I pulled my phone out while Alexander was in the bathroom, and texted Nina. She was up late as usual, and responded right away.
Me: Just saw your missed calls. It’s a long story, but I’m fine. Home now with A.
Nina: Phew!! We were all so worried about you!!!
My stomach dropped. That was not good. Nina had been speaking to Alexander while I had been missing from the palace evening. So he knew full well that I was lying to his face when I told him I’d been with her.
Me: Can we try that brunch date again, tomorrow?
Nina: Ofc. Just tell me what time babe.
Me: Text you when I wake up? It’s been a day
Nina: Anything u want. I’ll be up. Playing with this sexy soldier tonight.
And then she sent a bunch of vegetable emojis that, when strung together in the order she put them in, were actually really effective at telling a quite explicit little story.
Me: You are dirty!
I cracked a smile for the first time all day and thanked Nina in my mind for being her wonderful self. A laugh escaped my lips, and in my tired state, it turned into a giggle fit. I kept looking back at the screen and dying each time I re-read her emoji story, laughing so hard I started snorting.
Nina: That’s me. I’ll see u in the morning Fi. Glad you’re safe.
I looked up and saw Alexander was standing in the bathroom doorway, watching me.
“Haven’t heard you laugh like that in a long time,” he said, smiling.
I was taken aback. When had he ever heard me laugh? In the short time I had known Alexander, had we ever once been in a cheerful scenario together?
But then I realized what he was talking about and felt a blush rising to my cheeks.
Our first night together. That’s what he was referring to.
It was embarrassing to remember. I’d been drunk off my ass, and thought he was a call boy hired to give me a good time. When he tried to push me away, I’d dropped him to the floor. I think I even kept him pinned below me with my bare foot.
I could hardly believe that girl in the memory, the one in the sparkly blue dress, was even me. She was a version of me I hoped to never let out of her cage again. She was the one who had gotten me into this whole mess, after all.
Alexander had ordered some food for me after I got back, and we ate together in bed. He stopped asking questions about where I had been. The look in his eyes went back to concern when he saw how little appetite I had, and that’s the look that remained on his face through the rest of the evening.
I only threw up a few more times and managed at least to not let Alexander see it. He left me alone behind the closed bathroom door until I was finished,
I tugged the chain on my bedside lamp to turn it off and shuffled down under the covers as Alexander, freshly showered, slid into bed beside me.
Under the covers, a warm hand slipped around my waist, and I fell back against Alexander’s chest.
I wished that I could tell him what had happened to me. I knew he would listen. He would hold and comfort me. But this was just one more thing I had to keep inside.
Alexander’s hand started to wander across my chest. I grasped it in my own and wove our fingers together. Lifted his hand to my lips and gave it a light kiss. He went very still for a moment. And then moved to tuck the blankets around me tightly, before quietly slipping his hand back into mine.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Nina said.
At the risk of sounding like a paranoid lunatic, I had convinced her to leave her phone behind in our bedroom before we came out to walk and talk.
We had found our way to an odd place behind the West Courtyard, where there was a life-sized chess set on a small, square lawn surrounded by bright green hedges that were cut, for some reason, into tall, flat-topped cylinder shapes.
Nina and I were pacing the squares and dragging the pieces around lazily, pretending to play. I had just finished telling her everything.
“I know,” I said. “But I can’t tell Alexander. He can’t know anything about this. He’ll kill my father.”
Nina nodded gravely. She didn’t even need any additional information about that to believe my words right away.
Before I could mention anything about Kayden, she said, “I won’t tell a soul. Promise. This is between you and me only, but please do something for me.”
“What?”
“Tell me how I can help you out of this. It’s a fucking nightmare, Fiona.” She was whisper-shouting, keeping her voice just barely low enough to comply with my demand that we make sure none of our conversation could possibly be overheard. “Kidnapped by your own father and almost drowned? What the actual fuck?”
I hissed to silence her. “Listen, you don’t have to tell me how messed up it is. But I do have a favor to ask of you. Just a small one for now.”
“Anything!” she whisper-shouted, grabbing my arm a little too hard.
It gave me a good opportunity to take my opposite hand and press the letter into her palm.
I made it look as though I was peeling her hand off my arm, like I wanted her to give me some space. Just in case those odd, tube-shaped hedges were concealing an onlooker. You never knew.
Nina reacted smoothly, palming the square of folded paper discreetly and without hesitation. I saw her hand slip to the pocket of her black cutoff jean shorts and come back out empty.
“Just keep it safe for me somewhere,” I whispered. “I can’t have it in the palace, but I have a feeling I may want to have it later, for proof about what my father has been up to.”
“Consider it taken care of.”
Third person
“Payment for the first package delivered, gentlemen.” Fiona’s father pushed two stacks of cash across his mahogany desk, toward the men seated opposite him.
One of the men was young, strong, and tall, an overbuilt pretty-boy with short black hair. The other was smaller, with rounder shoulders, perhaps a few years older than his friend. But he was memorable for his distinctive attitude. It was the kind of chip-on-the-shoulder attitude that could be spotted from outer space.
And that was something that could be worked with.
The two men reached out and palmed the two stacks of money in unison, grabbing them up greedily. The smaller man flipped the corners of his stack noisily, like he was shuffling a deck of cards.
“The remainder of your reward will be delivered once we’ve received the package.”
The men looked at each other, had a silent conversation in their minds, and stood in unison.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” the smaller man said, grinning as he reached out to shake his new friend’s hand.
A thin smile cracked the nobleman’s lips. “The pleasure is all mine.”
