Chapter l284

Chapter 0284

Julian was angry, that much was clear, though I couldn’t exactly fathom why. Yes, it would be irritating to be excluded from Nichola s’s confrontation of the King and Queen, but Julian usually handled irritation with cutting humor and sarcasm, not outright anger.

“Your presence wouldn’t have made any difference,” Nicholas said.

“Oh? You don’t think the person who has been investigating the underground organization. wouldn’t have had evidence and knowledge to help your case?” Julian scoffed.

Nicholas sighed. He ran a hand over the back of his n*eck. “It wasn’t personal, Julian.”

“Like hell, it wasn’t. I was the one who helped find the evidence, and I even have some of my own. You should have looped me into your plans. Aren’t we a trio in this? When did you decide that you’d rather do everything alone?”

Nicholas shook his head.

I didn’t necessarily want to take a side here. I could see the situation from both angles. But the fact was Nicholas hadn’t told me his plans either. He simply left me before I had woken up. He’d apologized, I was no longer hurt. But I could understand Julian’s upset.

Still, I decided to stay out of their conversation, mostly because it felt deeper than this one. singular argument. This issue may have been the one that finally brought them into an open. conflict, but underneath the surface, this resentment had likely been festering for a long time.

“Admit it,” Julian said, a sharp edge in his voice. “You purposefully excluded me. You genuinely do not believe that I am capable.”

Nicholas crossed his arms. He didn’t deny it.

“Nicholas…” I whispered, feeling pity for them both.

“You’re such an as shole,” Julian said.

“You may be capable, Julian, when you want to be, but you aren’t reliable. You have been a foolhardy play boy since our youth,” Nicholas said. “You may be doing the right thing right now, but I can’t trust you to always make the best choices.”

“You think I would have, what, stood in front of our father and then sided with Terry?”

“I don’t know what you would have done,” Nicholas said. “You are unpredictable. Your whims are fleeting. You do whatever you want without worry of the consequence.”

Julian huffed out a laugh too short and loud to be genuine. “That you honestly believe that tells me you don’t know me at all, brother. You think I’m some kind of monster. You think I would throw Piper to the wolves.”

+15 BONUS

“He doesn’t mean it like that,” I said.

“Doesn’t he? Because that’s what he’s saying,” Julian said.

I looked at Nicholas, expecting him to take back some of the harsher things he’d said, or at least clarify them so they weren’t so hurtful. Surely he couldn’t believe that Julian would actually want to see me harmed?

But stubborn Nicholas kept his mouth firmly closed.

I wondered what the stories were that I wasn’t privileged to. These two had a lifetime of history, memories upon memories where their capability and reliability were displayed and practiced with each other.

For Nicholas to so firmly believe that Julian was such a cad, something terrible must have happened to implant that conception of him.

“Forget it, Piper,” Julian said, snorting. “He’ll never see me as anything but a nuisance, and honestly, I’m tired of trying.”

Julian dipped his head to me in goodbye, then turned and left.

“Nicholas,” I said when Julian had gone. “There’s no need to be so cruel.”

“I’m being honest, Piper,” Nicholas said, voice flat, void of emotion. “He can’t be trusted.”

I sighed, unsure how to resolve this rift between the two brothers, or if resolution was even possible at this point.

“You don’t agree,” he said.

I didn’t. “It’s unhealthy for two brothers to fight like this.”

Nicholas shook his head. “What would be unhealthy is to pretend everything is fine between him and me. My expectations of him are all the way down on the floor and he still finds ways to go beneath him.”

Nicholas set his jaw. There seemed to be no peaceful end of this conflict, so for now, I simply let it go.

Maybe, someday, if I could discover more of the things that went wrong between them, I could make another, better effort to help push them to resolution.

But for now, perhaps the best course of action, was simply to keep the two brothers apart.

After lunch, I was walking back toward the room when I was stopped by Nathan.

“The King wishes to speak with you.”

He did not wait for a response. He just turned and began walking. The expectation, I was sure,

+15 BONUS

I was led into a sitting room and ushered inside. After I walked through, Nathan stepped outside the room and closed the door, leaving me alone with the King.

The King stood behind a small couch. His back was turned toward the room as he gazed out a window.

Uncertain where to stand, I moved into the center of the room.

“You must be curious why I wanted to speak with you, Piper,” the King said.

I had a few guesses. I wasn’t in the meeting with Nicholas and the King. I had no idea what exactly Nicholas had told the King regarding the previous event. But I imagined whatever he wanted to speak about with me now had to do with Terry.

Yet I didn’t want to say his name, not even to guess. I half worried to say his name allowed might make him magically appear.

The King, fortunately, seemed entirely unaware of my inner conundrum, and proceeded without any reply from me.

“I have heard Nichola s’s side of the story. My Queen has told me Terry’s. This leaves only one side left for me to hear and to know: yours.” Slowly, he turned away from the window to face me. “Tell me everything you know about Terry’s involvement in the underground organization.”

My breath caught and my blood ran cold.

I had been men tally preparing myself for questions about Terry’s assault on me. I didn’t want to talk about it, but I had been willing to, for the sake of justice.

But this? How could I tell the King everything I knew without mentioning my sister Jane? Jane was my main connection to any knowledge I had accrued on Terry. She was the catalyst. Without that piece of the puzzle, the King might become suspicious of me.

Though to tell him about Jane felt dangerous as well. If he knew I had a twin, and that she was involved so deeply in the underground… What would his reaction be? Would he assume I was also involved?

Or were things deeper even than that?

Julian had told me not to speak about my sister to anyone, not even the King. He had made it seem like no one in the royal family could be trusted but him and Nicholas.

This could be some kind of trap. The King could be testing me to see how much I knew, or how much I was willing to reveal.

My head was starting to hurt from all the possibilities of this moment. Every possible answer I could give felt like a wrong one.

3/4

NUS

I was frozen with indecision. And with fear.

The King narrowed his eyes. “Are you keeping secrets, Piper?”