Chapter 25 – Marcella
MARCELLA
Iclick out of the files and go over to videos, anxious to see what’s in here. There are several with a multitude of dates, but the night of the royal engagement is what I’m after, and I click on that folder. I start at the top since they’re arranged by time.
It’s of Samil in the hallway, knocking one of the royal attendants unconscious and dragging him into a nearby closet.
A moment later, Bellamy steps out of the bathroom and looks around, unease all over her.
Then Samil is on her, brandishing a knife.
There’s no sound, but I wish there were.
I wish I knew what he said to her that night.
He drags her through the hall, and the cameras on the video change one by one until they reach the library up on the third floor.
I don’t know if I can watch this. I’m terrified of what this will do to me.
Samil wasn’t concerned about the cameras.
That doesn’t surprise me. He knows how to alter them, same as I do. Hell, he’s the one who taught me.
I click on the next set of videos, and he has the queen inside the crow’s nest on the third floor of the library.
It looks different from how it does now.
They’re going back and forth with each other, visibly arguing, and he presses a knife into her chin.
Bellamy is crying, and I seize up, breathing heavily.
He terrorized her. He slashed at her throat.
Just like that. Malevolence all over his face.
A gasp flees my lungs, and my hands cover my face, emotion clogging my throat. Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ. I shake with barely contained sobs.
I knew he did that to her. But it’s one thing to know something and another to see it.
How can all the things you thought you knew about someone turn out to be wrong?
Bellamy is bleeding all over the place. She’s pregnant. Neither knew that, but I know it watching this, and I can’t…I just fucking can’t.
A moment later, Sebastian comes roaring into the room and goes straight for Samil, attacking him.
The king is barehanded. He doesn’t even have a weapon, and the two go at it, yelling things at each other, saying things I can’t hear.
Samil’s vicious, but the king is too. Fighting and battling to the death.
Literally. In the end, the king tries to save Samil despite everything.
He does his best to hold on and pull him back up, only to fail.
Samil falls out the window. I didn’t know which window it was until seeing the entire video this way. I never watched it. I couldn’t. I was told Sebastian killed Samil in supposed self-defense that the king manufactured, and that was that. But this…
The king collapses to the floor, bleeding everywhere, and I turn it off.
I don’t need to see the video of Samil fighting with Nora.
I don’t need to see him tampering with the helicopter.
I know all about that. Samil told me every detail.
In the end, what it comes down to is everything I thought I knew, everything I was told, everything I believed, is a lie.
How can one man be so good to some and so villainous to another?
Love makes us crazy.
It breathes madness in our minds. A four-letter word layered in complexities.
How am I supposed to ruin a man who’s not guilty?
Samil died, and while that was one of the worst experiences of my life, maybe it was justice.
He’s with Nora now. That’s how I have to think of it.
Samil and Nora are finally together. Although she likely wants nothing to do with him since he killed her and their unborn child.
The truth isn’t so simple. It never is.
Rage and uncertainty war within me. A poorly constructed house of cards, and by removing one foundational piece, the whole thing is toppling down.
Conflicted, I close everything out just as a noise outside the study startles me. I shut the laptop and drop to the floor, crouching beneath the table and tucking myself behind two of the pushed-in chairs. I didn’t have time to plug the monitors back in. Shit. Shit!
Blood pounds through my ears as the door to the study opens, and the king walks in. He’s in a white T-shirt and pajama pants, grumbling under his breath in Latin as he walks past me toward the window. He’s lost in thought, which is to my benefit, but if he comes over to the table, I’m done for.
He turns and moves in this direction, and I hold my breath, only to release it silently when he goes over to the bar in the corner, makes himself a drink, and starts to pace in the dark.
I have no idea how I’m going to get out of here without being detected.
It’s not possible. He shut the door behind him. I’m stuck in here.
And while that should concern me most, right now his expression is holding me captive.
He’s tormented. Agony stretches along the lines of his face as he combs his fingers through his hair.
He takes a hearty swallow of whiskey, only to tip his head back and swallow the rest of it.
He sets the glass down on the bar with a loud clink and refills it before he returns to the window.
I don’t know how long he stands there. Minutes. Hours. Every breath feels interminable. My heart is in my throat, and I have no clue what to do.
He turns around, and I hold still as his eyes glide right past me.
Somehow, he doesn’t see me as he heads over to a large chair in front of the fireplace.
The king puts his head in his hand and sits in the dark as the storm rages outside the window.
A moment later, there’s a tap at the door, and the king calls out in French, for whomever it is to come in.
The door opens, and Bellamy enters. She doesn’t search around the room. She knows exactly where he is, and he sits up, twisting to her.
“What are you doing up?” she questions, hovering by the door.
“Nothing, baby. Go back to bed.”
“I can’t,” she tells him. “The storm is loud, and the bed is cold without you in it. What’s wrong?”
She turns on a lamp, walks over to him, and climbs straight onto his lap. He gratefully takes her there, wrapping his arms around her and burying his face in her neck.
Her hands rake through his hair, and she kisses him.
He emits a peaceful sigh, and I feel wrong witnessing their intimate moment.
Still, I can’t help but envy what they have.
Their love. How sweet and tender he is with her.
Bellamy is magic, a balm, and even though she’s a year younger than I am, I want to be her when I grow up.
Spending time with her, seeing what they have, what’s possible, it’s changed core parts of me. Parts I don’t want changed back.
“How are my growing babies?” he asks instead of answering her.
“Moving.” She takes his hand and places it on her belly, and a hearty chuckle flees his lips.
He leans in and kisses her. “I love you. I love you so much.”
“I love you. Now talk to me, Your Majesty. What are you hiding? We said we wouldn’t do this again.”
I hate being in here. I hate listening to their conversation. It’s not right.
Bellamy left the door partially ajar, but if I move and open the door more, I’ll be spotted for sure.
Still, I have to try. The longer I’m in here, the greater the risk they’ll see me.
Especially now that the lamp is on. I’m not well concealed, and if she or he got up and came in this direction, they’d see me for sure.
I push myself up onto my hands and knees and crawl like a cat out from under the table when the king’s words make me stop mid-movement.
“We have some movement on Marie,” he says.
“Marie?” she questions.
“Yes,” he replies, his hand rubbing her belly. “We received intel late this evening that she broke into a home in a small village in France.”
Bellamy gasps, her hand covering her mouth. “Oh my god. Sebastian, are you sure?”
He kisses her neck. “Yes. Her fingerprints match.”
“That’s what had you and Rowan in here until it was time to put the children down.”
“Yes. I believe Rowan is planning to leave in the morning to go see what’s going on.”
“Is Desta with her?”
Desta? And Marie? Holy motherfucking shit. Marie!
My jaw drops, and I gape. They’re chasing Marie. I can’t believe it. How do they know she was the one who took Desta?
Sebastian shakes his head, then shrugs. “We know nothing at this point. We’ve been quietly working with governmental agencies, and a set of fingerprints collected following the break-in triggered an alert.”
“Wow. Do you think she knows we’re chasing her?”
“I hope not. I hope she has no clue. But Bellamy, while Rowan is gone, I want you and the children to stay close to home. I know you wanted to take them to the children’s museum in Tourin, but I don’t think that’s safe right now.”
Bellamy releases an exhausted sigh. “Sebastian, following a lead on a fingerprint has nothing to do with us going to a museum.”
“Just please.”
“Honestly, nothing has happened when we’ve left the palace. If anything, everything that’s happened occurred while we were in the palace.”
He makes a turbulent noise.
“You know it’s true. Whether there is a curse or not, we cannot allow it to continue to control us.”
“I’m not. At least I’m trying not to. But right now, nothing feels good. Nothing feels safe. Just when we start to get a handle on things, everything spins out of control again. Please, just this once, listen to me. For my own peace.”
Lightning flashes across the sky, immediately followed by a loud bang of thunder. It distracts them, and I take that as my moment to sneak out. Except my foot snags on a lamp cord, causing it to move and grate against the table it’s sitting on. Fuck!
My heart batters against my ribs, and a cold sweat breaks out on the back of my neck.
“What was that?” Bellamy asks.
I don’t stop. I keep going because it’s too late now.
“Was that the lamp?” the king questions.
I reach the door and continue through it, getting to my feet and pressing my body against the wall. I don’t know if they saw me or will get up to investigate. As it is, I unhooked the monitors and will have to sneak back in tomorrow before dawn to reattach them.
Shit. This is bad. This is really bad.
I don’t look back. I push myself along the dark corridor when a sound behind me tickles my ears. Fuck. Adrenaline pumps a steady cocktail through my blood, and I crouch and move, keeping to the wall and the shadows.
Then I hear another sound. The door to the study closing.
They could look me up on the cameras now, and that will be that.
I continue along the hall and down the stairs, going faster and faster.
The weight of everything is like an albatross around my neck, making my steps heavier.
I don’t want them to catch me. I don’t want this to end.
The longer I can drag this out, the more money I can earn.
I can create a résumé and get Jaqueline and build us a real life.
She could go to school. Hell, I could too.
I make it down to the servants’ area, but I keep moving, needing to get out, needing air, needing breath.
The walls are closing in on me, and I pick up my pace.
The servants’ entrance that leads to the delivery area beckons me, and I plow into it, struggling with the lock for a moment, only to break through.
Rain instantly soaks me, the air balmy and electric.
I keep going, racing around the side of the palace and up the sharp incline, fighting slick grass and mud, the darkness and the rain, trying not to jump with each massive bolt of lightning that claws like the devil’s fingers across the ink-black sky.
I stop when I reach the rocks, my chin lifting and my eyes blinking against the onslaught of rain as I search. The window. That’s the window.
I take a step, the earth blanketed by jagged rocks, and I climb up the first tier.
This is where he fell. Where he threatened to push Bellamy to.
I run my hand along the shiny black surface.
Harrowing grief consumes me, staining my face in tears of acid.
I love him, and I hate him.
I hate them. I hate what they made me. I hate the neglect and abuse and toxic fucking poison. I hate the blood on my hands and in my soul. I hate that this family is hurting, and so much of it is because of mine.
A scream lurches from my chest, drowned by the thunder, but I don’t care. My fists pound on the rock as blind fury consumes me. I rage, screaming and howling until there’s nothing left of me except for a panting, sobbing mess.
I collapse against the rocks when a flash of lightning reveals that I’m not out here alone. Someone has been watching me.