Page 64 of Omega’s Fealty

“Me.”

He doesn’t move, but the younger one does. He looks at the old man. The old man doesn’t look back.

“Only you.”

“Only me. Two weeks, thirty grand, guard the cargo and don’t ask what it is. Sully phoned once to check in. He never came back. That was it.”

“Who was to collect?”

“Don’t know. Sully said the people paying weren’t people you say no to. That’s all he said and I didn’t ask.”

“Cargo. You’re a trafficker.”

I shake my head vehemently. “Absolutely not. I don’t do people. Sully knew that. He brought me in anyway.”

“You did not know it was the prince?”

“No.”

“When did you know?”

“When I opened the door.”

“Did you force him?”

“No. He—” I hesitate. I give him the same long look that he gave me. There was something in the words that made it feel personal to him.

Did you force him? I’m pretty sure that if I said yes. Or if I said “no” and he thought that I was lying, that I’d have a bullet in my brain before I took a second breath.

Who is this guy?

He’s staring at me. His eyes are startlingly blue.

“No,” I say again. “Aurelio—”

“His Highness. You call him His Highness.”

Interesting.

I have no idea how this man is going to react to the truth. But then I can’t really hide it. I have His Highness’s bite on my neck.

I take a different angle instead. “Sully left and I opened the door and I—” I take a deep breath. “His scent was faint. I don’t know what blockers you people had him on but it was wearing off. It was still barely there, but even so, it brought me to my knees. I’ve never known anything like it.”

He hasn’t taken his eyes off me. The young man at the door makes a disbelieving noise.

I shake my head. “That was it. I was lost. It was him. I don’t care about the money. I don’t care about Sully. I’m pretty sure he fucked me over anyway. I don’t care about anything except Aurelio. His Highness.”

He looks at me then he puts the gun down on the table, gets up, and comes over to me.

He takes hold of my collar and pulls it down and turns my head with two fingers under my jaw, the way you’d turn a horse’s head to look at its teeth.

He says a word in his own language. Not to me. The younger one comes off the door, hat and all, and looks too, and he says the same word back, quieter.

The old man lets go of my collar. He doesn’t straighten it.

“We have had the information,” he says, “that His Highness had been bitten.”

He goes back and sits down on the edge of the table again, and he does it slower than he got up.