Chapter 31 – Marcella
MARCELLA
“What’s all this?” the king bellows as he walks into his study. I’m legit on my hands and knees trying to get a fucking bleach stain out of a Persian rug that’s likely ancient and priceless. But it’s bleach. Bleach doesn’t come out. It takes everything else out of whatever it spilled on.
“I’m so sorry, Your Majesty,” I start, not even knowing what to say.
I’m going to get fired for this. Or stuck with a bill I can’t pay.
Then everything will be in the dumpster, including me, and Antonia and Signoria Batorini will take turns setting it on fire to char my remains.
They might do that anyway once they realize what I’m up to now.
“How did this happen?”
I sit back on my haunches, black rubber gloves on my hands, holding a useless scrub brush as the overwhelming scent of bleach burns my eyes and nose.
There’s a noise outside the study that catches my attention before I can respond, and I’d swear to all fucking God, I catch a flash of Marsha’s lavender hair shooting away.
Bitch is fucking dead. Her two buddies will go with her.
I wasn’t going to kill them because I’m trying to turn over a new leaf and all, but fuck that.
Emily praised my work yesterday, and this morning, shit has been all downhill.
I don’t take kindly to people loosening a wheel on my trolley so the thing topples over and everything spills out, or replacing my coffee with decaf and my sugar with salt—a lame fucking prank.
They can’t get away with the big stuff anymore now that she’s back, but they also know that I didn’t rat them out, so they think it’s still game on for them.
Idiots.
I turn back to the king. “I don’t have an answer for you, sir.”
He tilts his head, his eyes narrowing at me before slipping back down to the odorous white spot in the center of what once was grays, greens, and gold.
“Marcella…” He trails off, studying me with a seriously furrowed brow.
“Your Majesty—”
“Did you do this?” he cuts me off. “Because I don’t see a container of bleach on your trolley, empty or otherwise. Nor do you look scared or like you fucked up. You look…well, to put it in my wife’s terms, pissed.”
I choke out a laugh. I have no clue where it comes from, but the king of Messalina just said pissed in English to me, and it’s funny.
He’s also not yelling and screaming and storming around as I expected the beast king would.
Samil used to call him a total motherfucker, and I have no doubt that he was or at least was to Samil. Thus far, I haven’t seen much of that.
“No, sir. I didn’t do this.”
“Do you know who did?”
I sigh. “I have my suspicions, Your Majesty.”
He takes two steps back and sits on the edge of the sofa, legs crossed at the ankles, arms folded over his broad chest.
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
“No, sir, I’m not.”
Because where I was complacent before, trying to be the model employee and all that, I’m going to choke them to death and watch the life slip from their eyes. I’ll enjoy it. I never enjoyed killing—it was horrible, and that’s putting it mildly—but their deaths I’ll enjoy.
He considers this for a moment and nods. “You realize I could command you to, or at the very least, check the footage on the cameras of who entered my study before you.”
“Cameras, sir?” I question as if I didn’t know. All he does is give me a simple nod. Smart man. “Yes, Your Majesty, I’m aware of all of that.”
“But you still don’t want to tell me.” It’s not a question.
I stand, depositing the brush back onto my trolley along with my gloves before I face him. “No, sir.”
“Have things like this been happening to you since Emily left?”
“Am I allowed to lie to you, sir?”
He chuckles, a rare smile curling up his lips. “Not unless you want me to fire you.”
“Yes, sir, things like this have been happening since Emily left.”
“Things like my bedroom appearing as if you haven’t cleaned it or dirty footprints on my floor.”
I wince. “Yes. Once I saw them, I cleaned—”
He holds his hand up, stopping me. “How come you never came forward?”
Snitches get stitches. We don’t talk. We don’t rat. Not even when someone wrongs us. We’re patient. We bide our time and retaliate. We handle it ourselves. “That’s how I was raised, sir.”
“I see. How you were raised. By your farmer parents.”
I try not to react, and I don’t respond.
“Hmm.”
“Sir, if I may, I’d like to address it myself, if that’s all right.”
He runs a hand along his jaw to the back of his head, and I’ve seen Rowan do a similar move like that, and Jesus fucking Christ, I need to stop with him already.
The sleeping in his bed and the phone calls and the drawings and the freaking boxes that are sitting unopened on my bed are messing with me.
“I’ll permit that. For now,” he tacks on.
“But Marcella, this rug is three centuries old, and they ruined it to try to pin you with the blame. That’s not the sort of thing I take lightly, nor is someone doing something malicious in my palace, where my children and pregnant wife are. Do you understand that?”
His pointed words don’t go unnoticed.
A slick oil spill of dread coats my insides, making me feel greasy and all wrong.
The king is on to me. I know he is. Why he’s giving me latitude to stay, I don’t know, but I won’t take the risk of sneaking in here again.
I’ve been working on a plan, going over the figures in my bank account and my earnings to see what I can afford and what I can’t.
At this point, it’s not much, and I have no idea how I’ll get Jaqueline even if I can manage to buy our way out of the country to somewhere safe.
I curtsy. “Yes, Your Majesty, I completely understand that.”
“Good. I expect you to handle this matter quickly, and as part of your handling it, I want them fired and gone from my palace by this evening.”
There go my plans for murder and retribution. Firing her won’t go over well, but fuck it. If anything, hopefully it’ll teach the other two a lesson. “I understand. If necessary, do I have access to the video from the cameras outside the room?”
“How certain are you of the person?”
“Fairly certain.”
“Start with that, and if you need the video as backup, I’ll have Javier get it for you. I also expect you to discuss this matter with Emily, as she’s the one in charge.”
I nod. “Very good, sir, and thank you.”
He rises and heads toward the exit but stops. “I heard about your suggestions for improvements to the palace.”
I don’t reply. I simply wait him out.
“They’re good, and we’re going to be enacting some of them. Thus far, I’ve heard good things about your work. Keep it up, Marcella, and there will likely be other jobs and promotions here for you.”
He leaves, and an odd sense of pride swarms me like a pack of honeybees, tickling my insides and buzzing through me.
It’s a sensation I haven’t felt in years.
Not since my father or Samil would praise me for a game of chess well played, or mixing up the right combination of chemicals to make an undetectable poison, or flawless execution of speaking another language.
I thrived on that praise, on that feeling, even if I didn’t know till much later what they were grooming me to become.
Now I have to fire one of the three stooges.
I’ll speak to Emily about it first.
I head downstairs toward Emily’s suite when my phone buzzes in my pocket. My personal phone. Shit. I pull it out and wince.
S.B.: I will be in Tourin on Sunday at 10 a.m. Meet me at the café in the lobby of L’Hotel Louise, and I’ll give you the drive. We’re close, Marcella. No mistakes or you’ll both pay.
Me: I’ll be there.
I have less than a week to figure everything out and create a foolproof plan.
It’s not enough time. But the longer I’m here, the more suspicious the king grows of me.
And the closer I get to a prince who seems to be holding on to me with both hands.
What he said about the woman at the wedding… about me…
God, the way my heart is starting to beat for him.
Emily is sitting in a chair, drinking some water, when I enter the rehabilitation room. She’s drenched in sweat, and her therapist is off to the side, taking a break as well.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but I wanted to speak to you about something.”
“Absolutely. Come in.” Emily waves me over, and I take a seat in a chair beside her.
I regale her with the rug incident and who I strongly suspect did it.
I also tell her about what happened while she was away because I don’t care enough about these people to exact revenge.
I don’t care what happens to them either.
“You never said anything,” she comments.
“Most of the time I didn’t have proof it was them.
I also didn’t think much about them. Truthfully, I didn’t want to start drama or have them create more disruption and scenes.
It was easier to fix their sabotage than anything else, and I kept telling myself I’d handle them, and to a certain extent, I did.
I managed the difficult situations they created, and I’m proud of that.
The palace ran smoothly, everyone did their jobs, but the things they did this morning to get me fired went above and beyond to the point of malicious and destructive. ”
“Yes,” she states, wiping her forehead with a towel.
“I agree, and that’s unacceptable. What they’d been doing likely would have resulted in some discussion, but not anymore.
Imagine if the queen had walked in there and inhaled the strong scent of bleach?
Or if someone had gotten hurt because of their carelessness? ”
“I should have done more. I know that. I don’t know for sure who changed the menu order. After I changed my password on the iPad, it didn’t happen again because they weren’t able to get access.”
“Which was smart thinking on your part, but they could have killed someone, and they need to go. All of them. Text them and ask them to come in here. We’ll do it now, and we’ll do it together.”
“Thank you, Emily. You’ve been endlessly supportive of me since the moment I arrived, and that’s not something I’ve had a lot of in my life.”
“You’re young, Marcella. This was your first time truly managing people, and much of that is a learned skill. It’s not easy to call out colleagues on their behavior. But you learned a lot, and that’s what’s important.”
She squeezes my hand, and a few minutes later, Larry, Mo, and Curly walk in, each with an oh shit expression while trying to be incredulous or irritated. It’s a cute look on them. Emily nods to me, which sort of shocks me, but I guess I’m the interim head of house, so here we go.
“I wanted to let the three of you know that, effective immediately, your services are no longer required in the palace.”
“What?” Marsha asks, not understanding.
“You’re fired,” I simplify. “All three of you.”
“What?” That’s Raul this time, and his comes with some venom attached along with a snarl.
I go through the laundry list of crimes and misdemeanors I know they committed.
“You’re a lying fucking bitch.” Raul again.
“We never did any of those things!” Marsha.
“It was all you. How dare you try to pin your incompetence on us?” Esme.
“We have video, fingerprint evidence, and this comes from His Majesty.”
Now they turn into owls, and it’s just kind of sad.
I was plotting their deaths, and they’re not worth much more than a small conversation.
Clearly the life lessons I’ve been taught aren’t ones to follow.
I should have spoken up about them earlier.
I should have asserted myself better. As Emily said, lesson learned.
Accusations are thrown. Nasty words are slung. In the end, two attendants come and escort them to retrieve their belongings and make sure they leave the palace.
One issue is dealt with, and admittedly, that was the easiest of them.
I still have no clue what to do about everything else. And that’s what’s most troubling.