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All eyes move to her. Ashby leans back in his seat. “Libby, do you care to expound?”

“I’ll expound my heel into your testicles, you fucking snake.” She presses her palms onto the table, scowling. “I raised this girl for twenty goddamn years. You have no place in her life. You’re a sperm donor,at best. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you dictate my place in her life or vice versa!”

He laughs without a trace of humor, looking toward Sy. “Let me know when we’re really ready to negotiate because I don’t think that you—”

My mother snaps, “No,youdon’t think. You don’t need to because here’s what’s going to happen.” She bears down, eyes sparking with threat. “Mydaughter moves home with us—her real family. She’ll return here for doctor appointments—supervised—and return to West End immediately. Any union with your Princes will be dissolved. I will have full access to my daughter and her child as she wishes.” Her final words emerge through gritted teeth. “And when the child is born, we will retain custody.”

Sy leans back, massive arms crossed over his chest. “Sorry, you didn’t think you were negotiating with me, did you?” He nods toward my mother. “Because she’s the one you have to convince. I’m just here to put pen to paper.”

The tightness of futility twisting in my chest isn’t unlike being bickered over like the last piece of meat at the family dinner table. “I signed the covenants. I did it this morning, by choice,” I say, finally speaking up. My mother’s eyes snap to mine for the first time, flaring. Lower, I admit, “We both know coming home isn’t an option for me, Mama.” The words are obviously half empty, and Sy must hear that. It’s not all a lie. I did sign the covenants, by choice, at the silent dining room table as Ashby sat across from me. Maybe that’s what made it so easy—the lack of pain and humiliation in it. For the first time in my life, I felt like an adult.

I’m not stupid. It was clearly a tactic. Ashby wanted me to feel that way, empowered and independent instead of trapped and hopeless.

But the parts that made it easier are a lot harder to swallow. The Dukes and my mother know what the Princes did to me, and there’s no walking away now. Not with their baby inside of me.

“Verity,” Sy says, pitching closer over the table. “You don’t have to keep this up. Not after what they did to you.”

My face falls, but before I can form a response, Killian agrees, “You have something they want. That gives you leverage, Verity.”

Ashby’s next words emerge pointedly. “I don’t think we need the West and the South coaching our Princess.”

Sy’s eyes roll, but it’s Killian who snaps, “She deserves to know her status in that seat.”

“It’s okay,” I cut in, offering Killian a flat, dull smile. “I know the play here. With all due respect, Killian, you don’t have all the information. I know what I’m doing.”

My mother thrusts a finger at me. “Now you listen to me, missy.”

Finally, I burst, “Listen? You want me to listen? I might if you ever said anything!” My mother’s mouth snaps shut, lips pursed into a tight, angry line. “When were you going to tell me that Ashby is my father, Mama? Because you should have told me back when you were grooming me to be a rival Royal. You should have told me the instant you discovered he chose me as Princess. You should have told mesomething!” Shaking my head, I release a tight, bitter laugh. “I can’t believe you’d let me go into this so ignorant and unprepared.”

“Let you?” she shrieks. “Short of tying your ass up and dragging it back to the gym, I did everything I could to stop you from doing this.”

“Everything but tell me the truth.”

Her eyes widen. “I was protecting you!”

“You werestoringme. If not for Duchess, then for something else.”

From beside me comes Ashby’s low chuckle. “You did raise a sharp one, Libby, I’ll give you that.”

Her furious gaze whips to him. “Call me that one more time, and I’m going to come over this table and feed you your teeth, you smug son of a bitch.”

He shrugs. “You did have twenty years. Surely, the girl realizes you’ve been keeping this secret as a sort of currency.”

I did realize it, but hearing the words said aloud still stings, all the more when she meets my gaze, saying with certainty, “She realizes that you only wanted her when she became useful to you, and one day she’ll realize that I was right to give her those twenty years.”

“Ms. Sinclaire,” Killian warns my mother. “No one can appreciate the complexity of family drama quite like I can. Trust me. But let’s stay on topic here. We need a compromise.”

She drops back into her seat, eyes narrowed. “Well, it sure as fuck isn’t going to come from me. I’m not leaving this shit palace without my daughter.”

Ashby takes a moment to look between them, that serene grin never leaving his lips. “Danner, hand me that remote control.”

Danner moves silently across the room and returns with a remote. A moment later, a massive television slides up and out of the floor. “I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this,” he sighs, pressing a button, and a still photo pops up. My stomach sinks like a boulder. I recognize the image immediately, even though it only reveals my face. My makeup is smeared, and my hair is a mess.

This is moments after all three of my Princes raped me on the ceremonial table. Moments before the Royal Cleansing, when every member of PNZ coated me with their cum. This is the moment they broke me. Maybe it’s even the moment they sealed my fate here, their seed finally taking hold.

Maybe the child growing inside me was created in the midst of that.

The thought alone makes my stomach churn, but worse than that is Sy’s grimace as he pointedly averts his gaze. Wordlessly, I spring from my seat, knees smarting when I slam down on the floor to wretch into the trash bin in the corner. My back heaves, the flexing muscles painful as I lose whatever was left of the morning’s post-contract breakfast.