Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 141385 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 707(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141385 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 707(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
Alec chuckles. “Ten minutes. I am impressed.”
“What’s ten minutes?” I ask.
He swings his gaze towards me. “My source remains employed for another day.”
“No shit.” Valentina gets up and looks over his shoulder at his screen.
Alec tries to turn it away, but she simply shoves his head out of her way and yanks the computer back so she can see it. “You show me remarkably little respect given my position, Deveraux.”
“Shut up, Kilon,” she responds. “You’re little more than a very posh mafia boss.”
I laugh at the exact moment I swallow some water, and some of it gets stuck in my throat. My eyes stream, and I thump my fist against my chest as I cough to free whatever is lodged there.
“Your Majesty, are you hearing this?” Alec looks at the queen with an affronted expression. “Is this how you let a strange woman treat your right hand?”
Beatrix blinks at him. “She’s not a strange woman, and you aren’t my right hand, child. Also, I find myself hard-pressed to disagree with her.”
“Annette! Help me out here.”
“Your Grace, if you must speak, might you share with us some useful information? You may continue your verbal battle with Miss Deveraux when the reputation of our future crown princess is no longer critically at stake.” She pushes her glasses up her nose and peers over at him. “Well?”
Alec sighs and mutters, “I am woefully underappreciated at this table.”
“Yes, yes, it’s terribly tragic,” Valentina says, still reading over his shoulder. “Start sharing.”
He pushes her out of the way and clicks a few times. “He’s connected to Jasmine... It seems he went missing as a child, and his familial situation fits with what we discovered before. He didn’t live in St Peters then, though, so he wasn’t included in my research. Hmm.” He taps his fingers against the table. “He returned after approximately six months. He met Jasmine in high school and—my oh my, they had a brief, albeit secret, relationship.”
My, my.
Isn’t this interesting?
“Who did?” Finn walks in with Oscar hovering behind him.
“Jasmine and Zachary,” I answer, looking up at him as he leans over the back of the sofa to kiss my forehead.
“Who’s Zachary?”
“The piece of shit spreading lies about my best friend,” Valentina says hotly.
Oscar glances around the deceptively calm room. “Fill us in, would you?”
Alec quickly covers what they’ve missed, then continues. “They broke up because Jasmine was, unsurprisingly, unwilling to tell anyone they were seeing each other. She thought it would harm her chances of marrying Finn.”
“She never had any,” Beatrix says, watching Annette’s fingers fly across her keyboard.
“Yes, well, it seems Zachary told everyone anyway, but nobody believed him. They had no contact after that until… Ah, it seems she reached out to him a couple of weeks ago. After the incident at Lammens, according to his messages.”
“You already have his messages? What the hell kind of mobster are you?” Valentina stares at him.
“A posh one,” he replies dryly, making me fight back a laugh.
Finn looks at me questioningly, but I shake my head in response.
“There’s a transfer of ten thousand to his bank account dated a few days after their initial contact.” Alec’s words are slow and measured. “And… ah, I can’t skim these messages quickly enough to get the important details. There’s a lot of mundane bullshit in there.”
“Move.” Valentina sits next to him and brings the computer in front of her. Her eyes flit back and forth as she takes control of the mouse. “He told her he saw you when he was kidnapped back when they were dating. She didn’t believe him then. He questioned why she’s changed her mind, and she said you humiliated her and need to pay. He demanded fifty grand in exchange for it. He should have asked for more, the idiot.” She tuts. “They came up with this story together, but it wasn’t fully planned. They rushed it because of Aveline’s… what did you call it? Side quest?”
I nod. “So, they had a half-baked plan, and instead of riding it out, they brought it forward because of something that was nothing to do with me.”
Finn rubs my shoulders. “Don’t worry. We can pass all this to law enforcement.”
Valentina turns at that. “This isn’t admissible as evidence.”
“You’re right,” I reply quietly. “But they won’t use that as evidence.”
She presses her lips together. “You’re just using it as a tip-off, so they know where to look.”
“Exactly,” Alec replies.
“Their last messages are him being concerned the story hasn’t broken and Jasmine demanding proof he went to the press. She’s panicking it’s not being reported and he’s panicking that she’s going to double-cross him and not pay him.”
Alec takes his computer back. “How did you read that so quickly?”
“Magic,” she quips. “So, where does this guy live, and how quickly do we go and make him shit his pants?”