AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"I'm not cleaning that up."
I slowly panned to look at René.
He frowned at me. "What? I'm not."
I rolled my eyes before looking back at Tashi. "I'm going to take my family upstairs and get them settled in. Please make arrangements for Alpha Santos to be transferred to King Constantine's jail. I'll send a report to him in the morning."
I glanced around until I spotted my assistant. "Paolo, I'm sorry it had to end this way."
There were tears in his eyes even as the man squared his shoulders and faced me. "There is no other way it could have ended, sir. Benito was a traitor."
"Please give your condolences to your parents."
"Of course, sir."
"If you could see to having someone clean the entryway up, you can take the rest of the evening off. We can meet in my study in the morning to work on that letter to King Constantine."
"Sir?"
"We also need to look into getting the panic room repaired and set up interviews for another house butler. Your brother Tito is old enough, right? Has he been fully trained?"
"Yeeesss, sir?" He frowned deeply. "You still want my family to work for you, sir?"
"Of course I do," I snapped. "What kind of question is that?"
"But...my brother..."
"Benito's misdeeds are his own, Paolo. I trust you implicitly. You wouldn't be my assistant if I didn't."
Paolo straightened even more and his tears dried up. "Thank you, sir. I'll get this mess cleared up right away and then arrange for meals to be delivered to your rooms. I'm sure I can call my father and have him come take over the house until we interview someone new."
"That would be fine."
I knew there was more I needed to deal with, but right now, I just wanted to get René behind closed doors and hug him. Maybe check him over from head to toe and make sure he wasn't injured.
Paolo stepped forward and offered both René and I something to wipe our hands off on. Mine weren't nearly as bad as René, but it was still nice to have some of the blood wiped off.
"Sir, if you have a tracker in you," Tashi said, "we need to find it."
I sighed, knowing Tashi was right. "How?"
"They said you swallowed it," René said, "so it's probably some sort of capsule. Maybe you could find it if you had a medical detector or something."
"We can try that, sir," Paolo said, "but if that doesn't locate it, I suggest that we call your doctor and bring in a portable X-ray machine."
I nodded to give my consent. "Do what you have to do to find it."
I didn't like the idea of a tracker inside my body even if the person that put it there was no longer around. I couldn't take the chance that more people were involved in this mess.
I escorted René, his parents, and Pierre upstairs. I showed them to two connecting rooms and then walked to the one directly across the hallway. Due to the mess in my bedroom, I escorted René this one. Technically, it was considered the consort's room, but I had never used it.
As soon as the door closed, I drew René into my arms. "Are you sure you're okay?"
He had just been in a battle and killed someone.
"I'm fine, I promise."
"I can't believe Benito and those other idiots thought they had a chance of becoming prince without a sanctioned challenge. We did away with coups centuries ago because too many innocents got caught in the crossfire."
