Tyrant Read online

  Tyrant

  Jagger Cole

  Contents

  A Special Present

  Synopsis

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  Kingpin

  Afterword

  Also by Jagger Cole

  About the Author

  Tyrant

  Jagger Cole © 2020

  All rights reserved.

  Cover by Plan 9 Book Design | Editing by MJ Edits

  This is a literary work of fiction. Any names, places, or incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Similarities or resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events or establishments, are solely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  The unauthorized reproduction, transmission, or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal and a violation of US copyright law.

  Created with Vellum

  A Special Present

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  Synopsis

  She’s all mine. She simply doesn’t know it yet.

  I spent half my life as a savage guerrilla soldier, fighting to take back the kingdom that was stolen from me. Now, I’m back on the throne as the King of Bullogia. My will is iron, my control unflinching, and my heart walled-off and cold.

  Until Claire Shaw explodes into my world.

  The spunky, strong-willed reporter is part of the media circus I’ve invited to my country for the first time. My enemies seek to turn the world against me. They call me the tyrant. Bringing Claire here was meant to set the record straight. But once I lay eyes on the curvy American, I know I'm about to keep her all to myself, come what may.

  Freedom takes power. Protecting my kingdom takes an iron fist. Making Claire mine might just take me apart at the seams, but so be it.

  The world already calls me a tyrant. Let them see how I am when I truly take what I want…

  This OTT romance is packed with instalove, no cliffhanger, and a perfect happy ever after.

  1

  Enzo

  “Your highness.”

  I hear the words, but I don’t look up. My jaw grinds, and the anger boils behind my eyes. My gaze meanders slowly across the palace square, taking in the chaos of the newcomers; the outsiders. The fucking media.

  I’m torn. They’re both the enemy and my chance of showing the world who I really am. Well, at least partly. You never show your full hand; never show all of yourself. To be open is to be weak, and I have neither the time nor the luxury of weakness. Not when I’m trying to hold a goddamn country together with my bare hands.

  They empty from their rental cars and vans like little cockroaches, scurrying around the palace grounds outside. I grind my jaw. Not a year before, I watched friends bleed out on those very grounds trying to take this palace. I myself took three bullets storming it. And yet here I sit, not just alive, but a king. What does not kill you, does in fact make you stronger. The bullets tore out the last weaknesses in me. The scars made me harder and armored my heart and my mind.

  We thought of ourselves as freedom fighters; like rebels against the evil empire. We fought to liberate a country from servitude to a false king—a man whose regime murdered my uncle, the rightful king of Bullogia, and the rest of my family along with him. We spilled blood to end the bloodshed. But we were naïve. We were young, with glory in our eyes. I thought of the man we took down as a snake; cut off his head, and the rest will fall. But he was no snake, he was a hydra from Greek mythology. Cut one head off, and another two grow.

  I took power a year ago, thinking it would mean peace. Instead, it’s meant a year of fighting off the last regime’s lingering troops in the countryside and at times in the very streets of our capital. It’s been cracking down on terror while trying not to step on the freedoms of my countrymen. It’s a tightrope walk, and someone’s swinging it as I try and cross, which is exactly what my enemies want.

  Now, the world calls me a tyrant. They call me cruel, and merciless. Perhaps I am. Perhaps that’s the cost of freedom.

  “Your highness?”

  I scowl, and this time I turn towards the young lieutenant. “Yes,” I growl.

  He trembles visibly. I don’t hold it against him. I’m an imposing man. Six and a half feet tall, broad shoulders, muscles hewn from years living off the land in hiding. A brooding jaw, and hooded dark eyes. Not to mention, a perpetual scowl these days. Today of all days is not a good day to try and make me smile.

  “Sir,” he swallows. “The media is here.”

  I stare at him, the noise of that very media behind me beyond the balcony railings out on the palace grounds. “Yes, lieutenant, I see that.”

  “Ah, yes, of course, sir. When would you like to start?”

  This whole circus is planned. But I don’t have to like it. As such, this party has a prompt start time and an equally prompt finish. They have one hour to film their little stories and to take their little jabs at me and my kingdom. My enemies have been fomenting dissent all over the world, labeling me dictator, tyrant, or monster. I’ve given up giving a shit. Let the world think of me what they will. My priority is to mop up the last of the monsters in my beloved country, to make it safe and secure, and give my people a future of freedom. It’s just going to be a lot of hardship until then.

  “Immediately,” I growl. “The clock starts now. They have one hour.”

  “Absolutely, highness.”

  He scurries for the door, and I turn back. The camera crews from various prominent, world-renowned news organizations are already setting up the shots they want. The New York Times, The BBC, Al Jazeera, Time of India. All of them. One crew down below from some American new station starts to sprinkle something from a bag in front of their shot. I frown and peer closer. Mother. Fuckers. They’re bullet casings and burned bits of camouflage. Then they haul out a half-burned American flag. Oh fuck that.

  “Lieutenant!” I bark. The man comes scurrying back from the door.

  “Yes comandante?”

  “Those,” I growl, pointing. “They’re gone.”

  He sees what I see, and he scowls. “Absolutely, sir,” he growls. I don’t know the lieutenant personally, but I know he fought. I know he walks with a limp, and I know he sees this bullshit attempt to mar our great country as the same insult as I do. I hate this idea. But Giotto, my second in command, insisted that this would be good to at least make an attempt to let the world inside Bullogia. It’s a way to open up, and let us tell our own story, rather than let our enemies tell it for us. I agreed to the idea. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

  The lieutenant leaves my side, and my eyes sweep the courtyard again. Jackals, all of them; preying on carrion. I can’t look anymore. I start to turn, when I see it. The little white rental van comes to a stop, and the door opens. And suddenly, there she is. She steps out of the van, and the wind blows her long dark hair around her like a halo. She’s wearing a short-sleeved sundress—white, with lavender flowers on it. She turns against the wind, and my breath catches. Big blue eyes, a perfect button nose, and lips—my God, her lips. My eyes move over her, and a feeling I’ve never felt before takes hold of me.

  I’ve wanted before, and I’ve fel
t desire before. But I’ve never felt it like this. I watch the way the wind whips around her, and my jaw grinds tight.

  “Lieutenant!”

  The man stops yet again. “Sir?” He runs back over making his limp more pronounced.

  “Her.” I point at her.

  “Yes?”

  “This show is over. Send them all home.”

  “Your highness…”

  “Over,” I growl. “I want them all gone and back on fucking planes by sunset.”

  “And the girl?”

  My eyes burn with desire. My blood feels like fire in my veins. “She stays,” I growl quietly. “She’s mine.” I breathe deeply, and it feels like there’s a fire blazing inside of me. “Find Giotto. Tell him my wishes, he’ll see it done. The rest go, she stays with me.”

  “As you wish, your highness.”

  He runs off. I don’t stop him again. I grip the railing of my balcony, and my eyes never leave her. I can’t blink or even look away. I can barely breathe. I shed blood and almost died to seek goodness in this world. And I believe I just found it. I’m aware that what I’m doing, or what I’m about to do, is wrong. But fuck it. I don’t actually care.

  The world already calls me a tyrant. Let them see how I am when I truly take what I want.

  2

  Claire

  “Holy shit, it’s gorgeous here.”

  My segment producer Emily says it before I can, but it’s exactly what I’ve been thinking, too. Jason, our camera man, drives the little white rental van down absolutely beautiful, tree-lined roads that look straight out of Tuscany. We curve around highways built into the sides of white cliffs, with stunning views of the Adriatic Sea, and then under Roman aqueducts and past sprawling estates that almost look like we’re in Sicily.

  The media, including the Los Angeles Herald that I work for, have been portraying the tiny island nation of Bullogia as a war zone, or something out of the Balkans in the nineties. We’ve been on the ground less than an hour, and I can already say, that’s simply not true. There are obvious signs of war here and there—a mortar mark against one of the cliff walls, the newness of a lot of the roads, and the one burned-out tank out in a farmer’s field near the airport. Then of course, there’s the Royal Guard, present and armed at the airport, and seen patrolling the roads as we make our way to the capital. But even with that, Bullogia is just simply stunning. It’s like someone mixed the Amalfi coast with some old-world eastern European city like Prague, and then painted it all with Mykonos whites, blues, and corals.

  Jason nods, his eyes all over the place even though he’s driving. “No fucking joke. Holy crap, can you imagine when they open this place up for tourism? It’s gonna be a gold rush.”

  I frown. “Well, assuming King Amantea even does open it up to tourism. Or outside investors, for that matter. He’s been pretty vocal the last year since the rebellion about keeping Bullogia closed for its own interests.”

  Jason frowns. “Why do you think this is the first time they’ve let international media in since the coup?”

  “Image,” Emily snorts. “It’s totally an image rehab thing. I mean we’ve all heard the stories from refugees of the coup. This is just Amantea trying to pretty up his international image, so we all stop calling him a tyrant.”

  I shrug. She’s probably right, but I can’t blame the guy. He’s been getting a lot of heat in the international news recently for perceived crackdowns and suspension of freedoms in his own country. I clear my throat. “I mean, is it a coup if you’re overthrowing the people who staged a coup in the first place?”

  Jason snickers. “I think a coup is a coup. I mean he led rebels from caves out in the countryside to storm the capital, take the royal palace, and execute the king. I think that definitely makes him a usurper.”

  “And possibly a war criminal,” Emily mutters before she grins slyly in her spot up front next to Jason. “I mean, a fucking hot war criminal.”

  Jason rolls his eyes. I blush. I mean, she’s not wrong. King, or “Comandante” Enzo Amantea is freaking beautiful. He’s basically an internet meme at this point, with some calling him the Armani Tyrant or the Dolce Despot. He’s got this stunning mix of southern Italian and eastern European ancestry, and it’s like he cherry-picked the best genes from each pool. Toweringly tall and broad-shouldered. And thanks to one brave paparazzi’s shot from a helicopter of Enzo walking shirtless across his palace grounds, the whole world is now drooling over his abs.

  Dark hair, brooding, hooded dark eyes, and a perpetual scruff of a dark five o’clock shadow across his regal jaw. In some other alternate universe, Enzo Amantea is a rock god, or the international face and body of a new underwear line or deodorant. He’s hot with two “t’s,” and every remotely straight woman on earth would back me up there. Which makes it an extra shame that he’s also a murderous, psychopathic tyrant despot.

  “Amantea?” Jason scoffs. “The guy is a war criminal, Em.”

  “So? Still a fucking snack, Jason.” Jason groans, and Emily glances back at me. “Back me up here, Claire.”

  I shrug. “Jason, he’s a hunk, what can I say?”

  Jason sighs. “That’s like having the hots for Saddam Hussein.”

  Emily wrinkles her nose. “Ew, no.”

  “See? He’s a murderous tyrant.”

  “No,” Emily grins. “I mean ew because that Saddam mustache was ick.”

  Jason groan. “That’s what turns you off about Saddam fucking Hussein?”

  Emily sighs. “Jason, I’m kidding.” She giggles. “But not about Enzo Amantea. Holy hot.”

  “Well,” I sigh. “Let’s try and keep it together when we get there? No drooling on the tyrannical freedom-fighting war criminal, Emily.”

  “No promises,” my producer mumbles with a grin.

  We’re pulled to a stop at the gates of the capital, Catone. A handful of armed Royal Guards next to a Humvee do a quick sweep under the van and check in the back. Then they wave us through.

  “Fuck me, it’s an island country of olive-skinned underwear models,” Emily giggles.

  “Keep it your pants, girl,” I sigh through my own grin.

  “Holy shit,” Jason murmurs. I look up to see him ogling a pair of stunning dark-haired women dressed like they’re right off a runway in Milan.

  “You too, Jason,” I mutter. “The last thing we need is for your dick to start an international incident, okay? Let’s remember that we’re guests here?”

  Emily laughs. “Yeah, extremely quick guests.”

  She’s right, too. King Amantea is breaking his year-long ban on international media in his country. But we all have one hour on the palace grounds, followed by another two hours of an escorted tour through certain parts of the countryside. Some places in Bullogia are still no-fly zones because of guerrilla fighters from the last regime. It’s been a mystery if the king himself will be speaking with anyone, or even if he’s making an appearance. But we’ll take what we can get. And I’ve waited my entire professional career for a chance to do something like this. It’s no fall of the Berlin wall or covering war crimes in Kosovo. But this is still huge.

  We wind our way through the beautiful old Roman city of Catone. Ahead and behind us, you can clearly spot the other rental vans full of media types. Some are pointing out the windows, some are ogling the gorgeous populace. Others are trying to covertly film, which we’ve been told is off the table without an armed escort after the palace visit.

  Eventually, we wind our way up through the old city and through another set of gates into the palace grounds. A guard directs us where to park. Jason shuts the engine off, and then we start to unpack the camera and tripod. Jason and Emily start framing the shot, while I figure out where I’m going to stand. I’ve done field reports during hurricanes and other disasters. Once I did a live broadcast during a police standoff with a hostage taker. But being here feels like the real reason I got into journalism. I feel like Anderson Cooper, or Diane Sawyer.

  I
turn to look over the gorgeous grounds of the Royal Palace. You can still see the scars of battle here. But they’ve done an amazing job of covering them up. My eyes scan the other crews setting up. But I frown when they settle on one. The assholes are scattering what look like bullet casings on the ground, along with a half-burned American flag.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Emily mutters. She walks up next to me and shakes her heads in disgust. “Like this isn’t already a guaranteed headline story. They have to plant bullshit like that to make a fake story?”

  “That’s the Frontline News crew,” Jason grunts. “Kevin Fink is the producer over there in the khaki shirt. He’s a douche like that.”

  “So much for unbiased news,” I scowl. “I hope they get kicked out…”

  As if on cue, four guards march out of a side door to the palace and head right for the Frontline News crew. A handsome man in a dark suit leads them, and he points at Kevin, the producer, with a steely gaze. Jason snickers when the guards starts packing up the crew’s stuff and throwing it back in the van. The man in the suit is basically all but throwing Kevin himself into the van, too.

  “Good riddance,” Emily sniffs. Kevin and his guys angrily get back into the van. We’re about to start rolling, when suddenly about forty more guards pour out of the palace. The man in the suit starts yelling something to a few other crews. We can see their faces looking angry and confused. But when the royal guards brandishing machine guns start marching towards each crew, they start to scramble to get their stuff.