Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,40
yes. I was missing the trust bit.”
“Hugh?”
He hums noncommittally, a sound that sets my teeth on edge.
“If you ever send me into another mission without gathering all the facts, I’m going to hand you over to Gregory and wash my hands clean of you. Understood?”
The gurgling sound that comes from Hugh Coney tells me everything I need to know. “I hear you,” he says. “Trust me, I hear you loud and clear.”
“Brilliant. Now get the hell out of my flat.”
He beats a hasty exit, only stopping long enough to ask, “Lights on or off? Does it matter one way or another if you can’t see?”
I turn my head toward him, and I like to think that whatever registers in my expression, Hugh notices it immediately. He flees a second later, the door clanking shut behind him.
It’s only then that I sink to the floor.
My head falls to my bent knees and a single tear slips free. It burns over my blisters, a small fire of heat that doesn’t even compare to the hell that I experienced four nights ago. A kidnapping, Hugh had learned. We’d expected Margaret to be kidnapped and, yes, we’d suspected the Priests. But never could have I predicted everything that happened then, and everything that’s happened since.
The sob that’s been begging for release scratches at my throat once again.
Ian is dead, and his killer walks free. Margaret thinks I’ve betrayed her, that I’m untrustworthy, when it’s always been the opposite.
The king chose me, and that’s my curse to bear.
Kill the Priests, he said.
Protect my daughter at all cost, he told me.
In the span of four nights, I’ve failed them both.
And just for tonight, I crack open the dam and allow myself to feel.
Broken.
Defeated.
A shadow of misery that follows me like the worst kind of living nightmare.
14
Damien
The sweetened scent of cloves permeates the intel room.
Elbow on the desk, the heel of my hand supporting my forehead, I take another drag of the cigarette and let my eyes slide shut.
Jesus.
I’ve given up alcohol and women and every other thing that could ruin me for good, but this . . . Smoking is my last vice to purge.
Soon.
The motto of my life, that. Soon, I’ll have Carrigan and Guthram begging for mercy. Soon, we’ll wrangle the anti-loyalists back under control. Soon, I’ll be—
“Don’t go there.”
The words are muffled by the cigarette. Jaw clenching, I pluck the fag from my mouth and stick it on the ashtray near my elbow, then turn my attention to the computer. Backlit against the otherwise dim room, the script on the monitor gleams with untold secrets.
Edward Carrigan’s email account.
It’s not the first time I’ve invited myself to his inbox. In the last seven months, I’ve made it my personal mission to comb through every email that comes or goes—but the prime minister is no fool. I’ve hacked his government accounts, his personal ones too. Email addresses that date back twenty years and haven’t been touched in nearly as long. I’ll give him that, at least. The man cleans up his messes and erases every trail before there’s even a remote chance of gaining ground.
Still . . .
Pressing a hand flat on the now crinkled paper that I stole from the Jewel Tower, I skim it again:
Stay away from my daughter
50,000 pounds or I’ll
Or what?
Timestamped to five weeks ago, the email offers no other information. There’s no reply from Coney and no follow-up on Carrigan’s end to finish the threat. Hell, there’s nothing to even indicate that the two men ever interacted before Carrigan hit SEND.
For the third time in as many minutes, I tab over to the Queen Mary University website and stare at the ERROR message glaring back at me. Less than a month after Isla strangled him to death, Ian Coney’s administrative account is already gone. No amount of hacking can resurface what’s been deleted, not after the university’s tech team clearly went through the hassle of permanently erasing every trace of the professor from their databases.
It’s a literal dead end.
Clasping the base of my skull with both hands, I dig into the stiff muscles there with a low curse. Four days after questioning Rowena and I’m no closer to figuring out her connection to Ian Coney.
He was her friend, maybe, or a mentor.
Or maybe they were lovers.
The unbidden thought goes down as smoothly as swallowing barbed wire.
And this time when the beast inside me rears its ugly head, I don’t bind him into submission.