Page 49 of A Queen and HER Bad Boy (Spies and Royals #4)

Her father wasn’t waiting for an answer, only dangling bait.

She knew this, and yet, his every taunt still bruised her.

“I rushed you and Achilles into this marriage because my sources told me how Aggie Mnon was out of prison and threatening to hurt our political ambitions. Had I known…? Well… anyway, it was worse than I thought. There’s a reason Atreus Mnon pushed this marriage—he wants to install Achilles on the throne.

Then afterwards, he plans to replace you with someone more pliable…

after you met your untimely end, of course. ”

The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. Aggie Mnon had hinted as much, but not in so many words.

“Let’s see—who would he replace you with after an acceptable amount of mourning?

A neighboring princess? The daughter of a titled Tirrojan oligarch?

An… American heiress?” That threat felt very real.

Her heart sped up, not able to grasp even half of what he was saying.

“Now that your groom has run to your protection against the diabolical Aggie Mnon, he’s wormed his way into the hearts of our people. A brilliant strategy, of course.”

Was her father actually suggesting that taking down her cousin was all part of a strategy to make Achilles look good before stealing the throne from her?

She had to grip the back of the chair to steady herself. “He would never do that to me.”

“Just like he would never cheat on you? Grow up, Bris. This is not the time to be a child. Your husband might not know the extent he’ll go to bring the Myrdons back into power, but we already know that he’ll do anything to keep those he loves safe.”

She’d seen that on the Island of Scheria when Atreus Mnon used Clysta to move him like a weapon.

She tried to ground herself, breathing in, breathing out, remembering the ring her husband wore, the one with ants etched behind the band.

The symbol of the Myrdons worn openly like a declaration of loyalty. He’d had such a reasonable explanation…

Achilles… is this really true? Could the Myrdons still control him? He’d never hurt her, but they could trick him, get him out of the way, so they could do their worst.

“It appears there’s been a falling out between Clysta and my younger brother. Nothing will stop Atreus Mnon from snapping her like a twig, and the Myrdons can’t wait for the moment to let your husband in on the surprise. We have our own collateral, however.”

Gena! Her stomach sank. Was that his strategy? Keep Achilles in line through his sister, while Atreus Mnon endangered his mother? Using those they loved as hostages was messy. If this was a big game to find prisoners, then she knew a better pawn to play!

“Do you truly have Aggie Mnon?” They could turn this on Atreus Mnon—his hopes and dreams were wrapped up in his son. Why not control him that way, threaten to lock Aggie up forever so that he’d leave Achilles alone! “Where’d you put my cousin?”

He hesitated. “That I will never tell you, darling, not while you are under Achilles’s spell.

And on that note, the High Consortium must never know how messy this has gotten either.

If they guessed how completely the Myrdons own Achilles, they would never allow you to be queen.

We must play this out until the very end, away from their watchful eyes. ”

Play out what? What did her father expect of her?

“So, who will use who?” he asked, his voice dropping, still intense, still freezing her. “I expect you to be the queen I brought you up to be, not some dopey lovesick housewife from the fifties.”

She couldn’t keep back her gasp this time. The insult cut deep because part of her wanted something like that—at least to be born in simpler times, and to love her husband without fearing that he’d use that weakness to take advantage of her.

“You are to give him this gift,” her father’s voice brooked no argument.

From his jacket pocket, he withdrew something that caught the lamplight.

A delicate silver cross necklace, its surface polished with care.

The cross itself was intricately carved with tiny Tirrojan symbols that seemed to dance in the flickering light, beautiful and deadly.

“Let’s see if you can fight back. Prove to me that you are stronger than the enemy. ”

But Achilles isn’t truly the enemy, is he? Her heart still couldn’t believe it. The necklace was beautiful, the kind of gift a loving wife might give her husband. But she could feel the invisible strings attached. Was it bugged? Tracked? Both?

If so, her father would know if she didn’t give it to him.

She wanted to cry at all she was losing.

“I can’t… talk to him, knowing that you’re…

listenin—” Her voice broke on the last word.

The thought of their intimate moments being monitored, of her father hearing Achilles’s whispered words of love made her skin crawl.

A cruel smile danced on his lips. “I told you not to pull one of your tantrums! Or do you want this disastrous alignment annulled because you can’t play it right?

How can you possibly think that anything has been private between you so far?

Lately, I’ve considered scrapping this game altogether and giving you to another, more worthy husband.

I’ve been told that the Earl of Alexopoulos has been sniffing around you.

He is like a wolf around fresh meat. I wouldn’t mind using you as bait to snare a wealthy oligarch to fund our empire. ”

The memory of the Earl’s hands on her, his leering comments, his threat to make her his conquest—it all came flooding back.

Her father couldn’t do that, right? He wouldn’t!

He’d forced her into this first marriage—what would stop him again?

Real fear struck her, like broken glass shooting through her veins while her stomach clenched like a fist around the shards.

The thought of being handed over to that predator like a piece of property made her sick.

If she refused outright, her father would know how completely that prospect terrified her and push it harder just to make her do what he wanted.

“Dimitri’s deep pockets funds most of my kingdom,” her father said. “If you aren’t aware of that by now, you’re more of an innocent than I thought. He is also loyal to me. He has proven that implicitly.”

“How?” she asked. The man was a rat, faithful to no one; every move calculated. “Everything he does is fake. You can’t trust him.”

“I’m not a fool. Let’s just say that we share the same enemies. He has been most… helpful as of late. That is all I will say on the matter. Either way, you will cultivate that relationship, my dear. I’m sure that prospect won’t seem so bad once your husband’s attention strays elsewhere.”

The casual way he said it, as if he were discussing trade agreements rather than feeding her to that monster made her want to scream.

She took a deep breath. “No.” The word hung in the air between them like a thrown gauntlet. She’d finally said it—the word she’d been too frightened to speak since the beginning of all this.

“No?”

Didn’t she have a right to some honor, even if no one else did? Her revulsion loosened her tongue even more. “No, I won’t have anything to do with him.”

He laughed, a sound so harsh and brittle that it seemed to scrape against her ears, devoid of any warmth or paternal affection.

“You’ve always had a soft spot for Achilles—I knew I’d get the truth out of you, one way or another.

After all my warnings, you’ve fallen for that boy!

” His accusation spat venom. “Very well—if you want to keep your girlhood crush… you bring him under heel before he sinks his claws into you and you wish you’d listened to what I said.

” He dropped the necklace, and she watched helplessly as the chain slithered through her fingers with the weight of a shackle.

The cross landed cold and heavy against her palm.

“Give this to him or you will see how I will make my every threat good.”

Hot tears burned behind her eyes, but she bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood. She wouldn’t cry, not here, not in front of him. She wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. He didn’t own her—she’d never give in!

“Don’t push me,” he said, looking every bit as stubborn as she felt. “I won’t hesitate to do it, like I took no second thought to order the death of Achilles’s father when he turned on us.”

The confession hit like a thunderbolt. After all the lies, all the denials, he was finally admitting the truth. He’d murdered his best friend. She stood frozen, her world tilting on its axis. Everything Achilles suspected, everything he’d suffered—it was all true.

Her father watched her reaction with the detached interest of a man making his next move. “When you become queen, you too will learn how to do hard things.”

The casual way he’d said it, as if murder were just another royal duty, made her stomach revolt. This was her future—ordering deaths, manipulating lives, becoming a heartless tyrant like him? No!

She’d rather die!

Bris shook her head, barely aware of what she was doing, she was so sickened. “He was your… friend.”

Her father’s eyes hardened at the memory.

“And if I let him live, neither you nor your brother would be alive today. I watched my own brother dragged to his execution, his whole family hunted down like animals, even your—your mother…” his voice choked on emotion that she rarely saw, but now the darkness spread across his face, a despair so potent she could feel it in her own soul.

“She bled out, and I couldn’t stay with her, couldn’t save her; I was so desperate to carry you and your brother away to safety, that I couldn’t tell her how much I loved her!

Just left her like a dying dog! This whole country bled because of one man’s betrayal, so you can blame me for hating his son all you like!

You can say it wasn’t right, but you didn’t know the suffering I did.

Achilles might’ve been just a boy when I took him in…

as a hostage—perhaps that’s a better description for it, but you can be sure that I’d never let his father find his spawn again without facing me for his sins. ”

She could scarcely take this all in! This tidal wave of pain, this overwhelming rage consuming her own father making him drown in this dirty flood of hate—Oh! The sorrow she never thought she’d feel for him, for Achilles too, even for herself, made it so she could hardly breathe, hardly move.

“I’m not sorry for hating that—that… grasping leech,” her father’s voice broke through her turbulent emotions, his words dripping with venom.

“That boy turned out exactly like Peleus—crawling in the shadows, spreading disease. If you ever win my trust, I’ll tell you—I’ll tell you every last disgusting detail of what he’s done, every plot, every dirty, bloodthirsty crime he’s committed.

You’ll hate him as much as I do and welcome the Earl into your arms. I promise you that! ”