Constantine
It came as little shock to hear Grace Kelly talk. Such was, after all, the way so called freedom and democracy enthusiasts spoke—when it came here or even outside. Whatever the fuck they were listening to, it did them no good. I watched as her face moved from surprise to indifference.
Something, however, lingered in her blue eyes. Something so eerily familiar. Fuck it—where had I seen her?
"My King," I turned to the man who had so well defended my honor from earlier.
"A moment," I said to the evidence of the room, save for our Grace Kelly.
"Don't need to tell me twice," a snarky voice said from my right, the corner of the room.
They all left in a few seconds, leaving me alone with Grace Kelly, and the door shut behind me.
"The next few questions can make or break you—or let's kill you," I said, stepping closer to her.
At that moment, she struggled to sit.
"Don't." I reached out instinctively.
I balled my hands into fists to shove them in my pocket, wincing slightly at the pain in my elbow.
"Just how is it that you were in the orchard? Why at that moment?"
It was almost as though you were waiting for me.
She turned away from me, biting her supple lips, putting strange ideas into my head. Her eyes then found mine, remaining suspicious.
"I got lost," she said, her accent cutting into my mind.
"A rather convenient way for you to get lost, isn't it? Walking to my orchard on such a night like that? People everywhere—servants running about, catering to their needs—and you walk past them. You don't get lost in the East Wing. You don't get lost on the South Wing. It's the West Wing. Specifically, the guardians to the West Wing."
"Probabilities," she said. "There's a one in four chance that I would go there, and then, of course, the countless doors—I suppose about a one in 350 chance that I would go. But my feet, like I said, just led me outside."
"Why?" I interjected.
"I needed air," she said. "I guess my nose just followed the scent of apples, right?"
She chuckled nervously.
"But it's okay. You can interrogate me for however long you want to. It's not going to change the fact that I had nothing to do with it. And I don't know why and how—well, maybe why." She rolled her eyes. "But how—I don't know. Who—I have no idea."
She paused suddenly, her eyes reaching the floor, unfocused, then back to me.
She had an idea, I thought.
Suddenly, something must have popped into her mind to make her believe such—to make her pause dead in her tracks.
"And you swear?"
She looked at me, shaking her head and then forcing a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.
She was acting. Or better yet, she was a woman with secrets.
"But I mean it. I have nothing to do with the explosion. After all, my life was just as much in equity as yours was—if not even more," she growled, placing a hand on her belly and then her arm.
I stepped closer, leaning down just so my mouth was next to her ear.
"If I find anything—anything at all—that ties you to this attempt on my life—and mind you, there have been quite a number of them in the past—but if I find anything that links you to this, I promise you, you will wish you confessed now."
I pulled back and found her staring at me, pale-faced with a blush on her cheek.
"Well, there's nothing," she said. "You won't find anything because I'm not linked to it. If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn't do it so loudly. It'd be something subtle, something that gets you hooked to me, gets you impossibly addicted to my presence. And then, when you can't live without me—when you're hopelessly... I will make you want to die to the point where I render you completely—then you'll kill yourself pretty easy on your own."
She beamed a sweet smile at me, one that genuinely sent a small jolt down into me.
But I had heard that before. Several times, in fact.
"Why don't you try?" I said. "It wouldn't be the first time, and I bet it wouldn't be the last."
I gave her a small nod and left the room.
Outside was Baron, my friend, who was convinced that it was her.
"I'm telling you," he had said when I woke up. "The plan is that she distracts you while it's clear for them to move in."
He was smoking hard on the wall beside him.
"Don't put a dent into the wall, you big idiot."
"And I have someone on her. But if she's the one, I'll find out in due time," I had assured him.
But he had still insisted that he would follow me to see her.
"You know, you do realize you could have sent the twins. They would pick her apart inch by inch and get every single bit of information out of her."
I gave him a pointed look, walking down the hall as the guards fell into step behind me.
"And you also know that her mind would become useless after the twins are done with her. I actually have her working on an assignment, Baron. I don't want her completely broken and rendered a shell of performance. Besides, why would a hunter want his prey broken? It takes the thrill out of the hunt."
After a quick drive back to the palace, I was met with Baldwin practically standing outside the door. The man's salt and pepper eyebrows were crunched in worry, but it did bad for the mock of dark hair on his head that they had been dyed to match—hopefully, the man would realize to at least match his desired brows with his hair and then his beard.
Baldwin had a bulging nose—rather an interesting trait that he hadn't passed down to his daughter, despite being proud and saying "the nose always runs in the family." He had thin lips, a wide forehead, and deep sapphire blue eyes.
He smiled, widening his already round face.
"I'm so sorry about what happened. But you can be rest assured, my King, that the constructions of restoring Orchard are already underway," he said with an assuring tap on my arm.
My eyes found the spot and then him.
Fucking idiot.
Baron stuff between us. If you paid attention to the King long enough, you'd know he doesn't like to be touched—much less by people like you.
"Don't."
I placed a hand on Baron's shoulder. The minister—at least—should try to make a good impression every now and then.
"Walk with me, Baldwin."
I nudged him to follow as we stepped around and away from the door, heading toward the West Gate.
Typical. It should be my head of security's job, but even in rare cases, it would be Uncle's surrogates. But in this case, I want you to try to look into something for me.
The man raised an eyebrow.
"Anything, my King," he said with a slight inclination of his head.
Smoke still proceeded from the west side of the palace. Of course, I expected that the fires had long since been put out, but mostly I would guess it was the rubble and the final ashes of the trees that Mother had worked hard enough to plant.
"There was a suspicious person at the ball last night," I said. "Most people didn't notice him—even I didn't at first—until I was shown the security footage. He was supposed to be a servant. At first, he was only lingering mostly at the edges of the room with a tray, until eventually, he was carrying around an empty tray. Every time he circled with the crowd, it was the same amount of glasses—empty glasses—on it, and every round back and forth."
"I saw him around me a few times, and eventually, he followed me when I left. Find out who he is. And I want you to be discreet.
"Can I trust you with that, Baldwin? Or will you give me reason to doubt your loyalty any more than I already do?"
He stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes rather wide with surprise, fear, and amongst other things.