Chapter 40 – Rowan
ROWAN
Gabe closes the cell door, locking her in, and my fist slams into the wall.
It’s fucking stone, and it hurts, and I likely broke something, but I don’t care.
Gabe doesn’t react, and it’s one of the things I like most about him.
He only speaks when necessary and never with disdain or judgment.
He’s a facts guy, and that’s what I need right now.
I got the notification that she went into my room this morning. Then one that she left the palace. I called Gabe, and he tracked her. But I’ll be fucking honest, in all of the scenarios I conjured up, this isn’t it.
“How the fuck is she Samil’s half-sister? How the fuck did she get into the wedding and our palace, and how in the motherfuck does she know about Marie?”
I have a million more questions for her.
A fucking million. But I had to get out of that room.
Her tears were challenging me. The look of genuine concern over Bellamy softened me.
For a moment, I saw her again. The woman with the scars on her back who would cry and rage and fight.
Who had these moments that made me swear she wasn’t a monster.
But she is.
She’s my curse. I have no doubt about that in my mind.
Because despite everything, I still fucking want her.
I still want to take her in my arms and hold her and promise her everything.
Despite all I heard in that room, I still want to be her hero.
The one who fixes everything for her. But it's a ridiculous notion. She doesn’t need me to fix anything.
She’s the one in control. She always has been.
I was her pawn while she played me like a queen.
I can’t be alone with her.
My hand throbs, my knuckles cracked as I rub it up my face. I’m bleeding, and I don’t care. Why her? Why not any of the countless women who have thrown themselves at me for years? Why is she the one I noticed? The one who saw beneath the crown? The one who got to me?
“She said she has no last name, had no IDs or documents. Same for the girl.”
“Yes.”
“Rowan, she doesn’t fucking exist. She’s a shadow. Their assassin.”
Pain twists my gut as I’ve never experienced before. His words hit me on an entirely different level. Her backpack sits on the floor by the door, and I pick it up, unzipping the threadbare thing and finding…all of her shit. Her entire life fits in this small backpack.
I would have given her the world. Dressed her in expensive clothes that only I would get to take off.
Covered her in diamonds and filled her with my babies.
That illusion of happiness is just that.
An illusion. I knew it all along, but that pervasive hope kept me going.
That ridiculous and dangerous four-letter word.
I drop her bag to the floor and storm down the hall only to twist and return.
The children are upstairs with Althea and two attendants.
I don’t know if the attendants caught up to Signoria Batorini or not, but I’m sure Gabe will check in.
We didn’t bring extras. Gabe flew out of the palace and met me. Dumb fucking mistake.
At the very least, the children are safe, as are Bellamy and the twins.
So I have to focus on Marcella. On saving my family. On keeping us all safe and alive. Twenty minutes later, my brother’s shoes tap on the stone. I’m leaning against the wall, where I’ve been since I punched it, waiting on him.
“How’s Bellamy?” I ask before he can speak. “The twins?”
“The same as when you left them this morning.” He stops in front of me, and I can tell he’s noting my hand, but he doesn’t ask. He doesn’t have to. “Tell me everything.”
I blow out a breath and lift my chin. “Honestly, I think she needs to tell you.”
He searches my eyes. He’s calm. Eerily so, but I know him enough to know that the beast is raging right now. He should be furious with me. I hope he is.
“Okay. Let’s go in.”
Gabe unlocks the door but stands outside.
He can see and hear everything in here, as it has cameras with audio.
Sebastian enters first, his eyes on Marcella, who no longer has her wrists bound.
She’s sitting on the bed with her legs folded as if she doesn’t have a care in the world.
Holy shit. How’d she do that? Fucking assassin indeed.
I cock an eyebrow at the discarded zip tie on the bed.
“I have small hands,” is all she says, and I tuck in my smile.
My fucking siren. A woman with the face and voice of an angel and the heart of a monster.
Still, she shocks us both when she stands and curtsies at Sebastian.
“Your Majesty, I’m sorry you had to leave your family.
I know I have no credibility right now with anything, but truly, I hope Her Majesty and the twins are doing well.
I was terribly worried yesterday morning. ”
Sebastian takes the seat I was in before, and I hold the post Gabe had by the door.
“Marcella, who are you?”
She glances at me, confused that I hadn’t told him yet, then returns to him. “I’m the half-sister of Samil Batorini.”
Sebastian, for how shocked I was, somehow isn’t. “I knew you looked familiar. Your hair is the same color as his. You also have a similar face shape.” He crosses his legs, his ankle on his opposite knee. “I knew Samil nearly all my life. How come I never heard about you?”
Marcella swallows and looks down, retaking her seat.
“I was the bastard offspring of an affair his father had with one of the house servants. My mother died during childbirth, or Signoria had her killed. Either way, I don’t know, but I was a secret.
I was never given their last name. There is no record of my birth.
I existed in their house and didn’t know better until my father died and I became the charge of Signoria and Antonia.
The Signoria wanted me dead, but Samil stepped in. ”
Sebastian rubs his jaw. “He had you made into this. Into the woman in front of us who breaks into royal weddings in disguise and into palaces as servants under false pretenses with the plan of hurting others.”
“Yes, sir. He helped make me into this…” She laughs lightly, but a tear falls down her cheek as she does.
“I thought he was saving me. That he loved me. He would spend time with me. Fencing, playing chess, teaching me how to code and hack. How to hold my breath under water for minutes. Yes, he was training me.”
“But you loved him as a brother.”
It’s not a question, but she nods all the same. “Very much so. And with that, I hated you.”
He leans back and places his elbow on the table. “I’m not surprised by that. I stole Nora from him.”
“They loved each other.”
Sebastian chuckles bitterly. “Not quite.”
Marcella tilts her head. “I met your former queen, Your Majesty. I can tell you, she loved him.”
Sebastian looks like he’s been struck. “You met Nora?”
“Yes, sir. Several times. She came to our family’s home frequently, both before you were married and after.”
Sebastian peeks at me, and I shake my head. This is news to me. He turns back to her. “Are you suggesting they had an affair?”
She holds her hands in her lap, her spine straight, her gaze steady and unwavering. “Yes, Your Majesty, they had an affair. Your entire marriage, she was having an affair with my brother. She was pregnant with his child the day she died.”
Sebastian shoots out of his chair and flattens himself against the wall. “You know this as fact?”
“How else would Samil have known where Nora was that day? Gained access to her family estate so easily?”
Sebastian’s jaw drops, his mind working overtime.
“Holy shit,” I murmur, my hands on my head.
“She was pregnant with his child?” They had been having an affair the entire time.
I look at Sebastian. The girls. Sebastian and Nora rarely slept together.
Zayer is the spitting image of Sebastian, but the girls look like Nora and Nora alone.
Blonde hair and green eyes. Nothing like Sebastian.
I can see he’s having the same thought, and my heart breaks for him for that.
“Now you know why I hated you,” she continues.
“My brother, the only person in the world who loved me, was broken. You stole Nora from him, and he filled my head with what a jealous, spiteful man you were. If you hadn’t done that, if Samil had married Nora, I used to imagine he would have taken me with them, and I wouldn’t have…
” She pauses, then redirects. “I understood his hatred of you. Anytime we spoke, it was all he talked about. How he loved Nora, how she wouldn’t leave you.
He was obsessed. The morning she died, they fought about that.
He begged her to choose him, and she wouldn’t.
Not even with the baby. He was going to kill you to get her, but I didn’t know until Bellamy told me that he was going to kill your children with you.
He never told me that. He told me Nora was going to have you come alone so the two of you could talk. ”
I release a breath and shift, edgy and antsy and not knowing what to do with myself. Sebastian is frozen. I’ve never seen him so still.
“My daughters?” he asks finally.
She shakes her head, clearly reading his question. “I don’t know, sir. He never said anything about them.”
“I killed Samil.”
“Yes, Your Majesty, you did. I never saw the video of it, though. I was simply told that Samil was trying to get back at you the only way he knew how by taking Bellamy. Then the two of you fought, and you threw him out the window and were hurt during the skirmish.”
He folds his arms across his chest. “I see. What’s your purpose here?”
She holds his gaze. “To take you out. Signoria wants me to destroy you by planting files on your computer that likely implicate you in illegal doings, and then I’m to kill you. That edict came down to me this morning when I met her in Tourin.”
I can’t handle how calmly she’s talking about this. The words are hardly affecting her at all.
“Were you going to do it?” I ask, sick to my stomach with all of this.
“No. I was going to sneak into her car and wait there as she drove me home or wherever she was going. Then I was going to kill her and Antonia, take Jaqueline, and leave the country for good.”
Leave the country for good. After she killed two people. Jesus fuck. I don’t know which to focus on. I’m being ripped apart from the inside out, pulled in every direction. That’s why she had her backpack full of her things. She wasn’t coming back, but not for the reasons I thought.
Sebastian peers down at her. “You realize all of this is treason? Everything you’ve done is grounds for us to lock you up and throw away the key. If we decide not to see you executed for your crimes.”
“Yes, sir. I’m well aware of that, and if that’s your choice, I won’t fight it.
I’ll plead guilty and take my punishment.
Lord knows I deserve it for the crimes I’ve committed.
But my younger half-sister, Jaqueline, is thirteen.
She’s not a monster,” she says, her eyes flicking over to me before returning to Sebastian.
“I will do anything you ask, give you any information I possess, but please, please don’t let her die. ”
He ignores that. “Did you play my brother for a fool?”
“Sebastian—” I bark, but he holds up a hand, cutting me off.
“I have to know, and it better be the fucking truth.”
“No, Your Majesty. The only fool was me.” She turns and looks at me, tears lining her eyes that cling and don’t fall.
“I tried to stay away so many times. I told you I wasn’t good and that it couldn’t happen between us.
I was trying to protect you, but I was also trying to protect myself.
” She swallows audibly and returns to Sebastian.
“I fell in love with your brother, and it was the best and worst mistake I’ve ever made.
I don’t want to hurt you or your family.
I want…” She trails off and looks up at the ceiling before she laughs ruefully.
“It honestly doesn’t matter what I want at this point.
I never expected to be a princess. I didn’t give in to him time and time again with ulterior motives.
Sometimes feelings and desires are bigger than us and override the path we’re set on. That’s all I know.”
Before she can utter another word that would eviscerate me further, I leave the cell.
I have more questions. A ton of fucking answers that I need.
But after hearing that…I can’t breathe through my shredded lungs to even ask them.
I need a break from her before I lose myself further.
Sebastian follows as I hear the door shut and lock behind me.
“Watch her cell,” he says to the attendant before he walks past me, knowing I’ll follow. “Gabe, can you check on my children and stay with them for a bit as an extra precaution?” That puzzles me, but Gabe wordlessly goes to keep an eye on the children.
We have a lot to talk about. But I’m stuck.
She loves me. I believe her. And it’s fucking killing me.