Fuck them.Fuck you!
Slap after slap, my skin is ripped apart, and blood oozes down my back. Fire burns through me, weakening my knees. My hands grip the pole, my knuckles white, and my muscles shaking as I work to stay upright. It’s brutal, and I keep my eyes pinched tight and my jaw locked.
“Ten,” Antonia announces, barely out of breath. Conversely, my lungs are shredded, and I can hardly catch my breath.
I know Jaqueline saw and heard everything. She’s only thirteen. merely a teenager, she feels everything. I don’t cry for that reason alone. My tears would break her further. More than that, again, I won’t give them the satisfaction. I can’t remember the last time I cried, and if I have my say, I’ll never cry again. Tears are a weakness.
“Now what do we do with you?” Signoria asks without actually expecting an answer. She wants me to fall to my knees and beg for forgiveness while showering her with undying devotion. Fucking narcissist.
“Signoria, it was two hours at a wedding,” Antonia states, which shocks me. She’s never one to come to my side on anything, which means there’s something she wants and needsme alive for it. What that could possibly be, I have no clue. “We need another strategy.”
Signoria Batorini has had a difficult couple of months. Her son was killed when he was shoved out a window at the hands of the king. I never saw the video. I only know that the entire encounter is about as damning as you can get if you don’t know the details. But details are inconsequential.
Samil tried to kidnap the king’s fiancée, and when that didn’t work, he tried to kill the king. Self-defense or madness, it doesn’t matter which angle you take. The country hates us, and we want our revenge against the king who killed Samil without a second thought.
A beloved king at that, despite the fact that he had been a notorious beast and gone into seclusion for three years following the death of his wife. They said it was grief that drove him there, but we know the truth. It was fear of the curse, not love for the queen.
My father hated the royal family and used to tell me stories about the former king. How he’d spend tax money like it was nothing, siphoning it away from charities and schools. He’d take bribes and play favorites, allowing votes and policies only on things he was paid off for. My father was a member of parliament for years and often talked about the greed and corruption that lived in the royal family.
Samil carried that torch. He was a classmate of King Sebastian and used to call him a ruthless, arrogant prick, though they were friendly enough back then. That all changed when the king became jealous of Samil. He resented him for where his future was headed, and the freedom he had with it. Out of spite, the king set his sights on marrying Nora, Samil’s girlfriend. Pressured by her family, she had no choice but to accept the king’s proposal.
It devastated Samil. Especially because the king didn’t love her.
He was the same cold, ruthless, corrupt shark his father was. He went after Samil from the start. Did everything he could to destroy him, even holding him back professionally. If the king hadn’t been so cutthroat and grudging of Samil, Nora would have married Samil, and he’d still be here. Hell, maybe I would have gone and lived with them. Been a nanny or a housekeeper there.
My life could have been so different if it were not for the bastard king and all he did to hurt my brother. Now my life is worse than it ever was.
Last night, the king married his new bride, and the country is magically healed and beyond joyous. And the great unifier beyond the king’s new love and the people’s snark over it? Their hatred of their former prime minister.
Oh, and the fact that they believe the curse has now been broken.
“I’m listening,” slithers past Signoria’s bitter lips.
“We get Marcella into the palace. Not the way we did last night. Not simply for a few hours. We get her a job in the palace. Plant her there from within and allow her to gain their trust. To learn all their secrets. Then we take them out from within.”
“Yes. I like it,” Signoria agrees. “A Trojan horse.”
My insides plummet.
The last place I want to go is the palace, but it seems I don’t have a choice if this is what they want. How I’ll avoid the prince once I’m living there, I have no clue. I just know I have to.
6
ROWAN
Six months later
“Emily is gettingher right hip replaced,” Althea announces as she joins us in the breakfast room, and Sebastian, Bellamy, and I all stop eating mid-bite to look at her. The children don’t stop, though. Phaedra and Sabrina are going back and forth about who’s better at a game they play on their iPads, and Zayer is busy shoveling eggs and ham into his mouth.
Sebastian comes to faster than us. “When is that happening, and why haven’t we been notified about it until now?”
“It’s happening in two weeks, and she didn’t inform us about it because she kept pushing off her doctor, telling her she was fine, when she actually wasn’t. The woman can barely walk at this point. You can’t tell me you’re shocked.”
Sebastian swallows his bite of sourdough and wipes his mouth with his napkin. “No. I suppose not. I’m glad she’s finally taking care ofherself.”
Bellamy places her hand on her large pregnant belly and leans back in her chair. “What can we do to help?”
Althea points a stern finger at Bellamy. “You are to keep off your feet. You’re growing twins and are scheduled to deliver them in two and a half months.”
