Chapter 29 – Sebastian
SEBASTIAN
Blood thrums through my ears, my feet heavy on the floors as I practically sprint across the palace.
Two attendants track me, but they can hardly keep up as I shoot up the stairs and fly down the hall, ripping my bow tie that feels nothing short of strangling from my neck.
The door to my office is closed and I force my weight into it, slamming it back against the wall and entering only to shut and lock it behind me just as fast.
Rowan is pacing, hands in his hair. Javier is sitting behind my desk, his fingers on the keyboard of my computer.
“Samil killed Nora,” I declare, because even though I have zero proof, I know it in my blood.
That’s all the proof I need. Otherwise, I’ll be arrested for killing a prime minister, and while I might not typically have cared about such a crime given the circumstances, I have children, a fiancée, and a kingdom to protect.
For once, I’m forcing myself to use my head.
“What did you say?” Rowan stops mid-pace to glare at me.
“I said—”
He holds up his hand, stopping me. “You realize the level of that accusation, yes?”
I go into an account of what Samil said to me tonight as well as what Bellamy told me.
“He knew about Nora. How she wasn’t supposed to be on the helicopter.
Maybe he didn’t do anything. Maybe it’s an awful coincidence.
Prove that to me. Before I find the man and strangle him with my bare hands because I’m a half-beat from doing just that. ”
“Where are Bellamy and the children now?” Rowan asks. “Please tell me they’re in the ballroom.”
“Yes. And I put an attendant on each of them.”
“Okay. So…fuck.” Rowan runs his hands through his dark hair, starting to pace again as he works this through.
“He had to have been there,” he agrees. “That’s what all that she wouldn’t leave him or betray him, and she wouldn’t listen shit was.
He had to have gone to her in France at her parents’ home to try to get her to leave you or something.
Fine. I’ll buy all that. But just because he knew and possibly was there doesn’t mean he killed her.
It doesn’t mean he had anything to do with the crash at all. ”
“I know,” I concede, sitting on the edge of my desk. I rip my tuxedo jacket off and toss it on a nearby chair. “But it’s insanely coincidental. He wanted her for himself, and he hates me.”
“It’s clear he must have had contact with her at some point.
That’s what I’m checking now,” Javier explains, typing on the keyboard.
“We keep all surveillance footage in our archives for five years. After you married, we installed cameras at her parents’ estate and gained access to places we knew you were flying in and out of.
It was standard practice. We did it with all the residences and private hangars. ”
Rowan’s hands hit his hips. Tense and edgy, his pace quickens. I stand, too, needing to move, and somehow, I find myself behind my desk, staring over Javier’s shoulder.
“The man hates you and loved her,” Rowan states, desperation clear in his voice.
“But you honestly think he tampered with the helicopter intending to kill you?” He knows what this means.
What it means not only for my family but also for our country.
Accusing the prime minister of attempting to kill the king and killing the queen instead is no small matter.
It will be international. It will be a scandal to overshadow everything else.
“And my children.” My fists ball up, my jaw clenching tighter than a drum just thinking about that. “He knew Nora wasn’t supposed to fly that morning, and he knew we were. All of us. It’s one thing to come after me, but my children?”
I release a shaky breath.
After the accident, I didn’t sleep for weeks.
Fuck, I hadn’t slept well in years until Bellamy came along.
Back then, all I could think about was that the children and I were supposed to be on the helicopter.
All I could think about was how close my children came to their deaths.
It was then that I resolved never to leave this palace.
It was then that I resolved I’d do anything in my power to keep my children safe and alive.
The curse. I spent three years of my life trying to thwart a curse when Samil was my curse all along.
Samil tried to kill them. He tried to kill me, but fuck that. He tried to kill my children and instead killed their mother.
“I’m going to kill him,” I declare. “I’m going to squeeze the life from him with my bare hands and watch his eyes as he dies.”
“As much as I’d like to think you’re not serious, I know that you are. Except you understand you can’t, of course.”
Nora. My children’s mother. That fucking motherfucker. He killed her.
I flip over to Rowan, murder blazing in my eyes. “No? Tell me why not. I am king and he killed my wife. The queen of my country, when he was actually trying to kill me and my children, the future heirs, instead. How is killing him not self-defense?”
“It was investigated, Sebastian. All of it was. If he had done something to the helicopter, it would have been found!”
“Here,” Javier interrupts, and I turn my focus back to the screen.
Rowan rounds the desk so we can all see the monitor.
Javier taps something on the keyboard, blowing up the image, and we watch as the maintenance crew goes through their checks.
It’s grainy, but nothing seems out of order.
We continue to watch and watch, speeding up the tape a bit, and still nothing.
The maintenance crew finish and then it’s over.
Just an empty hangar with the exception of the helicopter.
Maybe I was wrong about Samil tampering with the helicopter.
“Wait. What was that?” Javier asks, bolting forward in his seat, his face practically pressed to the screen.
“What?” Rowan questions, and I squint, not having seen anything either.
“That blip. Look.” He rewinds the footage and points to the far right side of the screen. “Did that wrench move? It was in the other spot next to the socket wrench before, was it not?”
“I don’t know,” Rowan says skeptically. “Maybe?”
We rewatch it one more time and yes. A wrench is in one place one second and in another in the next. Tiny. Nearly impossible to see. Easy to miss since nothing else is out of the ordinary or even appears to move. Just that one wrench and if you were to blink, you’d miss it.
“He must have tampered with the video,” I state. “His only fuck-up was putting a wrench back in the wrong place, and god, of the three of us, only one of us caught it.”
Javier nods absently as he types something into the search, and the image changes to blocks of cameras from Nora’s parents’ estate. He scrolls through that day starting at midnight, and we find it.
Nora fighting with Samil.
There is no audio, but the two seem to be going back and forth. She’s shaking her head, visibly upset, and he keeps coming at her, after her. Relentless fucker wouldn’t leave her be.
Finally, she shoves him away, shakes her head one last time, and he leaves. He leaves to go tamper with the helicopter he knew I and the children would be on later. And we didn’t catch it because he was smart enough to cover his tracks, and we didn’t check this footage before because why would we?
“Jesus Christ,” Rowan is speechless, his hand over his mouth as he stares at the monitor. “I can’t…I can’t fucking believe that. I can’t fucking believe that.”
“Where is he now? He stormed out of the ballroom. Where did he go?”
Javier switches the feed to the palace, and all I can think about is how relieved I am that Bellamy and the children are in the ballroom surrounded by hundreds of people and royal attendants.
“This is him leaving the ballroom.” Javier points to the back of Samil’s head in the video feed. “He’s heading for the stairs.”
I watch as he picks up a vase and smashes it against the wall before storming out. Javier changes the camera, and the valet retrieves his car, and Samil climbs in and tears out of the driveway. Thank God. But now we have to find him and—
My phone rings in my pocket, and when I see it’s Althea, a silent dread fills my stomach.
“Althea?” I answer, my gaze slingshotting between Rowan and Javier.
“Sebastian, where are you?”
“In my office. What’s wrong?”
“Bellamy. She left to use the restroom and hasn’t returned.”
Fear grips me, freezing over my insides. “When? How long ago?”
“It’s been at least fifteen minutes. The attendant who went with her hasn’t returned either. I tried to call her phone just now and it rang once and then went to voicemail.”
A blazing inferno torches a path through me, replacing all the ice. It consumes me. The brutal fucking rage I’m feeling right now. My vision turns red and hazy, blood coating my fingers and the taste of it in my mouth, but it’s not my blood I’m tasting and feeling. It’s his.
“Find Bellamy now,” I bark.
Javier is already on it, able to hear Althea through the speaker of my phone. “Fuck. The cameras are out. There’s nothing on the second floor or by the ballroom.”
I start to go mad. “Check every fucking camera in the palace!”
“Nothing! There’s nothing on the second or third floor on the west side of the palace. Wait!” He clicks something. “There! This one is working.”
“What is that?”
“I had a new camera installed outside the third-floor library door last week when you told me Bellamy was fond of going up there to read. He must not have known about it when he tampered with the others. Look!” He rewinds the video, and there it is. “Samil has her.”
The words are barely out of his mouth when I take off at a blind sprint, not caring to wait for anyone though I know they’re behind me. I hear their footsteps, but I can’t focus on anything other than getting to her. Never in my life have I moved this fast.
He has her. My god, he has Bellamy. If he hurts one hair on her…