The solar became an isolated island.
Just him, me, and a locked drawer full of treason.
I walked back behind my desk, the silk of my gown pooling around my ankles as I sat down.
The corporate mastermind in me was already organizing the chaos into columns of data, liabilities, and assets.
“Sit down, Kaelen,” I said, gesturing to the leather armchair across from me.
“We are no longer on protocol.
This is a boardroom meeting, and you are my primary source of intel.”
He hesitated for a fraction of a second, his golden eyes scanning my face for any lingering traces of fear.
Finding none, he pulled out the chair and sat.
Even seated, he commanded the room, his broad shoulders squared, his hands resting flat on his knees.
“Where do we start, Your Majesty?” he asked, his voice low and raspy.
“We start with your brother,” I replied, opening a fresh leather ledger on my desk and dipping a silver fountain pen into a well of black ink.
“Tell me about Julian.
If he’s a cell leader in the Silt District, he isn’t just some angry kid throwing rocks at the palace gates.
He has capital, coordination, and a recruitment pipeline.
What kind of leader is he?”
Kaelen looked down at his own knuckles, his jaw tightening.
“Julian isn’t like the rest of the radicals, Evangeline.
He doesn’t care about chaotic anarchy or burning the city to the ground.
He’s sharp.
Before our parents were killed, he was studying logistics and trade analytics.
The rebellion didn’t just recruit him for his anger; they recruited him because he knows how to disrupt supply chains.”
My pen paused above the paper.
Logistics and analytics.
A dangerous combination for a terrorist leader.
“A corporate disruptor,” I murmured, writing the notes down.
“That explains why the Blood Crown faction has been targeting our merchant vessels and trade warehouses rather than just attacking royal guards.
He’s trying to choke our cash flow.”
“Exactly,” Kaelen nodded, leaning forward slightly, the intensity in his eyes returning.
“He treats the Silt District cell like a dark-market syndicate.
They run smuggling rings through the old subterranean aqueducts beneath the city.
That’s how they move weapons and illegal high-grade crystals right under the nose of the royal watch.”
“And the assassination plot at the Trade Ministry?” I pressed, locking eyes with him.
“How did a Silt District cell manage to plant an operative inside a high-security government building?”
Kaelen let out a heavy sigh, the sound rough and exhausted.
“Because the Trade Ministry is corrupt from the top down, Evangeline.
Your father’s old ministers have been taking bribes for a decade to look the other way on lower-sector smuggling.
Julian didn’t have to break into the ministry.
He just had to buy someone who was already inside.
I don’t know the operative’s name yet, Julian wouldn’t give it to me, but I know the hit is scheduled for the moment you step up to the podium for your economic address next Tuesday.”
I tapped the silver pen against my chin, my mind running through the risk assessments. The source of this chapter is novelping.com.
If I canceled the address, the public would smell weakness, and the corrupt ministers would know I was onto them.
If I went through with it, I was walking directly into a sniper’s crosshairs.
“We aren’t canceling the State Proclamation,” I declared coldly.
Kaelen instantly stood up, his chair scraping loudly against the marble floor.
The mask of the polite guard cracked, his face twisting into a mask of pure fury.
“Are you insane?
I just told you they have an inside asset waiting to put a blade through your heart or a bullet through your head!
You cannot walk into that building!”
“Sit down, Commander,” I said, my voice dropping into a quiet, icy whisper that immediately froze him in his tracks.
He stared at me, his chest heaving, his large fists clenching at his sides until his knuckles turned white.
Slowly, reluctantly, he sat back down, though he looked like a wild animal straining against an invisible leash.
“If I hide in this palace, the market crashes,” I explained, leaning across the desk, closing the physical distance between us until he could hear the steady, calm rhythm of my breathing.
“The investors will back out, the royal council will claim I’m unfit to rule, and your brother’s cell wins without firing a single shot.
No.
We use this to our advantage.
A hostile takeover requires a counter-offensive.
We let the plot proceed, but we alter the variables.”
Kaelen’s eyes darkened, a strange, toxic mix of terror for my safety and dark admiration for my ruthlessness swirling in his amber gaze.
“What are you suggesting?”
“We audit the Silt District before Tuesday,” I smirked, a dangerous thrill coursing through my veins.
“You are going to take me into the lower sectors, Kaelen.
Incognito.
No guards, no royal banners, no silk gowns.
You are going to arrange another ‘secret’ meeting with your brother, and I am going to be there to negotiate with him myself.”
The silence that followed was heavy and suffocating.
Kaelen looked at me as if I had lost my mind.
“You want to walk into the heart of rebel territory?
A high-born queen in the slums?
They would tear you apart, Evangeline.”
“They won’t,” I purred, standing up and slowly walking around the desk.
I stopped right beside his chair, leaning down until my lips were dangerously close to his ear, letting him catch the scent of my jasmine perfume.
“Because you are going to protect me.
You told me your life belongs to me, Kaelen.
Prove it.
Keep me alive in the dark, and I will save your brother from the executioner’s block.”
Kaelen froze, his entire body going rigid as I hovered over him.
Up close, the professional distance we had spent the morning building completely evaporated.
The suffocating heat of his presence rushed back, thick and intoxicating.
The memory of last night, of his large hands gripping my waist and his mouth consuming mine, screamed in the space between us.
He wanted to touch me.
It was written in the desperate tightness of his jaw, the slight tremor in his broad shoulders, and the way his golden eyes darkened with a feral, possessive hunger.
He was a monster, a merciless executioner, but right now, he was entirely at my mercy.
Slowly, Kaelen reached up, his large, scarred hand hovering in the air for a breathless second before he gently, almost reverently, took hold of the gold royal crest pinning my silk gown together.
His fingers brushed against the sensitive skin of my collarbone, sending a fierce, electric shiver straight down my spine.
“I will keep you alive,” he rasped, his voice dropping into that low, dangerous register that made my heart hammer erratically against my ribs.
He didn’t pull away.
Instead, he leaned in just a fraction of an inch closer, his hot breath fanning across my skin.
“But the Silt District is merciless, Evangeline.
If you step into my world, you have to play by my rules.
You won’t be a queen down there.
You will have to stay close to me.
Incredibly close.
Can your royal pride handle that?”
A challenges.
He was trying to push me back, trying to scare me into running behind my desk.
I leaned down even lower, my chest nearly brushing against his broad shoulder, my eyes locking into his with unwavering, defiant intensity.
“I don’t care about pride, Kaelen.
I care about results.
If staying close to a monster keeps my empire safe, then I will stay by your side until the sky burns.”
For a second, I thought he was going to break.
His hand tightened on the gold pin, his knuckles straining as if he were about to pull me straight into his lap and recreate the chaos of the library bookshelf.
The air in the room grew so thick with mutual attraction and psychological warfare that it felt like a match strike would set the whole solar on fire.
But then, with an agonizing amount of restraint, Kaelen slowly dropped his hand, forcing his gaze back down to the ledger.
The mask slid back into place, though his breathing remained heavy.
“Then we leave tomorrow night under the cover of the midnight watch shift,” Kaelen muttered, his voice thick but disciplined.
“I will prepare the civilian disguises and secure a hidden transport out of the eastern tunnels.”
“Perfect,” I whispered, stepping back and straightening my gown, though my skin still tingled where his fingers had brushed.
I walked back behind my desk, sitting down with the poise of a satisfied executive who had just closed a massive deal.
“The audit is officially scheduled.
You are dismissed, Commander.
Go prepare our itinerary.”
Kaelen stood up, clicked his heavy boots together, and placed his fist over his heart in a perfect, flawless salute.
The polite, submissive guard was back, but we both knew it was a lie.
“By your command, Your Majesty,” he baritoned.
He turned and walked toward the double doors, his movements slow and powerful.
As he unlocked the brass bolt and stepped out into the bright, bustling hallway of the palace, I leaned back in my chair, my heart racing as I stared at the closed door.
The corporate war had officially begun, and I had just aligned myself with the most dangerous man in the kingdom.