The tape slows; several seconds later, Serenity’s eyes open. After taking in the room, she sits up. I only have to wait a minute more before the door to her cell opens and William Kline joins her.
The sound is even grainer than the video, but I can still make out the words. I grit my teeth as William cups my wife’s face. He touches her like he has a right to. Now I doubly regret my decision to end his life.
As I watch and listen to the entire interrogation—which really isn’t an interrogation at all—my breathing slows. The Resistance knows so much more about me than I believed. I thought this might be the most worrisome aspect of it, until William threatens my queen.
“She’s associated with the Resistance,” Henry says.
“I can damn well see that,” I snap.
I glare at the man on the screen. I should’ve gotten more information out of this piece of shit. They’ve set their sights on the throne, and they plan on using my wife to usurp me. This needs to be suppressed stat.
I’m a cold-blooded bastard. I know this, the world knows this, and most of all, the queen knows this. Yet as I watch her, my heart pounds madly. She’s vicious and frank, and she’s not giving into their demands.
If I didn’t understand her, I might’ve worried that she was some sort of double agent. But Serenity doesn’t hide her violence and anger. No, she puts the worst parts of herself out on display and hides the best aspects of herself. Even that she’s not so good at because she’s risking torture and death by defending me.
She’s the most fearless person I know.
My opinion of her only increases when she slugs Will, and again when she pulls his own gun on him.
It doesn’t take a genius to know I married up.
Chapter 24
Serenity
I’m returned to my hospital room where I languish until I’m questioned on my time spent in the warehouse. It’s a sad day when giving a statement is preferable to the alternative—leaving me alone to my thoughts.
After the stunt I pulled with Will and the king, I have extra guards watching me throughout the day, none of whom want to make small talk. I burned that bridge either when I killed their comrades, or when the king threatened them with death for listening to me.
Hours tick by before I see Montes again. By then the officers are long gone, as are the painkillers I’ve been fed. Several sets of shoes click against the linoleum floor outside my room.
The king doesn’t knock. He stalks inside, his men filing in behind him. My eyes flick to them.
Montes crosses the room, cups my face, and kisses me long and hard. It’s over before I can react.
“Let’s get the queen out of here,” the king orders his men. There’s shuffling.
“Does this mean I’m all better?”
He returns his attention to me, and he’s looking at me funny. “I’m not making the same mistake twice,” the king says, evading my question. “We’ll be finishing your treatment in a more secure location.”
That’s when I know, I just know, I’m not all right. Not at all.
Things happen quickly after that. A nurse comes in with another round of pain pills, and I take them to distract myself from the king’s unnerving expression. He’s either deeply worried or deeply moved by me. Neither emotion is particularly welcome.
It’s only as I’m moved to a stretcher and wheeled out that I realize something’s amiss. My eyelids droop.
“What did you give me?” My voice slurs.
Montes is there, his brows pinched. “A mild sedative.”
“Am I going to die?”
“No, Serenity, you’re going to be fine.”
The King
The Resistance makes good on their threat of blackmailing the queen. The first leaked file hits the Internet shortly before we land in Geneva.
Serenity’s still unconscious, her body encased in the Sleeper, and she’ll remain in there for the rest of the week. The machine is busy regenerating the muscle and skin destroyed by the gunshot wound and removing the cancerous tissue that’s regrown since her last treatment. I could keep her in there like Marco suggested, but I’m a selfish prick and I want her out and by my side as soon as possible, cancer or no.
Marco himself is down in the hull of the aircraft with her, stashed away in another Sleeper. He also barely made it out of the hospital alive. The thought that I almost lost both Marco and Serenity to the Resistance has my fist curling in on itself. They’re going to regret pissing me off.
So far the Resistance has released just a single audio file from one of their meetings, one where Serenity’s taken an active role in the discussion. But even this small piece of evidence is damning. Serenity’s promised the Japanese Resistance members weapons in return for information.
The leader in me admits she’s good—shrewd, assertive, compelling, and empathetic when the conversation calls for it. Too bad she’s on the wrong side of the conflict.
Already the Internet is blowing up with this. The audio has been compared to that from the peace talks here. It matches.
“I want those sites shut down,” I say to the advisors onboard with me. “Have all the major search engines do a sweep for this audio file and have them block all the links they find. I want my top guys to trace the leak back to its source.
“Your Majesty,” one replies, “it’s likely encrypted.”
“I don’t fucking care. Have them find the source, or you’re all out of jobs. I’m going to hunt these assholes down.”
When I get my hands on them, I won’t kill them.
They will wish I had.
Serenity
I blink my eyes open. An unfamiliar room stares back at me. My hands finger a velvety comforter, and around me a fresco covers the walls.
I push myself upright in bed, belatedly realizing there’s no more pain. My eyes flutter shut as my hand brushes over my torso. Someone’s removed the gauze, and where a bullet hole should be, there’s only smooth skin.