

  “I don’t know, Royal. You can pick whichever suits you.”

  I sighed and felt a wave of exhaustion hit me. “I just need a bed
, Marco. This one will be fine.”

  “Are you sure? One is on this floor, and the other is on the third floor.”

  I laughed silently. Of course there was a third floor to this estate. “This is good. It’s close enough to the stairs.” I was in my ninth month of pregnancy, and climbing up and down stairs was not high on my list of things to do.

  “There’s an elevator just down the way, also.”

  I couldn’t hold back my laughter. Of course there was an elevator. “One flight of stairs, I can manage, Marco. Thank you for not sticking me on the third floor or the penthouse.”

  “We don’t have a penthouse.” He paused and tipped his head to the side. “At least, I don’t think we do.”

  I sat down on the edge of the bed and sighed. “I’ll add that to my room counting to find out if you have a penthouse.”

  Marco laughed dryly. “Please do.”

  I closed my eyes and fell back on the bed. I’m sure I looked like a beached whale with my stomach sticking up in the air, but I just couldn’t sit up anymore. “Close the door on your way out, Marco. I need to sleep before I fall over.”

  “Are you okay?” he asked, his voice laced with concern.

  I closed my eyes. “I’m pregnant and need a nap. Also, my brother just died. No, I’m not okay.”

  “Royal,” he called softly.

  “Just please leave me alone, Marco. I’m not okay, but I will be.” Eventually. My relationship with my brother was a strange one, but at the end of the day, he was still my brother. And now, he was gone. Because of me.

  A sob escaped my lips.

  “I’m here if you need me.” I listened to Marco’s footsteps cross the room and the door shut behind him.

  I was alone.

  Finally.

  Another sob racked my body, and I turned onto my side. I grabbed a pillow and buried my face in it.

  How had I gotten here?

  What had I done for this to happen?

  My mind swirled with thoughts, and a wave of nausea rolled through my body. I clamped down on my bottom lip and sucked in a deep breath. Getting sick wasn’t going to make anything better. I needed to buck up and deal with the cards that were dealt to me.

  The nausea subsided but the tears still rolled down my chest. I hiccupped loudly and rolled onto my back. I grabbed the edge of the comforter and pulled it over me.

  I laid there trying to think of anything other than Grit. The last time I had seen him had been a somewhat happy time, but it had been bittersweet. We only had a few minutes before Leo whisked me off to Rockton, and then, a few short days after that, Grit was gone.

  I heard the muffled sound of something drop out in the hallway, but I didn’t have enough energy to get up and see what it was.

  My eyes drifted shut, and I let my exhaustion take me over.

  I finally slept.

  *

  Marco

  I laid my hand on the cold door and leaned my forehead against it.

  It was my fault she was sobbing.

  I was the one who had put that grief in her life.

  Now I had to figure out how I was going to make it better.

  I really did have a royal mess on my hands, and now, I needed to be the man to fix it.

  *

  Chapter Four

  Royal

  My stomach grumbled, and I stared up at the ceiling.

  I needed to eat, but I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to find my way to the kitchen. I had woken up ten minutes ago with the little one in my tummy doing a tap dance on my bladder and managed to dash to the bathroom before I made a mess of the lush rug.

  Now I was back in bed trying to remember the way from my room to the kitchen. I had thought I could maybe hold out until the morning, but there was no way little baby was going to wait that long.

  I rubbed my stomach and sighed. “Okay, little baby. Let’s go on an adventure and try to find the kitchen.” I rolled out of bed and stood. I glanced at the clock on the wall and sighed.

  That was why I was so hungry. It was almost ten o’clock. At night.

  I had slept for over six hours. I guess I really had been exhausted.

  After I shoved my feet into my slip-ons, I opened the bedroom door and looked down the hallway both ways. “Which way was it?” I whispered.

  “She lives.”

  I jump back and clutched my hand to my chest. “Oh, my God!”

  “Easy, Royal,” Marco laughed.

  “What the heck are you doing hanging out by my door?” I demanded.

  Marco leaned against the wall across from my door. “I was walking by.”

  That was a likely story. “Where were you walking by to?” I demanded.

  He nodded to the door just down the way. “My room.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “I told you I didn’t want to be anywhere near you.”

  “I didn’t tell you to pick this room. If I remember correctly, I offered to show you the other two rooms. One of which happens to be a whole floor above here.”

  My eyes traveled the length of his body and back up. He was dressed in a pair of gray sweatpants and a maroon long sleeve t-shirt. And bare feet.

  The cold, hard mafia boss was gone and had been replaced with laidback and almost approachable Marco. Almost.

  “Well, maybe the third-floor room doesn’t sound too bad, after all.”

  Marco laughed. “You’re going to make the staff clean this room and get the other one ready for you?”

  As if he cared what his staff had to do. But I did. “Well, no. I guess I can handle staying here.” I leaned back and looked to make sure there was a lock on the door. “Yeah, I can stay here,” I muttered when I glanced at the lock.

  “Making sure you can lock yourself in?” he drawled.

  I pulled the door shut behind me. “You can never be too safe, right?”

  “I suppose not.”

  I looked down the hallway.

  “Can I help you find something?”

  “A big fat cheeseburger with a side of sweet potato fries would be nice.” I looked the other way down the hallway. “And maybe a few episodes of Golden Girls to watch while I chow down.” I didn’t ask for much, right?

  “Uh, well, I can help you with the food, but I don’t know about the Golden Girls.” He nodded to the right. “The chef is on call and can have your food for you in ten minutes.”

  “Oh, no,” I gasped. “I don’t want to do that. Just show me to the kitchen and I can make a peanut butter sandwich or something.” A chef who was on call? I really was living in a different world.

  Marco shook his head and pulled out his phone. “She’s awake. Loaded cheeseburger with sweet potato fries.” Marco paused. “Yes, make it two.” He ended the call and shoved the phone into his pocket.

  “Two?” I squawked. “I can’t eat two cheeseburgers.” I could try, but I didn’t know if it was actually possible. My stomach growled, and I laid a hand on my bulging bump.

  Marco chuckled. “I don’t know about you not being able to eat two, but the second one was actually for me. I haven’t had dinner yet, either.”

  “What?” Did he take a long nap, too? “How did you skip dinner?” Skipping dinner didn’t happen often for me. Especially since I got pregnant. This little baby made sure of that.

  Marco pushed off the wall and held out his hand to me. “I was busy working.”

  I looked down at his hand.

  “I know you don’t know how to get back to the kitchen,” he laughed.

  “I just don’t know which way to go. I can figure it out on my own,” I muttered. I just needed to figure out left or right, after that, I could find my way.

  “Well, just humor me and let me walk with you then, yeah? You can lead the way.” He kept his hand reached out to me.

  “Do we have to hold hands to do it?”

  He dropped his hand. “No, but I figure since the place is so huge that we don’t want to lose each other.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Ha
, ha.” I decided to go left, but a hand grabbed my elbow and wheeled me around to the right.

  “Maybe we should try this way,” Marco suggested.

  “I thought I was the one who got to lead the way,” I laughed.

  “You are.”

  We headed down the hallway, and things were looking familiar. We made it to the top of the stairs, and my nose picked up the delicious scent of grilled burgers.

  “How on earth is your chef already cooking our food?” I asked. Not that I was complaining, but it was pretty impressive that I could already smell it.

  “Because she was waiting for me to call. I was actually on the way to your room to check on you when you stepped out.”

  “So, you were hanging out by my room,” I muttered.

  We walked into the kitchen, and I was pleasantly surprised to see a pretty woman standing by the stove.

  “Hello, sir,” the woman called. “Your food should be ready in ten minutes.”

  “Told you,” Marco smirked.

  The chef smiled at me. “Is there anything else you might be craving?” she asked me.

  Everything. It was amazing how no matter what food was in front of me or suggested, it sounded delicious. “Uh, some spicy pickles?” I mean, could you really eat a burger with no pickle?

  The woman smiled wide. “We happen to have a few jars in the fridge. They happen to be a favorite of mine, too.”

  “I’m Royal.” It felt right to introduce myself to her. I wasn’t sure if that was proper etiquette, but honestly? I wasn’t someone like Marco who was used to having a chef or a staff.

  “And I’m Bristol.” She flipped the burgers on the griddle. “It’s nice to meet a guest of Mr. Marco’s.”

  I raised my eyebrows at Marco. I was a guest, huh? That was news to me. “Uh, yes. It’s nice to meet you, too.”

  “Do you want something to drink?” Marco asked.

  “Do you actually know where the fridge is?” I asked. Marco seemed to be pretty clueless to most other things about the house, so I wasn’t sure if he actually knew what a fridge was.

  Marco grunted while Bristol muffled her laughter with the back of her hand.

  “I think I can manage getting you a drink,” he grumbled. He moved to the fridge and opened the doors. “Water? Tea?” He grabbed a pitcher from the fridge and held it up to the light. “And whatever this pink shit is.”