“Not this hoity-toity shit again.” He used his hold on her wrists to pull her closer. She wriggled, but he held firm, bending so that she had no choice but to look him in the eyes. He ignored the loathing reflected in her gaze as he said, “If you want your meal, you’ll tell me what you know.”
Poppy launched herself at him, swifter than a snake. Hasan swore as her skull smashed into his face with a resounding crack. He released her, bringing his hand to his nose in disbelief. It came away wet. He stared at the blood on his fingers, then shifted his gaze to her. Clearly, he’d underestimated her, and she knew it.
She met his gaze, unrepentant. “Starve me, then,” she spat. “The food is subpar, anyway.”
“Only someone as spoiled and entitled as you would complain about the quality of food in a famine,” he retorted.
That wiped the scowl clean off her face. “You’re right,” she said, dropping her gaze to her toes. “I shouldn’t have said that. I just...” Poppy squeezed her eyes shut. The skin between her brows wrinkled as she sniffed. “I’m tired of being here.”
The threat of her tears alarmed him more than her display of violence. “Idon’t want you here any more thanyouwant to be here. That’s why I need to know why your fiancé won’t respond to our ransom note.”
She tilted her head up at him, her silence calculating. Hasan held his breath.
“I’ll tell you,” she said, “but first you have to tell me what you want from him so badly.” She twisted her fingers together, but her gaze held firm as she suggested, “Maybe... maybe we can help each other.”
Help each other?Though it seemed like a bluff, the offer had certainly sparked his curiosity. What kind of arrangement did she imagine between a noblewoman and a brute? For a moment, he was tempted to ask.
Then he glanced at the blood on his fingers, proof of how he’d underestimated her. He would not make the same mistake again. “It’s not worth the risk.”
With that, he locked her in the room, taking the tray of food back to the kitchen.
Chapter Sixteen
Zero Leads
“Tell me how it’s been seven days, and yet you have zero leads.”
Richard clenched his jaw to keep from flinching at the viceroy’s scorn. Once, he had considered the two of them alike, fancying himself an echo of a younger Clarence Sutherland, the one who had assumed control of the island at only twenty years of age and guided it into an age of economic prosperity that none had seen before.
How things had changed?—both within the colony, now plagued by poverty and crime, and with the duke himself. All Richard saw now was the way Sutherland’s suit sagged at the shoulders where muscle had once filled it in, the way his wispy white hair could no longer hide the patchy pink skin of his scalp.
Richard was nothing like Clarence?—he was not weak, nor did he possess the elder man’s grotesque fascination with Virians. Clarence was obsessed with them, determined to make them civilized, refusing to see them for the inferior species they were. Richard would have ended his bloodline before he tainted it with a Virian child, and therein was their greatest difference.
“It’s a complicated case, Your Grace,” Richard said. “Rest assured, we are working hard?—”
“Working hard?” Sutherland repeated, glaring at Richard. “Working hard? You ought to be running yourselfragged.” He slammed his hand on the table. The sound reverberated against the walls of the room. “That’s my daughter, boy! The woman you publicly vowed to make your wife. As her husband, your only job will be to protect and provide for her, and you’re failing already.”
Richard bowed his head, wisely recognizing nothing he said could soothe Sutherland until Poppy was returned to him. He itched to reveal his plot right there, to show the duke the forged smuggler’s records with her name on it just to see the old man’s face fall. But Richard still needed to marry her for his claim to be legitimate. Until then, he could not ruin her reputation. If Sutherland disowned her now and put the succession to a vote, then the viceroy’s office would become a free-for-all. The nobility was nothing if not self-serving.
“I’ll get her back,” he said. “I swear it.”
Sutherland muttered something under his breath. Then, he said, “Let one thing be clear: The only reason you’re still the lead investigator is because when Poppy is found, I don’t want her to be humiliated marrying the man who failed to bring her home. But if you cannot produce a lead in forty-eight hours, Iwillhave you taken off the case.”
Humiliated?Richard’s vision flared red.It isIwho will be humiliated, reduced to marrying a lowborn Virian in front of society and the Founder.Richard bit back one last urge to put the old man in his place.
He bowed, uttered a flat “Your Grace,” then left. As the door swung shut behind him, he turned back. Sutherland had folded, his face in his hands as his shoulders shook silently. Richard filed away the image of the old man’s misery to recall later, when he needed a boost of strength.
At first, when Poppy had gone missing, there’d been theories?—cold feet, perhaps, or another man. It couldn’t have been either of those things, not when Richard had spared no expense in winning her heart. She thought he was a perfect prince, traditional enough to provide for her, but liberal enough to treat her like an equal. Abduction was the only plausible answer. When the ransom letter arrived at his house, his suspicions had been confirmed.
He hadn’t told anyone about the letter yet, save for Ernest Alderfort. Ernest was the second son of Gerald Alderfort’s fourth brother, which meant that his inheritance would be chump change compared to what the other children of the nobility would receive?—especially Poppy. It hadn’t taken much to convince Ernest that he deserved far more than that, and that Richard was willing to give it to him, for a price.
“Why don’t you just tell Sutherland about the letter?” Ernest had suggested.
“Because,” Richard had said, drawing out the second syllable, “if Poppy is supposedly workingwiththe Jackal and his smuggler, then why would they kidnap her? If I admit to Sutherland where she really is, I’ll have to scrap the whole plot. Who knows when I’ll get another chance to get rid of her?”
Richard was trapped. If he was taken off the case, the new lead investigator would almost certainly discover his cover-up. While Richard’s own squadron were handpicked and loyal to him, there were other men?—older men?—who resented his quick promotion and would seize any opportunity to tear him down. But if he revealed his lead, the letter, then he would lose the chance to incriminate Poppy, extending their marriage for an interminable amount of time.
Either way, he was screwed, and he knew it. He got into his car and pressed his forehead to the steering wheel.Founder, grant me a miracle.With a deep breath, he peeled out of the lot, driving back to the precinct.
