Latvala Royals: Darkest Hours Read online

  “I’ll do it. I also think you should text your brother and sisters. They’re off in different parts of the castle. The hostage situation is a new development and it isn’t outside sources I’m worried about right now,” Chey said with a pointed look at the whiteboards.

  Elias understood the silent communication. She worried there were traitors within Kallaster prepared to act as hostage takers when given the word.

  He spun away to send messages to his siblings while his mother reached for the phone. The entire situation seemed to be deteriorating quicker than they could keep track of. Once he sent the messages to Erick, Emily, and Eliana, he turned back to the whiteboards and added another attack beneath Imatra as well as the hostage situation beneath Somero. The rapid rise of confrontations within such a short time frame indicated to Elias that, as they’d suspected, a larger event was taking place. Something planned over months, not days, with the end result being the complete takeover of all three countries.

  In the background, he overheard his mother connecting with family members to pass on the news.

  His phone vibrated with an incoming call. He answered without bothering to look at the caller ID. “Inari?”

  “It’s me,” Sander said. “We’re on our way home.”

  “Dad, I’m glad you got through. Inari called me not long ago and said that two of her cousins have been taken hostage. The hostage takers have demanded Thane relinquish Somero’s throne or the cousins will die.” Elias spilled the information as quickly as possible.

  “What? Are you kidding me?”

  “No. We’re still waiting on word from our own military on the status of Garry and Noll. We have no idea how many people might have been killed or whether the attack is ongoing.”

  “Have you talked to Thane? And how many troops are en route to those villages?”

  “I have not. Inari isn’t returning my calls right now, so I suspect Thane is behind closed doors with his advisors and military brass. I sent two thousand more men to secure Garry and Noll as well as all villages and hamlets within a ten mile radius.” Elias paced the room, tension singing through his system. “I’ve also locked down Kallaster and put guards in the towers.”

  “Good, that’s excellent. You made the right call. Listen, I want you to—”

  A distant crack and boom—coming from Sander’s end—halted his father’s order. Elias could not understand what he’d heard. “Dad? What was that?”

  The sound of muffled voices came down the line. It was as if Sander had put his palm over the mic on the phone, distorting the conversation.

  “Dad?”

  “Elias, listen to me,” Sander said a moment later. He spoke with great urgency. “Our plane has been hit. We’ve lost an engine and we’re going down. We’re somewhere over—”

  The line went dead.

  “Dad!” Elias waited through the black static that followed, hoping for a reconnection.

  Nothing.

  He ended the call and dialed again just as his mother caught his elbow to spin him around. Her eyes were wide, startled.

  “It’s Pop. The plane’s been hit and they’re going down.”

  Chey stared into her son’s eyes as a cold knot of fear settled into the pit of her stomach. In all her years as Sander’s spouse, she had received many calls of distress or danger regarding Sander’s life, but this one hit home the hardest. When others worried Sander had been burned alive in a barn, she had stubbornly held out hope that he’d somehow gotten away in time, had outsmarted the villains and would turn up unharmed. And he had. In so many instances, Sander had always come back to her. Perhaps a little worse for wear, with new scars to join the old. But he’d come back in one piece.

  Knowing her husband was currently on a crashing jet, however, brought a swell of nausea and anxiety unrivaled in her history with Sander. She struggled to remain calm and in control if only for Elias’s sake. He looked stricken, to say the very least.

  “What were his exact words?” Chey asked.

  “That the plane had been hit and they were going down. I heard a weird noise in the background when we were talking. Something exploded or hit them. Maybe a missile. Maybe an onboard bomb. We lost connection before I could get more details.”

  “All right. Here’s what we do. We call the air control—they track his private jet—and ask for a reading of the last point of contact. They might be able to tell where the jet goes down. They’re probably somewhere over Somero right now. There hasn’t been enough time for him to make it back to Latvalan territory yet. So that’s a starting point. If they do go down in Somero, then we need to call Thane immediately and ask for assistance.” Chey’s mind ran through all the possible scenarios: Thane was in a pinch of his own and might not be taking outside calls. If Thane did overcome his own situation, he should be willing to send troops to search for the jet and any survivors. But if Thane’s situation had deteriorated further and someone else had taken control of Somero and its military, Sander and the others could be in serious danger of assassination or abduction. If they survived the crash. She had no doubt that the hostage takers in Somero’s case would love to get their hands on the king of Latvala.

  “That was my first thought. Track the plane. I’ll call Kirkley and have him take lead,” Elias said. “Then I’ll try to contact Thane directly.”

  Chey squeezed Elias’s arm and stepped over to the whiteboards. With both hands she began sweeping all the sticky notes from the surface.

  “Mom, what are you doing?” Elias asked.

  “This has gone far beyond simple investigations, Elias. I don’t want anyone to come in here and see that we’ve been doing our own inquiry into the advisors and councilmen. That information could work against us if we find ourselves involved in the same situation as Thane.” She took all the scraps along with the folders to the fireplace and, in mere minutes, had lit a fire to burn the evidence. Smoke curled up the chimney as the flame took hold.

  The lock clicked and the door opened. Erick and Eliana entered, the latter carrying a small black duffel bag.

  “Hey—what’s going on?” Erick asked when he spied the blank boards and the fire.

  “We haven’t even gotten started on that yet,” Eliana added. She plopped the bag on one of the empty desks.

  As quickly as possible, while Elias was on the phone, Chey filled Erick and Eliana in on the details. All the details, including Somero’s hostage situation and their father’s perilous call about the plane. She again struggled to present a calm façade for her kids, both of whom expressed shock and anguish.

  “Going down where? Can they parachute out?” Erick asked.

  “Can we send a team of our own across the border?” Eliana added.

  “Elias is on with Kirkley right now, trying to figure a plan. Then he’s going to call Thane—” Chey darted a look toward the lamps when the lights went out. Not just one light, but all of them, and even the ones in the hall. She couldn’t detect any illumination beneath the crack of the door, and there should have been something due to the lights situated at intervals along the corridor.

  “I just got cut off from Kirkley,” Elias said. “Is anyone else’s phone working?”

  Chey dug into her pocket and checked her phone. No service. She turned on the phone’s flashlight.

  “My phone isn’t working,” Erick said.

  “Mine either. What just happened?” Eliana asked. Her voice carried tension and strain.

  “I don’t know. Were we expecting a storm?” Chey asked. She walked to one of the laptops on the desk and opened it. While it existed on battery power and therefore had life, there was no internet connection and no way to send messages or check the weather radar.

  Erick went to the window and looked out. “It’s a clear sky. I see no signs of a storm unless a system is coming in from the other direction.”

  “I can’t get through. To anyone. Not Kirkley, not Thane. No one,” Elias said through clenched teeth. He muttered a curse. “I can’t eve
n send a text.”

  “We’ve lost power and the internet, and possibly all other means of communication,” Chey said. She slapped the lid down on the laptop. It was of no use in its current state.

  “We can’t check on Dad,” Eliana said.

  “I don’t think the power loss is a coincidence,” Elias added. “Which means you were right to be suspicious and wary, Mom. There’s no doubt any longer that this is a coordinated strike on all three countries.”

  “At this point, I don’t see how it can be a coincidence either. All our plans are going to have to change, and quickly.” Chey tilted her phone so the light illuminated her children’s faces. It was easy to read the turmoil and upset on their features. She knew it was reflected on her own.

  “Wait,” Elias said. “Where’s Emily? I texted her earlier at the same time I texted you two.” He pointed at Erick and Eliana.

  “She wasn’t with me, so I don’t know where she is,” Erick said.

  “She wasn’t with me either.” Eliana turned and marched toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” Chey asked.

  “I’ll be right back. Three minutes.” Eliana exited the room.

  “Maybe she knows where Emily is,” Elias said.

  “I hope so.” Chey’s stomach twisted with a fresh bout of anxiety. She couldn’t stop thinking about Sander and what he was going through. Had the plane crashed? Was he still alive? “All right. We need to focus. What’s the next move, Elias?”

  “Ideally, we find whoever in the castle means to sell us out. Or already has sold us out. I’m convinced we’re under threat here by one or more people. The power didn’t cut itself nor did communications just stop working on their own. But we haven’t had time to rout out the traitor, so I think we wait for Emily and Eliana to get back, then head downstairs and call a meeting with the advisors and councilmen. I believe Kirkley is one of us. I’ll get him to choose a handful of security he trusts to back us up. Right now, I’m not sure we can trust those closest to us, not even our own assistants, so I feel comfortable allowing him to use his judgment. He’s known the security members here for a long time and should be able to pick people he’s confident have not been compromised. As much as I don’t want to trust anyone, we have to. We need someone to cover our backs until this is resolved,” Elias said.

  “The majority are with us,” Erick said. “It’s the few who are not who can do the most damage. Once they have the upper hand in the castle, it’ll be difficult to wrest it away again.”

  Chey glanced between her sons. The plan sounded solid to her. What other choice did they have? Elias was right. They had to trust someone. Not everyone in Kallaster was the enemy. “We need flashlights. And what about those person-to-person radio units? They don’t rely on regular cell phone transmitters, right?”

  “That’s an excellent idea, Mom,” Elias said. “The radios are downstairs. We’ll get them after we call the meeting.”

  The door opened and Eliana stepped in. She had another duffel bag slung over a shoulder, this one bigger and heavier looking than the last.

  “Where’s Emily?” Chey asked.

  “I didn’t go to find her. I went to get more weapons.” Eliana set the duffel bag down and ripped open the zipper. She began pulling out shoulder holsters, guns, and extra magazines. “Everyone needs to arm themselves.”

  Erick and Elias went straight to the table and began pulling on shoulder holsters. Chey came last, sliding her phone away after turning off the flashlight. Eliana had produced real flashlights and a camp light that she set on the table.

  “We need to find Emily.” Chey pulled on a single holster harness and loaded the sheath with a handgun. “Before we do anything else, we have to find your sister.”

  “We should split into teams and search,” Elias said. “No one by themselves anymore, though.”

  “Won’t we be easier to pick off if we separate?” Erick asked.

  “We’ll be easier to corral if we stay in one group. If the perpetrators have guns, all they have to do is bring us into their sights and herd us like cattle. If we’re in smaller groups, the others who haven’t been taken can maybe get the upper hand again. Or create a force with the guards and security to overtake the perpetrators. With any luck, none of that will happen. We’ll find Emily, head downstairs, and Kirkley will have gathered a team he trusts to watch over us,” Elias said.

  “Let’s meet in Dad’s downstairs office in an hour, either way. Whether we have Em or not,” Eliana said. “We don’t have means to communicate until we get those radios, so we need a meeting place to regroup.”

  “Dad’s office in an hour,” Elias said.

  “Who is going with who?” Chey agreed with the plans on all fronts. She stepped away from the table, prepared to begin the search for her eldest daughter.

  “I’ll go with Mom,” Erick said. “We’ll see you downstairs in an hour.”

  Elias paused at the door and looked back. “If any of you find yourselves in a life-or-death situation, don’t hesitate to shoot to kill.”

  Chapter 9

  “Were we just hit by a missile?”

  “What the hell happened?”

  Inside the jet, chaos reigned. Sander shoved the phone away and lurched from his seat. The plane shuddered as if struggling to stay together at the seams. A high-pitched whine filled the interior, followed by a sharp tilt of the aircraft to the left. He caught his balance on the arm of a chair and surged forward to look out a window.

  “The engine’s on fire!” Jeremiah shouted.

  “I can’t tell if the engine was sabotaged or we were just shot at,” Leander said.

  Fire spewed from the engine, a bright orange ball that glowed against the night. Sander took in the damage—it was bad, really bad—and suffered a moment of this is it. This is how I die.

  The jet righted itself just as he turned from the window. Leander, Mattias, Jeremiah, and the other guards were all out of their seats, checking the damage. Sander met his brother’s eyes across the plane and read the same thoughts of mortality he’d experienced moments before.

  “This is your captain. Please take your seats and buckle in. We’ve got a damaged engine and are going to have a rough landing.”

  Sander sat next to Mattias by default and drew the seat belt across his lap. The jet shuddered again. In the next instant, the plane dropped altitude at a sickening speed, causing his stomach to pitch and roll with nausea.

  Others took their seats, all centered around his seat and Mattias’s. Sander made brief eye contact with Leander, who was doing his best to console a shaken Jeremiah.

  “Let’s just hope there isn’t another missile incoming,” Mattias said.

  One that blew them out of the air completely.

  “Or another bomb in the second engine,” Leander said.

  Sander closed his eyes and thought about his family. His concentration evaporated when the jet’s altitude dipped again and a sharper whine filled the fuselage. An ache developed in his jaw from the tight clench of his teeth.

  “Everyone hold tight!” the captain said over the speakers.

  The whine became a scream, an eerie sound that put Sander in mind of banshees. The scream shredded the air like high-pitched needles, making his ears ache.

  His stomach fell again as the jet dropped—he pressed his head back against the seat, sure that in the next few seconds the entire plane was going to come apart around him. The noise became unbearable and the shaking so severe that debris flew around the cabin.

  The jet dipped lower, heading toward earth at incomprehensible speeds.

  “Heads down!” the captain shouted.

  He bent forward and clasped both hands over his head. Mattias did the same.

  The scream intensified until Sander thought he would lose his mind.

  And then came an ominous calm. Despite the hard shudder of the jet and the ear-shattering noise, the very air around him smoothed out, as if he existed in a bubble separate from the fu
selage. The jet seemed to pick up speed, gliding like a rocket toward earth. They were coming in parallel to the ground, at least, rather than straight down.

  Small favors.

  In those moments, which he instinctively knew were the ones immediately before impact, he thought of his family. He found peace in the faces of those he loved.

  A breath after that, his world exploded into a roar of hellfire and shredding metal.

  Chapter 10

  The first obvious place to search for Emily was her bedroom suite. Elias led Eliana along the hallway at a quick clip, the flashlight beam bouncing off the ground and the walls. It took little time to arrive at her door; Elias didn’t knock, but tested the handle and entered without warning.

  Moonlight helped chase a few of the shadows to the corners, but by and large, the room was too dark to see. He darted the flashlight beam left and right as he searched for signs of his sister.

  Eliana broke away and headed toward the large bathroom, her own flashlight penetrating the deeper gloom beyond the archway.

  Elias found no sign of Emily in the antechamber or the main part of the bedroom. “Clear,” he called out of habit.

  “She’s not in here either,” Eliana called back.

  “Let’s check every other room up here before we go downstairs.” Elias knew his mother and brother were on the lower level, clearing all the wings there before descending to the main floor.

  It was a painstaking process.

  There were many wings and towers and smaller rooms to search. Elias encountered a few staff members hurrying through the halls and he paused long enough to inquire of each whether or not they’d seen Emily.

  The answers were no across the board.

  If any of the staff were startled by the open display of weaponry, they did not say.

  Forty-five minutes after the search began, Elias called a halt. “We should start down to meet the others.”