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“Yep, so here’s how this all happened. I told Holton I didn’t use the Queen’s money, but even if I did, her assets need to be taken care of properly. If everyone is sick, then they can’t train. He made a comment about checking on their training by bringing the Mission’s men here to fuck Section B. That man has had his eye on Silla, and I refuse to allow her to be used like a cum dumpster by those men,” I growl. I’m not going to mention the possibility of the Queen coming here for now, since the window is so slim that she will.

“Fucker.” Sidney sighs. “Is he the same man that was bothering Silla during the raid?”

“Yes, the very same. Section B doesn’t exist to be a whore house for the Queen’s men. So I pissed him off, and he went to Queen Cinder with who knows what excuse or story. FRC’s bookkeeper told me immediately after that she had been contacted about our reduced funds, which is why I’m now here.” I sigh.

“I’m assuming you have a plan?” Ayden asks.

“Yes, and I’ll need your help. We have cleared plots in the greenhouse, right? Can we plant more vegetables there?” As Ayden and Sidney nod, I continue. “We may need to survive as vegetarians for a bit, but it’s manageable. Once the winter months pass, maybe we can look into buying chickens from one of the traveling markets. This all leads me to the need for more income. Can we also plant more of our infamous black roses for sale?”

Sidney grunts, but I ignore him as Ayden begins to speak. “I can reach out to the florists who are on our waiting list to spark interest in The Criminal’s Redemption. Sidney, want to help me with the splicing and planting?” he asks with a smirk.

“You created those blooms?” Sidney breathes, and I realize the twins have been keeping secrets. Oops.

“I did,” Ayden chuckles. “A little rainy day funding. Warden, I won’t let you pay me for marketing and selling these until we’re way back in the black. If we didn’t have a back up plan, people would be starving. This would be real fucking bad.”

“I can’t… Ayden, I can’t ask you to do that,” I deny, my eyes widening.

“I want to pull in recruits to help with the gardening,” Sidney says, ignoring my words. “We have a list of those that have a background in gardening or farming, right?”

“Yeah,” Ayden murmurs, pulling it up on the computer. “I have it here. I’ll print it out for you. Our nosiness is working in our favor today.”

“Anything else that we can do?” Andrya asks, chewing on her bottom lip. We’re all worried, but I have a feeling it’ll be fine.

“Yeah, Isaac takes extra hacking jobs, so I’m going to talk to the Section A department to see if they’ll be willing to as well. Maybe throw in ten percent into FRC’s coffers. If the Queen is going to be a twatsandwich, I want to make sure we have reserves,” I tell them.

“This is so fucking petty of them!” Andrya explodes, throwing up her hands. “We train, feed, and take care of her assets for her future spy activities. Crippling our ability to do this is just stupid.”

“Exactly. They want to find us incapable of running this place. There are a lot of things we wish we could change, but we’re the best people to run this place. Let me go get people rallied, and I’ll shoot an email out for a staff meeting tonight after the assets are in bed. If you see Silla, explain we have a meeting, and point her in a direction to sleep tonight.” I sigh.

“There’s no reason for her to go to bed alone once we’re done, nor do I want her to misunderstand the situation.”

The Trio nods, knowing she could easily think we’re forgetting about her. One day, Silla Tremaine will know how much we all care for her and never second guess it.

We just have to keep showing her. I have a long day ahead of me, but when I pass her in the hallway later, I wink at her. Damn, she is so damn pretty when she blushes.

SILLA

There’s an odd frenetic energy in FRC today. The staff are all going somewhere, closing doors for meetings, and it all feels so secretive.

It scares me. Cinder has ways of making people’s lives difficult just because she can, and I don’t want that to happen to anyone here. The twins have been taking more calls from the Queen’s staff about their program, with both of them adamantly refusing to graduate anyone for another four and a half months. They told me that a month could be shaved off of training, but no more.

While poison is the preferred method of death for Section B, the Trio are also pulling in more hands on options. Garroting, pressure points to knock out marks, and showing us how to take down someone who is attempting to kill us.

Andrya told me they’re hoping the fatality rate for Section B graduates will decrease if they have other tricks in their arsenal. Personally, I think it’s smart, but I worry I won’t be able to put up much of a fight against a grown man.

“Silla, if you know how to paralyze a man, pin them down, and use that gorgeous body… You’ll be fine,” she reassures me, squeezing my arm before going to a meeting the staff are having.

I hope she’s right. I may not like what my future becomes, but I do want to be able to survive it. I’m just happy to have a fighting chance.

Laying in Andrya’s bed, I take a deep breath as I reflect on things. When I refused to marry Cinder’s choice of husband, she threatened to burn my world down before seemingly forgetting my existence. She plays the long game, and Isaac mentioned as much during our last training exercise.

“I’ve been lookinginto your trial proceedings, and who made the order for your arrest, Silla,” he told me. “It was buried under a ton of redacted records, which were the first of the red flags I found. Queen Cinder and a Sir Trellon put forward the paperwork for you to be taken prisoner. After this, you had the fastest trial that I’ve seen. I’ll keep looking to see why she did this, but you may have the reason locked up in your sexy brain.”

He’s trying sohard to get me to forgive him, taking it as his mission to help me figure out why I’m even here. I’m not totally innocent, but regardless I don’t deserve to be the Queen’s whore for the rest of my life. At the end of the day, I have forgiven Isaac for getting so immersed in his work that he forgot about me. He shows me every day how important I am, but I don’t know how to stop being stubborn and let him know that I understand. I need to try harder to show him, even if I can’t find the words. ‘Life is too damn short’are my last thoughts before my eyes start to close.

Queen Cinder frownsacross from me in her private library. “Drizella… you can’t possibly be telling me that you want to marry for love, do you? This marriage will ensure you’ll never have to want for money again!”

“Life is about more than that,” I explain. My step-sister doesn’t love her husband, so she doesn’t understand. I only want money so I can be free from the weight of the responsibilities my family insists that I owe them. However, marrying this Prince Hubert person is merely shackling me to a new type of prison.