Glitter (Glitter Duology #1)(12)

“Then tell me!”

He’s no longer weeping in earnest, but tears continue to leak down his once-dignified face, wetting the craggy beard I remember stroking as a child. Back then it was a carefully trimmed goatee that he pomaded to a jaunty point at the end of his chin. “You must not tell. You mustn’t. It’s such a secret. I promised him no one would ever know.”

He looks up. I’d almost forgotten how vibrant his eyes can be. Mine are brown. Mother’s, too. But his are green. Once, they were striking against his deep olive skin—a reminder of his Israeli descent. Now the color only makes his pallor look more sallow.

“They make me forget. But if…if I don’t have them, I can’t—please.” He stretches his hands out for the patches, and he makes such a pathetic picture, I can’t do anything but hand them over.

It doesn’t matter; it’s already too late. The money is gone and the criminal with it. May as well let Father have whatever that stuff is—lord knows I can’t do anything with it. My skirts pouf around me as I join him on the cold stone floor, feeling thoroughly defeated and wishing I could curl up on his lap the way I did as a little girl.

I turn to my father, and he freezes in terror. One of the patches is in his hand and he’s peeled off half the backing. I squint at the square, and even in the dim light I see something sparkle on the adhesive side. His eyes leap from my face to the patch and back again. Then, some sort of decision made, he pushes up the unbuttoned cuffs of his linen shirt and pulls another patch away from his skin. My stomach churns—the surface of his arm is crisscrossed with blackened lines where residue from the adhesive clings. He finds a clean(ish) spot and rubs the new patch on. Only then does he release his breath in a long, luxurious sigh.

“It makes me happy,” he says, his voice sparkling with bliss.

Then it dawns on me. “It’s…it’s a drug, isn’t it?”

After a moment, he gives me a barely perceptible nod.

I slump against the wall. Despite the sloth, self-indulgence, and gluttony that are not only accepted but expected in the palace, illicit substances are absolutely forbidden. Thus far the courts have upheld Sonoma’s dearly bought corporate sovereignty, but INTERPOL is always lurking and looking for an excuse to burst through our protective veil and find a way to help the UN seize it back. There isn’t much that can pierce the legal web of power and immunity that Sonoman-Versailles enjoys, but the international narcotics trade is one, and there are ridiculously crushing penalties for those who would dabble.

“How much did you pay for it?” I whisper.

“Six hundred euros.”

My eyes snap to the envelope. Fifteen. The numbers tumble through my head. Forty euros apiece. I narrow my eyes. “How many times?”

I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but his eyes become even emptier. Guilt or confusion? I can’t tell.

“How often do you buy this much?” I clarify, pointing at the envelope. How much have you stolen from me?

“He comes once a week,” my father whispers.

Six hundred euros a week?

I look up and around the perimeter of the darkened room, lit only by one set of flickering LED candles in an elaborate sconce on the wall. “How have you not been caught?” The Sonoman government does not, of course, work on the honor system. There are scanners in several areas of the palace that can detect all manner of drugs better than any trained dog.

“I never leave this room,” he says simply.

But there’s M.A.R.I.E. The balance between privacy and technology is a concern going back nearly a hundred years to our founding in the twenty-first century, but the convenience M.A.R.I.E. affords us is made possible through constant audiovisual surveillance. Everything that happens in the palace is at least potentially recorded.

“I’m a voting member,” he says, as though that were an answer.

“I don’t understand.”

“Voters’ offices aren’t monitored. It’s a conflict of…of…”

“Conflict of interest,” I finish for him. With the King also being the CEO, early administrators would have demanded a place to discuss business matters off the record. So all high nobility have one unmonitored office. Most are in the corporate wing of the palace. I hadn’t considered the fact that my father’s is in our home. Their home.

He waves a hand. “Your mother made the arrangements.”

Of course she did.

His eyes roll over to mine. “I failed you.”

The good daughter in me wants to protest—to comfort him—but it would be an untruth. He failed me in so many ways. Especially the night Sierra Jamison was killed. My mother plotted, schemed, informed both of us what our roles were to be. He never demanded justice, nor came to my defense. Looking back now, I understand that she couldn’t have come up with such a tight plan in that moment. I’ve finally realized that she must have spent months looking for an opportunity to trap the King.

Justin, what have you done? she said that night. It sounded so off-the-cuff. I wonder now how long she’d been waiting to say it. What kind of disaster she might have otherwise pushed him—pushed both of us—into to make it happen. My mind jumps back to that night.

“I—I—” the King stammered in the face of my mother’s question. “It was an accident.”