“Stop.” His voice sharpens. “Just stop and listen,da?”
“He’s the reason I’m like this!” I scream, shaking, my throat tearing open from the force of it. “I hate him, Arsen. I wish he’d fucking die.”
“It’s not so simple.”
“Then make it simple. What could possibly?—”
“Priest is the next High Chancellor. Of the South.”
I bark out a bitter laugh. “So that’s what this is about? Protecting the heir to keep the Sovereign hierarchy intact? Fuck that.” I turn and stomp down the hallway.
“I’ll give you a million, cash. New passports. You can disappear anywhere in the fucking world, Arlo. Start over. However you want.”
I freeze with my back to him.
“The Sovereign killed my father, Arsen. They branded him a traitor. Smeared his name, and ripped him away from me. And you think for one second I’m going to help save the son of the man who murdered him?” My voice shatters, rage trembling through every bone.“For money?”
I spin back around, teeth clenched, vision swimming. “You’re out of your goddamn mind. I would rather eat a bullet myself than help that fucking monster.”
“Saving Priest could clear your father’s name.”
I stop breathing. “What?”
He exhales hard. “Sterling ordered the hit on Priest and the other heirs. If he succeeds in killing Priest. You will never clear your father’s name. You keep running. Forever.
“What the hell are you saying?”
“I don’t have all the answers, Arlo. But I know this—your father was no traitor. He was hiding something. Something big. And Sterling…Sterling made sure he died with it.”
My heart twists. A thousand memories slam through me. My father’s coded journals. His silence. The fear in his eyes.
“I think…” he steps closer. “I think he found out. About Sterling’s plan to kill heirs. Maybe he tried to warn someone. Maybe he had proof. But he never got a chance to finish.”
I swallow hard, eyes burning.
“And now it’s happening again,” he continues. “Sterling’s using you. Framing you. Framing Priest. And if he succeeds now? There’s no undoing it.”
Silence stretches between us.
“If I’m right…” His voice drops, “If we get to Priest before Sterling makes an example of him…before whatever is next...maybe we find what your father died for. Maybe we can clear his name. Once and for all.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, a fresh wave of grief rising so fast it threatens to drown me.
“You’d be free, Arlo,” he adds. “Really free. No more hiding. No more running. You’d give your father peace. Giveyourselfpeace.”
My entire body feels like it’s splintering apart. I can’t breathe. I’ve been surviving so long I forgot what peace even looked like.
My voice comes out hoarse. “What do I have to do?”
I’m stripped, cuffed, and chained to the floor.
The cell is pitch black. No sound. Just the fucking drip of some pipe overhead that’s been torturing me longer than the motherfucker who put me in here.
I don’t know how many hours have passed. I’ve pissed myself twice. Maybe three times.
I’m hungry. I’m tired. I’m weak.
“One-eight-seven, it’s time to play.”
