54. Nicholas
54
Nicholas
M y carriage parked outside a poor excuse for a tavern near the outskirts of South Harbor. The stench of sour ale spilled into the street, and the uneven walkway hinted that some found the bathroom too far to travel. I ordered my two guardsmen to remain posted at the front doors as I stalked inside.
A woman I wouldn’t want to mess with worked a rag around a cup. “We’re closed for two more hours. Come back then.” She didn’t even glance up.
“Is Caine here?” I asked.
She sighed, setting the rag and cup on the bar top, preparing to berate an unruly customer when her gaze fell upon me and my formal attire and crown. Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. “Yes, Your Highness. He’s in the back.” She tossed her thumb over her shoulder, to the doorway that no doubt led to his office.
A slight nod was my only response as I brought myself behind the bar and entered the back room, closing the door behind me. Caine looked up from his disheveled paperwork and promptly stood in greeting. “Your Highness. What a pleasure.” He bowed, throat bobbing on his way back up.
“I have had the fortune of never meeting you before, Mr. Caine. Should I again, I’m afraid you won’t find it pleasant.”
He froze, fear paling his aged skin.
“You hold a woman under your employ. Nora Shen. Tell me how it came to be.” With an air of disinterest, hands clasped behind my back, I strode from one end of the room to another, taking in every detail.
Every crack in the splintering floorboards, each stain that hadn’t been cleaned well.
A man with little integrity. Unsurprising, considering the way he could treat a young woman. I worked to suppress the building rage that threatened to seek the destruction of the pathetic excuse of a man before me.
“S-she has been under my employ for several years now, working off a debt left by her father. I hold the deed to their house, and in exchange for selling it and leaving her and her family destitute, I agreed to have her earn it through labor.”
My fist wanted to break the wall over the way he tried painting himself as a saint. Squaring to face him, my stare pinned him in place. “Tell me, Mr. Caine, do you enjoy taking advantage of women in precarious circumstances? Or threatening their lives if they cannot secure you funds which have surely been paid by now with nearly a decade of free labor?”
“I—” He couldn’t find the right way to explain himself. Because there wasn’t one.
In a few swift steps, I anchored myself in front of his desk and retrieved a sack of coin from my pocket, letting it thud before him on the wooden surface. “This will pay off the deed to the home, in full, despite what should have been docked based on the labor you leeched off her for years. Give me the deed, now. With these funds, you will leave my kingdom.”
I placed my palms on the desk, my fingertips pressing into the grain as I leaned down to bring myself eye-level with this scum of a man. “And if I hear a whisper of your name anywhere in my land, you will be well acquainted with the executioner’s block. Do I make myself clear?”
He stared, a droplet of sweat forming on the side of his forehead. “Yes, Your Highness.”
I shoved off, standing to my full height, looking down at him. He fumbled with a ring of keys, inserting one into a desk drawer before opening it to retrieve an old, folded ledger. Handing it to me, I took an opportunity to scan it, ensuring it was the document I set out for. A stare with a sealing promise was the last communication I gave before leaving.
I entered my carriage, glimpsing the sword I’d left on the bench. Had I brought it with me, that man wouldn’t have been blessed with the opportunity to flee. Not for what he’d inflicted upon the love of my life.