I can’t wait till tomorrow when she gets the packages I sent her.
31
MARCELLA
“What’s all this?” the king bellows as he walks into his study. I’m legit on my hands and knees trying to get a fucking bleach stain out of a Persian rug that’s likely ancient and priceless. But it’s bleach. Bleach doesn’t come out. It takes everything else out of whatever it spilled on.
“I’m so sorry, Your Majesty,” I start, not even knowing what to say. I’m going to get fired for this. Or stuck with a bill I can’t pay. Then everything will be in the dumpster, including me, and Antonia and Signoria Batorini will take turns setting it on fire to char my remains. They might do that anyway once they realize what I’m up to now.
“How did this happen?”
I sit back on my haunches, black rubber gloves on my hands, holding a useless scrub brush as the overwhelming scent of bleach burns my eyes and nose.
There’s a noise outside the study that catches my attention before I can respond, and I’d swear to all fucking God, I catch a flash of Marsha’s lavender hair shooting away. Bitchis fucking dead. Her two buddies will go with her. I wasn’t going to kill them because I’m trying to turn over a new leaf and all, but fuck that.
Emily praised my work yesterday, and this morning, shit has been all downhill. I don’t take kindly to people loosening a wheel on my trolley so the thing topples over and everything spills out, or replacing my coffee with decaf and my sugar with salt—a lame fucking prank. They can’t get away with the big stuff anymore now that she’s back, but they also know that I didn’t rat them out, so they think it’s still game on for them.
Idiots.
I turn back to the king. “I don’t have an answer for you, sir.”
He tilts his head, his eyes narrowing at me before slipping back down to the odorous white spot in the center of what once was grays, greens, and gold.
“Marcella…” He trails off, studying me with a seriously furrowed brow.
“Your Majesty?—”
“Did you do this?” he cuts me off. “Because I don’t see a container of bleach on your trolley, empty or otherwise. Nor do you look scared or like you fucked up. You look…well, to put it in my wife’s terms, pissed.”
I choke out a laugh. I have no clue where it comes from, but the king of Messalina just saidpissedin English to me, and it’s funny. He’s also not yelling and screaming and storming around as I expected the beast king would. Samil used to call him a total motherfucker, and I have no doubt that he was or at least was to Samil. Thus far, I haven’t seen much of that.
“No, sir. I didn’t do this.”
“Do you know who did?”
I sigh. “I have my suspicions, Your Majesty.”
He takes two steps back and sits on the edge of the sofa, legs crossed at the ankles, arms folded over his broad chest.
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
“No, sir, I’m not.”
Because where I was complacent before, trying to be the model employee and all that, I’m going to choke them to death and watch the life slip from their eyes. I’ll enjoy it. I never enjoyed killing—it was horrible, and that’s putting it mildly—but their deaths I’ll enjoy.
He considers this for a moment and nods. “You realize I could command you to, or at the very least, check the footage on the cameras of who entered my study before you.”
“Cameras, sir?” I question as if I didn’t know. All he does is give me a simple nod. Smart man. “Yes, Your Majesty, I’m aware of all of that.”
“But you still don’t want to tell me.” It’s not a question.
I stand, depositing the brush back onto my trolley along with my gloves before I face him. “No, sir.”
“Have things like this been happening to you since Emily left?”
“Am I allowed to lie to you, sir?”
He chuckles, a rare smile curling up his lips. “Not unless you want me to fire you.”
