Page 77 of Twisted Empire

21

Elias

Eighteen months later

“Excuse me, everyone.”I tapped a fingernail against the side of my champagne glass as I reached the dais at the front of the hotel ballroom I’d booked out. Throngs of beautifully-dressed party guests stood around in suits and gowns, their heads turned to me.

Over a hundred people were here to celebrate the recent release of Tatum and Pri’s book about their time with Crown and Dagger. They’d worked hard on it for a long time, and after an extensive pre-release tour organized by the publishing company, the book had been a wild success.

“I’d just like to say a few words about my beautiful wife Tatum and her amazing friend Priyanka. Please join me up here, ladies,” I said, motioning to the center of the crowd.

Tatum was there in a long silver dress, her eyes sparkling and skin glowing along with the luminescent fabric. Her friends were clustered around her. The sight of them standing there together in long gowns made a fond memory pop into the front of my mind—our wedding six months ago. Pri, Greer, Willa and Katie had been Tatum’s bridesmaids.

We had the wedding in one of the gardens at Roden, which was Tatum’s favorite place in the world aside from our Victorian waterfront home. Even though my family had fallen from grace and lost massive amounts of their old money, the King name still carried quite a lot of weight, so a lot of people expected us to have some extravagant event at a private estate with hundreds of guests, world-famous musical performers, media coverage, fireworks, and peacocks roaming the grounds.

Instead we’d opted for a small event. Close friends only. No media announcements. We’d already received enough attention from the world when we destroyed Crown and Dagger, causing one of the biggest scandals to hit the world this century, so we didn’t want our wedding to be a spectacle for strangers. We wanted it to be ours.

The ceremony was short and sweet, and when we were finally husband and wife, we honeymooned for several weeks in Paris. I chose the location because it was the first place Tatum picked to be displayed outside the fake window when we were hiding in the Ark.

She’d never had the opportunity to travel before, so while Paris might seem clichéd or passé to a lot of wealthy snobs who preferred more exclusive places, it was one of her dream destinations. I was happy to make that dream come true. Besides, fuck all the pretentious snobs. Paris was beautiful, and it was even more beautiful with Tatum in it.

Upon our return, she’d graduated from her course at Roden, and then she’d thrown herself into finishing the book with Pri. I’d read it twice, in awe of the way both women were able to pour their feelings out onto the pages. I always knew how terrified Tatum was when she was in captivity, but when I read her book, I actually felt that fear.

Fortunately, it was over now. She’d never be afraid again. I’d make sure of that for the rest of my days, just as we made sure the third-level members of Crown and Dagger went down in flames like they deserved.

Tatum had made a good point about them in the end of her book, which I hoped they all read one day while they rotted in prison. She said they were the same as many other people on this planet—just a bunch of guys with superiority complexes who wanted to believe there was something more to the world than the true banality of it all. Some way for them to play God and rule over the rest for eternity. They had the wealth and means to at least pretend there was something deeper, pretend they were all-powerful gods, but in the end they were nothing more than a bunch of sociopathic criminal assholes sitting around drinking, gambling, fucking, and carrying out meaningless rituals whilst playing at being a shadow cabal. They added nothing to the world but pain and suffering. Now they were less than nothing themselves.

Tatum also talked me up a lot in the book, raving about how she couldn’t possibly have survived her experience without me. I viewed things a little differently. The way I saw it, she saved me.

Before I met her, I’d been destroying myself with black lies and hatred, detaching myself from the world and slowly turning to stone as my mind went to darker and darker places. I’d done many terrible things as a result of that darkness, but my beautiful Doll understood and forgave me for all of it. Even the things I thought were unforgivable.

She brought me into the light. She made me realize I wasn’t a monster. I wasn’t born under some sort of grim cloud, destined to become an evil tyrant ruling over a dark empire like my father. I wasn’t a stone-cold killer.

I’d killed in the past, sure, but only to protect her, because I knew she wouldn’t feel truly safe in this world until my father was dead and buried. As for Matthew Towne, that was yet another move I made in order to protect her, and he wound up surviving the severe stab wounds anyway, unbeknownst to us at the time. I would never try to kill another person for simple amusement, and like Tatum once said, that set me apart from the others. A monster would never wonder if he or she was a monster.

I waited for Tatum and Pri to join me on the dais. Then I slung an arm around Tatum. Her eyes were wide and nervous.

“I’d like everyone to raise their glasses in a toast,” I said. “I know you’re all here to support the book, so I thought I’d share what I just heard from the publisher. Around an hour ago, Prisoner sold its twenty millionth copy. That’s twenty million books sold in less than a week. How incredible is that?”

Cheers and whoops echoed throughout the ballroom. Glasses lifted and clinked. I held up one hand. “Wait, there’s more. I have another special announcement to make. Tatum and Pri have decided to donate ninety percent of the book royalties to a charity Willa van der Veer and I founded a while ago which aids the previous victims of the Lodge as well as many other victims of violence and trafficking. So because of your support, and the support of every other person who’s bought this book, a lot of people out there will receive the help they need. The help they deserve. I can’t even begin to tell you how grateful and proud I am to share this news with you. It’s all thanks to these two lovely ladies.” I nodded toward Tatum and Pri.

Another cheer went up in the crowd. I raised my glass. “All right, I’ve bragged about my amazing wife and her awesome friend enough, haven’t I?” I said with a teasing grin. “So I’ll let you go. Eat, drink, be merry. You know the drill.”

Tatum slipped a hand into mine and led me into a dark corner of the room. “I almost had a heart attack up there,” she said when we were standing still.

“Sorry, I know you don’t like a lot of attention. I’m just so proud of you.”

She shook her head. “It’s not that. It’s just… when you said you had a special announcement to make, I thought you might’ve found out before I had a chance to tell you myself.”

“Found out what?”

She bit her bottom lip. “I was going to wait till after the party to tell you,” she began. “But I’m… I’m pregnant.”

My eyes widened. “You are?”

“I know we weren’t trying and I’m on the pill, but I guess it’s just like your father once said: sometimes one slips through. Only this time it’s really happened. I’m actually pregnant now.”

She looked slightly nervous to share the news with me, but there was no need for that. I couldn’t be happier.

---