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38
Percy
Saturday: 5:32Pm
It’s not the first time someone’s thrown a black bag over my head, and it’s sure to be far from the last.
What can I say? I’m Percy fucking Owens. I live a decadently disastrous life. And when you live like I do, sometimes you just get kidnapped. It happens. No big deal.
The whole point of throwing a black bag over someone’s head is to either prevent the person from knowing where they’re going, or to keep the identity of the kidnapper a secret until the big, dramatic reveal.
The thing is, these fuckwits already revealed who they’re working for.
They’re preserving the secret location, then.
Which means it’s the first thing I want to find out.
My captors keep talking back and forth in French. They mention Anton’s name and his mother, Queen Estelle, a couple of times, but that’s about all I can make out.
When I get out of this, I need to take some French language lessons. From anyone who isn’t Anton, of course.
I don’t know where I am. I’m guessing it’s an upscale swanky hotel, and I can smell a faint scent of tea.
I’m forced down onto a chair. The bag is pulled from my head.
I whip my head from side to side, trying to remove the hair from my eyes.
I was right. I’m in a swanky hotel.
Across from me is the pretentious monarch of Menage, Anton’s mother, Queen Estelle.
The woman is a cantankerous old hag pushing seventy. She had Anton when she was thirty— I’m sure that’s because her dead husband loathed touching her.
Her hair is as white as a cotton ball. Lines run over her face like a well-traveled road map.
Her lips are as thin as a bobby pin. And just as rigid.
Though honestly, the biggest travesty regarding this woman is her fashion sense. Instead of wearing something flattering, she tries instead to dress like famous counterpart from England does—or did—back in the seventies.
Admittedly, I hold a bit of begrudging respect for the woman. She’s a strong-willed woman who’s run her country adequately, even in the face of those who said she wasn’t capable of doing so. But that’s about the only good thing I can say about the bitch.
“Mmph. I apologize for how my people treated you, Miss Owens,” she says with feigned sincerity. “Black is obviously not your color.”
She leans forward, lifts her cup of tea from the table between us. I look over my shoulders at her men in suits looming over me.
Then I look at my mother-in-law.
“Yeah, I’m sure you’re heartbroken over it,” I say with a fake smile.
I lean and pour myself a cup of tea. From the floral and apple smell, I can tell it’s chamomile tea.
I hate chamomile tea. And she knows it.
Regardless. I drink it with a smile, just to spite her.
“I think you’re smart enough to know why I had you brought here, but given your history, I doubt it. Let me tell you, so that there’s no misunderstanding, Miss Owens. Whatever you feel for my son, regardless of whether it’s real or not, is irrelevant.”
She gets right into the insults.
