Like a mother.
Fuck. If I’m going to Sheffolk, fine. Let him send me. Let him bury me in politics. But before I go, he’s going to know one thing. My mother isn’t collateral damage. If he so much as lets this rot touch her, I’ll come back.
And I’ll make sure the whole country sees what he’s buried.
5
THE GIRL IN THE WATER
ERIC
Two nights before my departure for Sheffolk, my father invites me to his private study for a drink. The invitation doesn’t surprise me when Anthony, his steward, knocks on my room door. When I don’t respond, the door creaks open and he peers inside. I look up from my laptop with a bored expression. Anthony says nothing and merely waits for me to finish up whatever I’m working on.
He stands there as though part of the shadows, which I suppose is an accurate description for his life in the palace. Nobody ever looks too closely at the staff, which my mother would argue is the point. They’re meant to be clean, quiet and efficient. But I watch them; I always have.
And the ones particularly close to my father, like Anthony? They’re too careful. I was eight when I first started noticing the oddities. Anthony had just begun working for us, and he had a tattoo on his neck, though it was gone now (lasered off).
To be more specific, it was a prison tattoo. I saw it once when he bowed too low, and that slip was the first of many.
Thompson, the valet, had burn marks that couldn’t have been an accident, marks that spoke of a life of suffering.Bertrand, the man who serves as my father’s personal guard, was once a butcher. I only know this because I was fifteen at the time he was hired and already suspicious. A quick comb through the internet led me to the discovery that Bertrand was arrested for the murder of his wife and daughters.
The next day, as soon as he stepped foot into the palace, his entire record vanished. No employment trail, not even a birth certificate. His eyes never move when he’s on patrol, but his fingers twitch with phantom memories, like he still vividly remembers gutting both animals and his family.
My father doesn’t hire staff, not really. He acquires people. Survivors, if you will. They’re men who’ve already lost and done too much to the world and cannot, under any circumstances, risk biting the hand that feeds them. He surrounds himself with these men who owe him loyalty and gives them new lives and new names.
In return, they fall into line, allowing their lips to be stitched shut. The thing about me and airtight quietness, however, is that I know which ones are empty and which are heavy with rot.
Anthony walks exactly five feet behind me, and I can feel the way his stare burns into the back of my neck. I’d imagine he garnered quite the reputation in prison, but alas, we’ll never know the truth of his past. The door to the study is unlocked when we reach it. It always is. That singular fact never fails to make my mother smile, for it gives the impression that she’s welcomed in his personal space at any given time. I roll my eyes, knocking my shoulder into Anthony’s as he leans forward to open the doors.
Upon entering, I pivot the slightest bit, and Anthony’s eyes—those carefully schooled shards of ice—rise from the floor to meet mine with unflinching hate. Without breaking stride as I backtrack, I lift a hand and trace the imaginary collar around mythroat before pulling gently, mocking the leash my father bound to him.
He knows exactly what I’m implying, yet his mouth only twitches, a scowl trying to make an appearance. All I see is a dog bristling beneath the weight of his chain, unable to bite unless commanded. Knowing him, he’d gut me if given the chance, but leashed men don’t have that freedom.
“Be a good lad and close the door, Anthony,” I mutter. “I know how to behave.”
He complies with another lip twitch, a move that could’ve frightened anybody who didn’t already know his fangs were blunted. My father doesn’t react to my entrance, but I notice he’s already poured the drinks. Two crystal glasses sit on the table with brandy only three fingers deep. His legs are crossed, and he idly flicks his left foot in the air whilst staring at the flames in the hearth.
I don’t announce myself and instead take the seat across from him. The study still reeks of pride, and the very air flickers before me, strings of compliance almost visible. It’s no surprise that whichever statesman walks in here becomes entangled almost instantly.
Me? I’ve discovered nonchalance is the easiest knife to wield against a man like him. He only proves my point when his jaw clenches at my sudden muteness.
The dramatic ass waits a full five minutes, watching me take a sip from my glass before he pollutes the space with his voice. “Careful when playing with my dogs, Eric. One day, you might just lose a hand.”
“Hm. Better my hand than my cock. You let yours fester inside a woman who doesn’t wear my mother’s ring.”
The stillness that follows feels two decades old, the exact amount of years since he first noticed I was different from theother children in the palace. He doesn’t look at me, and the liquid swirling in his glass is suddenly a wonder of the world.
“You know.”
I finish my drink in one gulp and slide the glass back onto the end table. “Did you think exile would suddenly strike me with amnesia? Your threats are needless. She must’ve swallowed it whole then, considering you’ve said nothing worth fearing in about, I dunno, ten years.”
His reflexes have him moving too quickly and shifting forward in his seat. Even so, I flinch—it’s a slight movement—and I despise myself for it. A habit I thought I killed. My slowly disintegrating pride hopes that he’s angry enough to not have noticed, but the little boy hiding in the shadows of my mind reminds me that he always noticed when we moved wrong.
Pessimism, for once, loses the argument when my father moves on. “Watch your mouth, lad. You’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I know that you’ve buried more of yourself in that woman than you ever gave your sons, so let’s not waste time. You want this to look like civility. But this isn’t an amicable parting between father and son; it’s an attempt to bury a secret that you’ve assembled a team of criminals and cowards to protect.”
I don’t let him interrupt, though I doubt he has a plausible defence against these accusations. “We both know this isn’t about Milan or the diplomat’s son. It’s about the woman in the northern wing. You’ve spent years paying for shut mouths, and I’ve spent years listening harder.”
