by Nana Malone
Direct hit.
Ashton had manipulated a situation once; no doubt he'd done it again. The only question was how? We just had to prove it.
Sebastian rubbed the bridge of his nose. "So maybe you have proof that they had a relationship, but do you have proof that he did anything to her, and she didn't just abscond from the island to escape you?"
Gilroy flustered and turned red. "Even the suggestion of impropriety should be enough to have him exiled, considering his family."
"Since when? When did we become a nation that casts out its own people? A prince, no less, based on speculation and innuendo. If that was what we were about, half the Council members would be ousted on speculation alone." He let the suggestion hang that he knew there were some of them that were not to be trusted still.
"Your Majesty, I believe—"
Sebastian held up a hand. "That's enough. I'm sure you have put all your resources into finding your daughter, but let me give you official resources from the crown, if for no other reason than to assuage your fears. If the prince is found to be in any way involved, I'll be the first one to exile him myself. I call for a no vote today. And we’ll reconvene in a fortnight to do a special vote."
"Are you suggesting I haven't looked for my daughter?"
"I'm suggesting, Lord Gilroy, that though you may have, perhaps I, the king, have more resources. Or do you doubt that?"
Gilroy went lobster red. At the end of the table, Roone coughed into his hand and shook his head. My lips twitched, but Roone and I managed to keep it together.
"Can the rest of the Council members agree on postponing a vote until actual evidence can be gathered?"
There were murmurings, but all were in favor of additional evidence. No one wanted to argue the rest with Sebastian, regardless of whether or not Gilroy was an ally. Sebastian nodded and then turned to me. "As soon as this meeting is over, my office."
I nodded. "Of course, Your Majesty."
Was he finally ready to listen?
I tried not to get too excited, but I had a feeling I'd be going on a hunt for that girl. I had a feeling I'd be going back to work.
Nine
Tristan…
I could tell Sebastian had reached his limit. I hadn’t been called in for the Council meeting, so I knew I’d avoided exile for the moment.
It had been days since I had seen Ariel. A week since she'd been on my service. And even when she'd been on my service, she had been difficult to speak to and pin down. Granted, after shutting her out, what did I expect?
Sebastian had called a meeting. I could tell from the summons it wasn’t just a request.
I hadn’t really expected Ariel to show, but there she was and the four of us stared at each other in a stand-off.
My cousin sat behind his desk, although he leaned back in his chair. Penny sat in the large leather chair to his right. Ariel sat in the chair right next to the door, which left the one on the wall for me. Although I didn't think I wanted to sit. "What's going on?" Sebastian indicated the chair, and I reluctantly took it. "Okay, I'm sitting. Now what?"
Penny and Ariel exchanged a quick glance. Neither one of them looked particularly comfortable. I could tell by her posture that Penny and Sebastian were in the midst of a fight. I didn't know what it was about, but I gathered my cousin was still not thrilled about Penny and Ariel's little excursion. Which made Ariel persona non grata and would account for her grumpy state.
"So, I've been trying to work it through. Going through the things that I do know. Now that our tempers have simmered, I’m considering things with new eyes. Ariel, you and Penny don't do anything lightly or off of pure impulse, so for you to take it upon yourselves to break into Stanstit means something serious is going on. And I can’t discount your theories, Ariel."
Ariel nodded. "Damn straight something serious is going on. I had actionable intel."
Sebastian nodded solemnly. "I know. You believe that Ashton is behind the threat against Tristan?"
"Yes. Of course. The evidence is there. Ashton has been threatening him for years." She didn't look at me when she said that.
Sebastian lifted his gaze to meet mine. "So, Tristan, I need your help. I need you to tell me the truth from the beginning. Otherwise, we're at a stalemate, and I have to figure out a punishment that works for Ariel."
"Punishment?” She croaked. “I was a knight working on intel."
He held up a hand.
She stopped talking, but she still grumbled a little. Despite being angry still, I tried to help. "Sebastian, I already told you, she thought she was doing the right thing."
"Yeah, I know. I heard you. What I want to know is why? That's the one thing I don't have right now. Why would Ashton want to hurt you? Yes, he's a dick, and he's violent and irrational. He tried to hurt Penny. He tried to kill me. So, I get it. He's a psychopath. But why you, specifically? You're his brother. You should have a better standing than I do. So why?"
I tried to stall. I knew this moment had been coming. I'd known it for the last week. Ariel had been right. Ella had been right. If I wanted some freedom, any sense of being able to walk around a free man, I needed to release Ashton's hold on me. And that meant coming clean with everything, because I wouldn't be able to love Ariel properly until she knew me. I had no idea how to start. No idea how to release the coiled pain. No idea if it would even work. All I knew was that Sebastian was asking for me to do the impossible.
"I—"
"I need some answers."
With one more Hail Mary glance at Ariel, I sucked in a deep breath. I had known a week ago that I would need to say it out loud. I knew that any hope of getting access to Ashton's safe and any evidence he had was never going to come to fruition. I knew that I’d been living on borrowed time, and now my time was up.
I couldn't look at Ariel as I spoke, so I kept my eyes on my cousin. "From the ages of six and a half to twelve and a half, my brother physically abused me."
Ariel's sharp intake of breath next to me was all I could hear over the boom of my own heartbeat. But I didn't let myself focus on that. I had to get the story out as quickly as possible, or I was going to die. The problem was, I already felt like I was dying. I felt like now that I had said the words out loud, the pain and the shame and the misery were going to consume me from the inside out. I lifted my gaze and dared to glance at Penny, whose eyes were soft even as her hand covered her mouth. Pity? Agony? Sorrow? I couldn't read those expressions because I was too focused on my own pain.
Sebastian's hands were balled into fists on his desk as he leveled a gaze on me. "Your parents didn't do anything?"
I swallowed hard. "I tried to tell my mother once, but I was a kid. I don't think I said it the right way."
"What the fuck is the right way? She should have protected you."
I winced. I hadn't had the best mother, and of course, there was a part of me that did blame her. I relied on her to protect me. But as a grown-up, as an adult, I could be more charitable. I hadn't told her in so many words, but she certainly had suspected my brother's cruelty. Which is why when I asked to go to school away from the island, she had agreed.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"If I couldn't find the words to tell my own parents, how was I going to tell you? I idolized you. And I knew that what I was doing was shameful."
The anguish was etched on his face as he spoke. "You were a child."
"I know that now. After a decade of therapy, I know that. But then, I didn't know. I was just miserable. There was a nanny when I was ten, my tutor for those moments when I was off school, and she suspected."
Sebastian frowned. "I remember her. What was her name? Mary? Maggie? Something. I don't remember."
I nodded. "Maggie, yes. She found me once hiding under my bed. I had soiled myself in an effort to get away from Ashton and hide. She was going to tell my mother what she suspected, but my parents were out of town. They were scheduled to arrive the next day. But she managed to organize me a play
date that night so I wouldn't be in the palace. She made sure I was safe for the night, but the next day, she never returned."
Sebastian's question was low. "Do you know what happened to her?"
"Not until I was older and I could look up the information. She died in a car accident that night."
Sebastian swallowed hard. "What happened?"
"Someone cut her brake line."
"Jesus Christ. Do you think—"
"When I found out what had happened to her, I confronted him. You know Ashton, he was always coy. Sly. He told me he learned the most interesting things on YouTube. I know he tampered with her car."
Next to me, Ariel found her voice. "Jesus fucking Christ. We have to strip him of his title. He needs to go to prison. Not that cushy bullshit situation at Stanstit."
Sebastian ran his hands through his hair. "That's going to take a Council vote. Not that we can't make it happen, but if we're going to shoot, we can't miss." He turned his gaze back to me. "What else?"
I rolled my shoulders. "It stopped when I was as big as he was. I made it clear in no uncertain terms that if he ever put his hands on me again, I was going to kill him. And I was pretty sure he was trying to kill me, but I was able to fight back for once." I knew I had to get the rest of the story out, but it still felt like I was drowning.
Sebastian met my gaze, encouraging me. "I feel like there is more."
"Yeah. There's a lot more. From that point on, he had to be more subtle about how he tortured me. Any girl I talked to, anybody I cared about, any friend I had made, he made it his mission to destroy them."
That's when it came, the overwhelming emotions, my inability to control the anger and the pain. I blinked as the rage simmered to the surface. I could control it. I needed to control it.
"I met Ariel the summer I was eighteen at home on break. We mostly managed to keep our relationship private."
If what I was saying wasn't the worst thing that ever happened in my life, Sebastian's face would have been comical. Jaw unhinged, eyes wide with surprise.
Penny gave Ariel a soft smile. I was finally able to look at her and she reached out her hand to me, a beacon of hope. I took it and squeezed gently before releasing her again. There was no way I could talk about the next part without losing my shit if I was holding on to her. "I mean, it was pretty easy to define. I fell in love."
Sebastian blinked as if finally catching on. "That damn cabana by the beach."
I nodded. "Yeah. That's why I wanted it fixed up for her. That was our place. We'd meet there and spend time together. I couldn't do it publicly. Ashton had his way of always knowing when I texted someone, or when I was going to a party, or if I had a friend coming to the palace. I realized very quickly phones weren't safe. I was the only teenager on the planet that preferred actually calling instead of texting. It wasn't until I was older that I realized he had someone in the communications department. He had his way of manipulating and maneuvering people into doing exactly what he wanted."
Next to me, Ariel finally spoke. "That's absolutely true. I still remember never being able to text you. Always having to wait for you to call or leave me a message somewhere."
I nodded. "It turns out your phone wasn't safe either."
"Yeah, I guess not."
Sebastian stared at me. "You're telling me that Ashton gained access to phone records?"
"Yeah. That's exactly what I'm telling you. Email records too."
Ariel confirmed. "That night we were supposed to leave together, when Tristan didn't show up, I knew his phone might not be safe, but it was worth a shot trying to get a hold of him. So I texted him and told him that I was going to check the cabana and that he should call me and let me know if he was okay. And I suspect that's how Ashton knew exactly where to find me. And since I was coming from the pier and he was just in the palace, he beat me to it, ransacked the place, and took the letter and the ticket."
Sebastian's frown deepened. "A letter and a ticket? But what do you mean leave together?"
For the first time since starting this whole conversation, I smiled at Ariel. "Ariel and I, we were... I was going to take her to Europe with me."
Cue Sebastian's jaw unhinging again. "But you were kids."
"And just think back to what you were doing at eighteen?"
Sebastian resolutely shut his mouth then. "Yeah okay, fair enough. So you guys were going to leave together?"
I nodded. "Yeah. Honestly, it was supposed to be a visit type of thing. Not permanent. Mostly to see if she liked it. I mean the plan was always for me to go back to Eton. But that day, Ian Tellman wrecked his knee and then I was called in to play for Madrid."
"Ian Tellman, the football player?"
"Yeah, he was a mate of mine from the under-18s. He'd been playing for Madrid for a year already. A real phenom, and then just like that, his career was over. They called me to replace him. As far as I was concerned, the plan was still on. I had left her a ticket. But instead of joining me in London, it was for Madrid."
"And Ashton stole the message you left her and the ticket."
I nodded. "Exactly."
Ariel chimed in. "Yeah. So that left me basically abandoned with no way to reach him and Ashton telling me that he deliberately abandoned me and that he never had wanted me in the first place. All the usual fuck-with-your-head kind of shit."
I nodded filling in the gaps. "Yeah. I still didn't trust the phones, so I wrote her letters every day for a while, then weekly, then monthly. When I didn't hear back, I eventually gave up."
Sebastian ran his hands through his hair. "Let me guess, Ashton again."
"You would be correct. Because the mail was coming from a royal, it had to go to Intelligence first, where it was checked and then sent back out. All the letters made it into the palace for checking, but none of them ever made it back out," I said.
“How many people does he have working for him?"
Ariel shook her head. "I don't know. But the thing to realize here is that for years he has been able to text Tristan. Always an unknown number. That means his guards are at least mildly under his influence. Someone is giving him access to a phone, which means we have people we can't trust.”
Sebastian sighed. "Why can't it ever be simple?"
Penny stepped forward then and took my hands. "I am so, so sorry. Your brother is a dick."
My lips twitched. "Yes, I agree. And I am going to do everything in my power to strip him of his crown."
"No." Sebastian pushed to his feet. "We are going to do everything to make sure he is stripped of his crown."
Ariel threw up her hands. "Fucking finally. I'm glad you guys are finally on the Ashton-is-the-devil train. And let's not forget that he's the one who has been trying to kill Tristan this whole time."
I shook my head. "I don't know what I ever did to him."
Penny squeezed my hand. "You stood up to him. That's what you did. But now you have back up and we are going to take him down."
Penny was beautiful. Always had been. But there was something about the steel in her eyes that terrified me down to the soul. She wasn't messing around. With her on my side, Ashton would know real fear.
Ariel pushed away from her chair and stood as well. "There is also the matter of Lord Gilroy's daughter."
Sebastian narrowed his gaze. "Do we have any indication it was Ashton?"
She shook her head. "No, but Gilroy's daughter didn't disappear until after Tristan was gone. Two days after, to be precise. Which leads me to believe that Ashton had a hand in that. It's too coincidental. If he had something to do with it, he’d need help to keep things quiet. I’d bet money he had that help from a Royal Guard. I just need to know which ones."
I frowned. "There is a safe here in the palace. It's hidden in a tunnel somewhere. It requires a fingerprint and a voice command. If he’s keeping any vital information, it would be in there."
Sebastian met my gaze then. "Well, in that case, we're going hunting. We need that safe. Do we hav
e any evidence that he actually did something to Gilroy's daughter?"
Ariel shook her head. "No, but given his track record…"
Sebastian winced. "We have to find something."
"I have Zia looking into the numbers called or those he contacted. Hopefully, she will be able to find something, because the key to putting him away is that girl. If we can find that girl and bring her back, get her to admit some of what he's done, we could blow this wide open. A living witness would mean everything, but in the meantime, we need access to that safe."
I nodded. "I honestly don't know what happened to the girl."
Ariel came over and took my hand. "Don't worry. I have a feeling Zia is going to find her. Or, at least she may have a lead."
Sebastian clapped me on the shoulder. "Thank you for telling us. I know this must have been incredibly difficult."
I rolled my shoulders, trying to force some of the tension off of them. "I needed to tell the truth. I couldn't go on pretending that I was okay anymore.” I turned to face Ariel. "It was starting to cost me what I loved the most."
"I've got you. You're not alone," she said.
And for the first time, just hearing those simple words from her, I truly felt it.
Tristan…
Ariel was quiet. As the waves crashed up on the beach and the sand slid between our toes, making them as smooth as fine dust and slightly gritty, she said nothing.
The cabana had been our silent beacon after leaving Sebastian's office. Neither one of us had spoken until we'd taken the gates out to the gardens, and then to the entryway down to that long tunnel of stairs.
And still, we said nothing. The sun gleamed on the horizon, bright, lighting the ocean an iridescent azure blue that looked like something out of a fairy tale. If I believed in fairy tales, I'd imagine Ariel out on the rocks, singing that song to me that was surprisingly catchy from The Little Mermaid. But this wasn't a movie. This wasn't a fantasy. This was reality. And I had just told her the secret I'd been hiding for most of my life, the secret that had kept us from being together. The reason I had never felt good enough for her. And still, she stayed silent.
