Queenside Castle: Kings of Rexville, Secrets and Lies

By Pepper Bordeaux

Evi Devine should be celebrating winning her case, instead, she's running for her life.

 

There's only one place she can go. There's only one person she trusts to help her.

And she doesn't know if he's still alive.

 

One hot summer Eleven years ago, Caleb and Evi spent three weeks falling in love knowing their time was finite.

Caleb's never forgotten the woman who rocked his world. He didn't know if he'd make it out of the military alive, but he did and now he plans on finding her. 

Maybe they still have a chance.

 

Except Evi shows up in Rexville, on her own, on the run and needing help, and trouble not far behind her.

 

Queenside Castle is the exciting novella-length prequel to the Rexville Secrets and Lies series. Queenside is dual POV, third person.

#Reunited #ProtectiveHero #ComingHome #Military #Security #OldFlame #HappilyEverAfter

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dirty Dog Press LLC
• Release date: Mar 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201298302

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Evi

Wednesday Evening

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With a shaky finger, Evi pressed Play for the third time. The video had been sent anonymously, the sender hiding behind multiple VPNs and fake email addresses. He wanted her to know he could get through any defense—even the one set up by the firm. And even though Evi knew who he was, she was powerless against him.

For the first time in years, Evi felt powerless.

On the screen, she watched herself naively walk down her street, stop at her Logan Circle address, unarm the security system, open her front door, and disappear inside. Logically, the feed would end there because the watcher was outside. Which was creepy enough.

It did not end there.

The video switched, Evi was now seeing the inside of her house. She saw herself entering through the door, shutting and relocking it. Because a woman living alone in a big city didn’t leave doors unlocked.

She watched as her bag swung awkwardly from her shoulder when she bent and pulled off her pink Marc Fisher pumps one at a time, setting them to the side—like usual, it had been a long day and her feet were tired. Straightening, she moved further into her house.

 The video hiccupped and Evi was walking through her living room, but it didn’t stop there. Another choppy edit showed her in the kitchen. She watched herself as she set her shoulder bag on the granite countertop and plucked a stemmed glass off the stand, then poured a glass of the chardonnay she’d taken from the refrigerator.

There was no sound on the feed, Evi couldn’t hear the sigh she knew she’d released as she’d begun to relax from her day in court. On-screen, she rolled her head around, trying to get her neck to release.

Jesus.

Evi jabbed her finger at the screen, trying to make it stop… needing to make it stop playing. She’d already watched it all the way through twice. Someone had hijacked the security cameras in her house and added a few extras, including in her bedroom. Her home, a place that had always been her sanctuary, was no longer safe.

That bastard. 

He—and Evi knew him well, knew what a bastard he was—promised to destroy Evi. And in a way, he already had.

At first, the emails that landed in her inbox after winning asylum and witness protection for her client had been only vaguely threatening, and Evi had chalked them down to the normal hate mail she received when she won a case. As a lawyer—and a woman—who protected human rights, Evi was used to empty threats, sneering glares at the courthouse, even being accidentally bumped in the elevator, but that’s usually as far as her enemies went.

This video proved Arkady Ivanof planned to go further than just threatening her, as did the terse message embedded in the email.

You’re going to end up like all the rest.

Evi shut her eyes and tried to control the pounding of her heart.

---

During her career, Evi had worked for many organizations and had just finished a stint working for the ACLU. Making the status quo unhappy was sort of her job description.

Arkady Ivanof, however, was unhinged.

What the hell am I going to do?

No one answered her question, which was a good thing since Evi was alone in her office. It was just after nine o’clock at night and the only people left in the building were the cleaning staff.

She wasn’t going home, she knew that. Which, she supposed, was exactly what the creep expected. Ivanof was trying to flush her out, away from the security of home and the cameras that were meant to protect people, not spy on them taking showers or while they were sleeping. And to be honest, she wasn’t sure which creeped her out more.

Probably the sleeping. She sucked in a lungful of air and held it for a few seconds before releasing it. Damn.

Evi Devine was going to have to do what she’d counseled many clients to do over the years. She needed to try and take control of the situation, to somehow turn the tables on Ivanof. And the only way that was going to happen was if she left town. If this creep wanted her that bad, he was going to have to come and get her. But she needed him to come for her on her terms, on her own turf.

That Ivanof had friends in high places in DC, Evi didn’t doubt. Reporting the video to the Capitol Police wouldn’t do any good and the alphabets, if they even took her seriously, wouldn’t act quickly enough.

Powering off her laptop, she gently shut its lid.  Around her, the building was quiet, only the usual sounds of the HVAC coming on or going offline, various vacuum cleaners droning, the building’s ticks and creaks as it settled down for the night. She worked a lot of nights, these sounds were familiar, almost comforting.

Evi didn’t have much time—any time, likely—but hopefully, the piece of trash threatening her wouldn’t expect her to leave town directly from the office.

If she was going to force his hand, she needed to act now.

---

Doing her best to act normally—just in case the camera in the office had been hacked like the ones at home—Evi gathered her belongings and then did a last-minute sweep through her desk for anything that might be useful.

A spare couple hundred dollars in cash would have been nice but all she found was a couple of pennies, a rubber band ball, and, tucked into the pencil tray set into the top drawer, an ancient