Afraid she might have given away Nero’s secret, she backpedaled. “Do you?”
Darling let out a short, bitter laugh. “If you’re asking about the family connection, Z, we know. It’s also why he can’t go near any aristo. If anyone recognizes him and who he really is, he’s screwed.”
“No,” Ryn corrected, “we’re talking beyond screwed to the infinite level. He’ll be hunted even worse than he already is.”
Zarya was trying to follow their conversation, but she was missing something. “Okay, now I think I’m lost. He’s your cousin. I don’t see why that would endanger him.” It seemed to her that being related to a family as powerful as the Cruels would be a major asset to anyone who wasn’t a Resistance member.
Ryn gave her a droll stare. “It’s not being our cousin that endangers him. He’s the last surviving member of the Trisani ruling family. Sole heir. In theory, he could petition the League to have his family lands and money returned to him from the humans—and I use that term loosely—who stole it from them after they enslaved everyone he was related to, and locked him in prison.”
“Why doesn’t he?”
Darling answered before Ryn had a chance. “Even with his powers, he wouldn’t live long enough to enjoy it. He’s much better off keeping a low profile.”
“But doesn’t that threaten your mother, too?”
Darling yawned before he answered. “It would if anyone knew she was related to the Scaleras. But once it became open season on the Trisani, her family did a hell of a job erasing their ties to them. The only reason we know about it is because of the genetic deformities I have.”
She frowned. “Is that why you avoid medics?”
“No. I avoid them because they have a long history of assassinating my family.”
“It’s true,” Ryn concurred. “Our grandfather was poisoned and murdered when a med tech came here to give him a routine vaccine.”
She winced at that fact.
Ryn indicated where she was sitting on the mattress. “He died right there.”
She shot off the bed. “Ew!” Glaring at Darling, she had an awful case of the sudden creeps. “Couldn’t you have told me that?”
Darling laughed. “Sweetie, there’s barely a corner in this palace where someone hasn’t died or wasn’t murdered.”
He had a point. Still…
Ew!
Ryn pulled his mobile out of his pocket and checked it for a message. He looked back to Darling. “I would suggest beefing up your security, but they’re not real fond of you. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if one of your own guard didn’t try to assassinate you.”
Anger whipped through her at his reminder. “I don’t understand that. They protected Arturo.” Who had to be the nastiest piece of work to ever breathe. How could they have served him and not Darling? Were they that stupid? “What do they have against Darling, anyway?”
“You mean aside from the fact that he killed a third of them when he took the throne?”
While she’d seen him go after the guard courtesy of Maris, that number stunned her. “Is that true?”
“No… It was more like half of them.”
Ryn let out an evil laugh. “I’m speaking from experience. Never get on Darling’s bad side.”
“Payback’s a bitch.” He dropped his hand to pin her with a cold stare. “I owed them for sixteen years of abuse and fourteen years of rude, invasive, and sadistic body cavity searches. Let’s just say, I’m not a forgiving man. The old excuse of ‘I was ordered to do it’ didn’t sit well with me. I expect more out of my guard than someone who ruthlessly violates a defenseless kid under orders and then laughs about it and throws it in his face every time they see him.” His eyes still jerking, he glanced toward Ryn. “Because of that, I wouldn’t trust them anyway. They’ve never thought much of me… other than as a punch line to a tasteless joke.”
Ryn held his hands up in surrender. “Hey, I commend you for weeding out the gene pool, even though I have to say that I enjoy polluting it myself. It doesn’t say much for their substandard intelligence that none of them thought ahead to what would become of them once you were governor.”
“They were counting on my being shoved aside in favor of Drake inheriting. No doubt, they still are.”
Ryn snorted. “Well to that, all I have to say is… surprise.”
“And they were. Though in retrospect, killing so many of them probably wasn’t the wisest move I’ve made. Oops.”
Oh, his humor was bad. But then, he’d always had a dark side.
Another knock sounded on the door.
“What the hell?” Darling growled. “Did I miss a memo? Who opened my bedroom for public access?”
Laughing, Zarya went to the door to find Hauk there, along with two extremely tall men flanking him. “What are you doing here?”
Hauk flashed a wicked, fanged grin at her. “So good to see you again, too, lovely. Thanks for the warm welcome. ’Preciate it.”