2025-11-28 21:28:00
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Chapter 819
The aunt held her wrist against her chest and stared at Preston as if she had never seen him before."Preston, why did you hit me?" Her voice shook. "You told us yourself, at breakfast. You picked up the phone, and by morning the harbour was clean. Did I say something wrong?""Shut up!" Preston's voice cracked down the middle. "Will you just shut up!""A witness," said Curtis Bennett.He took his hand off the coffin for the first time since they had come in. He walked down the line slowly, and stopped so close to Preston that Preston had nowhere to look but at him."Your own family," Curtis said gently. "Under my brother's roof. I'd call that a witness. Wouldn't you?"Preston's knees went. He grabbed at the arm of the man beside him, and the man shook him off."No! Listen to me! Please, listen!" It all came out of him at once. "I never called anyone! I don't have friends in the capital! I don't have friends anywhere! I was at home that night, drunk in my own bed! I woke up and the har
Chapter 818
For one heartbeat nobody in the great hall moved.Then the doorway kept filling. Ten men. Twenty. Forty. Fifty of them in long dark coats, pouring in from the front doors and the kitchen passage and the terrace, until every wall of the hall was lined with them and there was no way out that did not have a man standing in it.Every one of them had a gun in his hand."Down! Everybody down!""Hands on the table! Where I can see them!""Phones! On the floor! Now!"A gun barrel cracked against a crystal glass and it burst across the cloth. A guest who reached for his pocket was slammed face first onto the table with a muzzle pressed into the back of his neck. The mayor had almost reached the side door. A man stepped out in front of him, put a pistol under his chin, and walked him backwards, step by step, to his chair."Sit, Mr. Mayor."The mayor sat. His wife was crying without a sound.A waiter dropped his tray. Two guns swung on him at once. "Down!" He knelt in the broken glass with his h
Chapter 817
The garage wing smelled of oil, wet dog and fresh bread.Felicia came in with the morning paper under her arm and her face pink from running. The dog lifted its head from Alex's slipper and thumped its tail once."Prince. Look."She spread the Coast Gazette across the workbench. Preston filled the whole front page, standing on the steps in his dark suit, his chin up. Above him, in letters as tall as a thumb: HARBOUR HERO."It's a very good picture," Alex said."That's not all." Felicia lowered her voice. "The Baroness is giving a dinner for him. Tonight, in the great hall. The mayor's coming. Half the coast. And you're to carry the trays.""Will there be bread?""Prince." She looked at him, and her eyes were wet. "Somebody killed every man on the docks the night you went walking. And this morning you're asking about bread."Alex broke a roll in half and gave the bigger piece to the dog."I walked a long way," he said. "I'm very hungry."Felicia opened her mouth. Then she folded the pa
Chapter 816
By nine o'clock the whole coast was watching the harbour on its phones, and the Baroness had called the house to breakfast.Nobody was eating there either.The Baroness sat at the head with her cane against her chair, Patricia at her right hand in pale silk. Serena sat beside her husband, who was buttering his third piece of toast.The television on the sideboard showed the docks again. Police tape. Wet cranes. White sheets."All of them," the Baroness said flatly. "Victor Russell and every man he had. In one night.""I heard there were nearly two hundred," Patricia said softly.The door opened, and Preston came in.He had changed his shirt and combed his hair, and he did not look at Serena."Morning, Gran." He kissed the Baroness's cheek. "I suppose you've seen the news.""Sit down, Preston."He sat and buttered a roll slowly, and the whole table waited."I told you I'd make a few calls," he said at last. "I made them."Serena's hand went still on the cloth."What calls?" the Barones
Chapter 815
The idiot had walked out of the Grand a minute after his promise, with two bread rolls wrapped in a napkin for the dog. By midnight the guests were gone, and he had not come back.Serena sat on the Grand's wet steps with her phone. Her father sat beside her in his torn jacket, holding his ribs."I need to find a way to settle this," she said. "Peacefully. Tonight.""Serena." Gideon's voice was careful. "It's Victor Russell. Nobody on this coast will put their hand into that fire. Not for us.""Then I'll ask until somebody does. He thinks Victor Russell will forgive him, Father. He thinks he can walk in and say sorry.""It would be the worst thing you could do. If you cross him now—""He came for me, Father." She looked at him. "When nobody in that room moved, he came for me with a tray. Should I just sit here and watch him die?"Gideon opened his mouth. Then he closed it again.She dialled."Good evening. It's Serena Tiffany. I'm so sorry to call this late. It's about Victor Russell—"
Chapter 814
The bread rolls sat on the side table, neat and untouched.Now the men had Serena by both arms, and the great doors were getting closer.Then somebody stepped into their path, holding a silver tray with nothing on it."Excuse me," Alex said. "That's my wife."The men stopped, mostly from surprise. Connor turned round with the loan folders under his arm."What is this?" he said. "Another hero?""No. A husband."Connor laughed. His men laughed with him, and then five hundred guests laughed from their chairs, because laughing was safer.Connor walked up close and blew cigar smoke into the idiot's face."You've got some nerve, talking to me like that. Do you know who I am? My father is Victor Russell."Alex blinked through the smoke. "My father is the Emperor."He said it the way he said everything, mildly, like a man telling you the time.The laughing stopped.For a moment the whole ballroom remembered at once what nobody ever said aloud. The idiot by the kennels was the Tenth Prince. Hi
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Bella Kane or Kent??
sometimes updating extra chapters makes the readers happy. consider it