Victor pov
The heavy, polished doors of the assembly hall shut behind me with a dull, resonant thud, sealing me inside with the most influential parasites in the kingdom. The early-morning chill hadn't yet lifted, and even indoors the cold clung to the high ceilings, slipping through the long cracks between the ornate wooden panels. Dust, old paper, and the decades-old musk of entitlement swirled in the dim, greenish lighting.
Eight families. Eight pillars of power—at least in name. In reality, they were relics leaning on decaying legacies, desperately pretending not to notice the rot.
"What urgent business necessitated… summoning us eight families this early in the morning, Mr. Grayan?"
The elder of the Grayan family sat forward, irritation carved into every line of his gaunt face. His thin gray hair lay plastered over his scalp like a final act of surrender. Around him, the remaining representatives sat stiffly in their carved chairs, their expressions echoing a single sentiment:
We don't want to be here.
Good.
I took my time with the silence, letting the moment build. I lifted the cigarette to my lips, inhaled, and exhaled slowly. The smoke spiraled upward, catching the faint glimmer of stained glass overhead before drifting into nothing. The entire table watched me as though the answer to their question might emerge from the smoke.
Finally, I raised the red document folder—unmarked, unassuming, and capable of detonating everything they thought they controlled.
"This is a confidential document from the Meuracevian Royal Archives," I said, my voice low but cutting. "It references an object long hidden by the Serenity Family."
A shift—barely noticeable, but there. A glance exchanged. A throat cleared too quickly. A subtle curl of a lip.
Fear. Interest. Caution.
"We only found a single line that could be interpreted as a clue." I tapped the folder with a finger. "Just one line."
I let my gaze sweep the table, watching each of them avoid meeting my eyes.
"And I believe this isn't the main document," I continued. "Just a supplementary piece. A reference. Which means someone, somewhere—perhaps someone sitting in this room—knows the rest."
Not a breath. Not a whisper.
Pathetic.
"After Diah confessed, I gained access to this." I dropped the folder onto the table, the thud echoing like a hammer hitting stone. "It's more intriguing than I expected. Unfortunately, intrigue doesn't equal clarity."
Their eyes flickered, calculating. Pretending ignorance. Hoping silence would absolve them.
"I think this might be referring to something trivial," I said slowly. "Or… so I hoped."
Inside, the truth curled like a blade in my gut.
So in order to inflate this into a bigger deal than it really is… and make a problem out of something that isn't one…
They were waiting me out. Waiting for me to lose patience. Waiting for someone else to break.
"I need more concrete proof before I start digging," I said sharply, putting out my cigarette in the silver ashtray with deliberate force.
The crisp sound of the butt being crushed sliced through the silence.
I turned away from them, letting them wonder whether it was dismissal or frustration. "None of you know anything?"
Nothing. Their silence clung to the walls like mildew.
These morons have been useless from the start.
I spun back toward them, letting years of contempt finally surface.
"You people are pathetic! You've had ties with the Serenity House for generations! Are you all just going to sit there—"
They flinched, almost in unison. Good. That was the whole point.
Their carefully curated composure cracked—just a hairline fracture—but enough for me to see the fear underneath. The elder Grayan's face drained of color; the woman beside him clenched her hands so tightly her knuckles whitened.
They knew something.
And they were terrified of me learning it.
My rage simmered into cold satisfaction.
⛓️ The Bargain — Expanded
The echo of my outburst still hung in the air when a small voice finally dared to break through the tension.
"Um…"
I glanced toward the source. Silia M. of the Dermian House—quiet, observant, a woman whose memory was sharper than any sword her family had ever produced. Her gaze flickered nervously.
"I… vaguely recall hearing something similar. A long time ago."
My lips curved, a slow, predatory smile.
Finally. A crack in the dam.
"What is it?" I asked, sharper than intended.
But before she could answer—before the revelation could slip free—the others began shifting, whispering, preparing to muddy the waters. I cut it off before the room dissolved into chaos.
"That's enough." My voice snapped them back into shape. "This meeting is over."
Confusion rippled across their faces, but none dared to question me. They rose, one by one, the unspoken threat of consequences hanging heavy in the air. I had seen enough. I had what I needed—not answers, but confirmation:
They were hiding something.
And they were afraid of it being unearthed.
Later, the grandeur of the hall gave way to stark confinement—the interrogation room. The windowless walls absorbed every sound. A single lamp cast a harsh, narrow circle of light on the wooden table where I sat, facing the man I intended to use.
"One thing I learned from my previous encounter with Serena…"
The memory flashed—her eyes, impossibly distinctive, almost luminous. Eyes that held secrets older than any archive.
"…is that someone with eyes like hers…"
The thought trailed off. I refocused on the man in front of me—shackled to survival, not freedom.
He swallowed, his voice tight. "You're… only helping me because you want something. A release. A new identity. Isn't that it?"
I laughed softly. A sound without warmth.
He wasn't wrong.
But he wasn't right, either.
"It's because you're the most suitable person for the job," I said slowly, leaning back, letting my smile widen into something bold… and lethal.
I didn't need to explain the job.
I didn't need to explain the risks.
And I certainly didn't need his trust.
His desperation was enough.
He lowered his eyes. Resigned. Cornered.
He had no room to refuse.
The game had shifted.
And he was now a piece placed exactly where I wanted him.
---
Authors pov
I studied the man sitting across from me in the interrogation room—if one could call him a man in this state. His wrists were bound, his knuckles scraped raw from earlier resistance, and his eyes… wide, trembling, dilated with a desperate cocktail of fear and hope. A man cornered by circumstances, but clinging to the illusion of a bargain.
"I don't want anything from you."
A lie. A beautiful, calculated lie.
My voice remained level, but internally, I was already charting the path he would walk for me. His survival instincts made him pliable. His history made him indispensable. And his blind desire for freedom made him predictable.
One way or another, this man will prove useful to me.
He thought he was fighting for his life.
I knew he was fighting for mine.
My thoughts drifted, uninvited, to Serena Serenity. To those impossible eyes—shards of burning starlight that refused to bow to anyone. A person with eyes like hers… I had learned the truth the hard way:
Those eyes will never obey you, no matter how much pressure you apply, no matter how severe the threat.
So the solution was simple.
"In that case," I murmured aloud, letting the logic unravel in front of him, "it's better to have someone close to them nearby. Someone who can coax them, manipulate them… convince them."
My gaze sharpened.
"This man was Serena's bodyguard for two years. He traveled with her to foreign soil. Even if he was a spy placed to monitor her, their shared time means there is familiarity. A rapport. Perhaps even trust."
A slow smile curled at the edge of my lips—cold and precise.
"He would have a far better chance of persuading her to comply than any stranger."
Even if what I demanded touched the forbidden heart of the matter.
Even if it was related to… Serena Serenity herself.
The thought of the Serenity Family's secret rippled through me. Serena was its head, its guardian, its last line of defense. She stood between me and the truth. And the man trembling before me was the only pawn with a thread connecting him to her.
There were two ways to use a pawn:
Manipulate him into controlling the queen—
or use him as leverage against her.
"Or," I mused, voice dropping, "I could do the reverse. Hold Frederick hostage to pressure Serena."
The name Frederick tightened the web.
He was a link. A living, breathing pressure point.
But Serena, the elusive queen, was already making her move.
My agents' report arrived the next morning—a crisp photograph of Serena in her office, framed by enormous windows and washed in daylight. She stood speaking to one of her staff, her posture pristine, her expression composed, unaware of the subtle traps closing around her.
"You're in early today, Lady Serena," the older man—Logan—commented.
"I'm only here to review some important paperwork before I get going," Serena said, tone clipped, professional. "I have a business engagement elsewhere."
The report detailed the rest:
—The Commissioner, Awy a, was away on a business trip.
—She would meet him the day after tomorrow.
—But she had been granted permission to meet with Frederick at the palace.
—That meeting was scheduled for the morning.
Frederick. Again.
Not my Frederick—the pawn sitting in my interrogation room—but someone else entirely. Someone with weight. Someone tied to the secret at the center of the royal document.
Serena moved with precision. From the palace to Taulouse's charity event. From consolidating power at the hotel to managing political vulnerabilities.
She was clearing obstacles, tightening her grip, stepping ahead on the board.
I have to move faster than the Queen.
The report continued: Serena's exchange with Logan.
"Thank you as always, Uncle Logan," she said lightly—too lightly.
He responded with brooding sentiment. "Lady Iansa was not simply my former boss. I admired her greatly. Her illness… it pains me deeply."
Weak. Predictable. Emotional.
Serena, however, was steel incarnate.
She cut sentiment short and issued a command:
"I'll be running the hotel myself from now on. Report only to me."
Logan bowed into submission. She expanded her staff. Increased her control. Removed obstacles. She was preparing the ground for her moves.
A queen tightening her defenses.
"For the next little while, I'll be coming and going freely," she told him. "Please focus on your duties and pay me no mind."
But then Logan asked a question he shouldn't have known to ask.
"There's a rumor… that you and Sir Eiser are getting divorced. Is it true?"
The report caught the exact instant the mask slipped—a faint crack, a shadow of emotion crossing Serena's features.
Divorce.
A distraction.
A vulnerability.
A political tremor.
A weakness for me to exploit.
If Logan knew, others knew.
If others knew, someone was talking.
And if someone was talking, the palace Frederick would know soon too.
Everything was converging.
Serena was going to the palace.
She was going to Frederick.
And I needed to know who that Frederick was.
Her Frederick was the missing piece of the secret I was chasing.
Her Frederick was the key.
I made my decision.
The only path forward was clear:
I needed to know the identity of the Palace Frederick.
---
Serena pov
The silence that followed Logan's question was thin, brittle—like the air before a glass shatters. My agent recorded the moment with meticulous clarity: Serena's stillness, the frozen breath between them, the weight of a truth that would topple empires if spoken aloud.
"Pardon?" Logan blinked rapidly, his shock almost childish in its sincerity.
"It's true," Serena said at last.
No tremor, no anger, no grief—only a cold, resigned certainty. The kind of tone used when discussing weather or inventory, not the collapse of a political alliance. And yet… her lips softened, her gaze lowered, just for a heartbeat.
A crack. A momentary, human fracture.
Logan scrambled to recover. "I'm sorry. It's making the staff unsettled… I'll reprimand them for spreading falsehoods."
Serena lifted her chin, the queen reclaiming her crown. "But nothing is going to change. News of the divorce will lead to some disquiet, but I'll still be right here."
It was not an explanation.
Not an apology.
It was a proclamation.
And through that simple, steady tone, she redrew the boundaries of power. Marriage or not, House Serenity would rise or fall on her command. Logan understood—and my agent captured the near-audible click of something aligning in his mind.
"Oh, I've always dreamed of this moment," he admitted, with a reverence that bordered on dangerous. "If you will allow this old man… I will do my best to continue supporting you and this hotel, Lady Serena."
He dreamed of this moment?
I leaned back in my chair as the report unfolded. Loyalty, it seemed, was merely ambition in ceremonial dress. Logan didn't fear her divorce—he welcomed it. Serena alone at the helm gave him a place to anchor his own aspirations.
Serena, ever perceptive, turned his ambition into a tether.
"You've always had my back, Uncle Logan. I'll be counting on you," she said warmly, making him feel chosen. "I'll do my best to ensure that you and the other staff can continue to have faith in me."
In one breath, she secured his devotion.
In the next, she secured his service.
"I couldn't trust anyone other than you to take such good care of my hotel."
A queen's knighthood—subtle, manipulative, binding.
"Anything else you need to let me know?" she asked.
Logan hesitated. Something weighed on him—something unsaid, something he didn't dare breach while she was in this mood. His shoulders sagged with reluctant retreat.
"Then I have something to tell—ah, never mind. As you're busy today, I'll speak to you later. It's not urgent."
"All right," Serena dismissed lightly, already pivoting to business.
Her next agenda item revealed a crucial thread: the seaside hotel expansion. A colossal project requiring manpower, logistics, and stability—another reason her divorce could become a political hazard.
"Once the construction of the seaside hotel is complete," she said, "we'll need to dispatch some staff to stabilize operations. Please check who would like to volunteer—"
RING.
The old telephone's shrill cry cut sharply through the atmosphere.
Serena's posture stiffened. She lifted the receiver and spoke with the calm of a ruler used to sudden crisis. But the report captured the shift in her eyes when she heard the voice on the other end.
"Frederick… was released?"
Her voice cracked. Barely. But it cracked.
Her secretary's reply was apologetic. "Yes, Lady Serena. He was released this morning."
Frederick.
The Frederick I had strategically placed in custody. The Frederick she still believed locked away, waiting for her carefully prepared palace visit. Her plan was neat, legal, meticulously ordered.
But my interference had rearranged her board.
"Why all of a sudden?" she asked, struggling to understand the breach in logic. "It wouldn't have been easy for Frederick to be freed whether or not the police discovered his real identity."
She knew the system too well.
Her anxiety was justified.
"I don't know the details," her secretary replied. "I heard he was released… perhaps the Commissioner took action early?"
"No," Serena said flatly. "If that were the case, he wouldn't have bothered giving me permission to meet him today."
She was right.
The Commissioner had not been involved.
This was my doing.
And it was perfect.
"Well, all right. Cancel the meeting at the palace." She exhaled sharply. "It's a good thing he was let go without much fuss. I can get the details from the Commissioner the day after tomorrow."
CLUCK.
The receiver hit its cradle.
I felt a flash of irritation—she had adapted too quickly—but also satisfaction. Serena's entire morning had realigned. She was no longer concerned with Frederick Eiser, the Royal Prosecutor, her soon-to-be ex-husband.
She was thinking about my pawn.
I shut down the live feed summary and opened the surveillance still. Serena stood on a lonely, windswept beach in the photograph—her hair caught in the salt-heavy air, her gaze soft with memory. My agent's note indicated this image came from an older deployment, a rare moment of calm between her and the bodyguard she once trusted.
"I wanted to see him in person today," her recorded inner voice read, "since it would very well be the last time… but I missed him by only a few hours."
She had cared. Truly.
And now, that care was leverage.
The final image in the report lingered on her face—eyes distant, thinking of tides and farewells.
Is he going back to Bluitenberg, or elsewhere?
I could've seen him before today… but I wanted to handle the matter legally, to avoid issues.
Her devotion to procedure had cost her.
Her sentiment had cost her more.
My Frederick was free.
And she had no legal grounds left to restrain or question him.
The game was no longer slow.
It was no longer controlled.
It had become a chase.
My priority was no longer meeting Frederick Eiser. My priority was securing my Frederick, the released bodyguard, before Serena could find him and make him truly loyal to her again.
Now that my pawn is free, I need to deploy my resources to locate him immediately and either secure him or use him to lead me to the Serenity Family's secret.
The call Serena made to cancel her palace meeting confirmed two things with surgical clarity: my pawn, Frederick the bodyguard, was officially free, and she had shifted her entire schedule—her entire strategy—to find him first.
It wasn't merely surprising—it was revealing.
A woman who moved with the mechanical precision of a monarch didn't abandon a politically charged appointment with Frederick Eiser, the Royal Prosecutor for sentiment. She did it because Frederick—the other Frederick, my Frederick—held something far more dangerous than evidence or leverage.
He held her heart, or at least, something close enough to it that it made her irrational.
I could work with irrational.
In my memory, the image of the security room replayed: Frederick sitting under that dim interrogation lamp, shoulders tense, jaw tight, but eyes—those eyes—alive with fear, confusion… and a pathetic kind of loyalty. Not to the state, not to me, not even to self-preservation.
To her.
"I offered you release," I had told him in that room. "A new identity, a clean break. You can walk away a free man, but you'll walk where I tell you."
He had believed me because he needed to. And because I had already assessed what Serena refused to see: he was the perfect piece to move across this board. Mobile, disposable, uniquely positioned.
Most importantly—emotionally compromised.
And now he was out in the open, wandering the city like a free agent.
A liability.
A weapon.
A prize.
"Locate him immediately," I snapped to my security chief, not bothering to wait for acknowledgment. "I want eyes on him before the day is over. No excuses."
Serena, meanwhile, was drowning in sentimentality—remembering the last time she saw him, replaying their conversations, feeling guilty she had missed him by mere hours. She was trapped in nostalgia.
Her weakness was emotion.
Mine was the absence of it.
That is why I would win.
♜ The Clue in the Document
While my men spread through the city, pulling traffic logs, border checks, and hospital surveillance, I returned to what mattered: the royal archives document.
The red folder lay open across my desk, its pages illuminated by the cold, steady glow of the desk lamp. My subordinates crowded the other side of the room, stiff-backed and silent, their shadows swallowing the walls.
"This," I said, tapping the fragile paper, "is a confidential document removed from the Meuracevian Royal Archives."
Their faces were blank. Of course they didn't understand the significance—they never did.
"There is supposedly an object hidden by the Serenity family. But in this document—this partial document—there is only a single line that qualifies as a clue."
A single, maddeningly vague line.
My mind shuffled through the possibilities like cards: location, inheritance, scandal, weapon, debt, oath. But the truth lay just out of reach.
"I think this isn't the main document," I continued, narrowing my eyes. "It's only part of a reference set. A footnote to something far older… and far more important."
How much were they hiding?
The Serenity family had survived political purges, royal transitions, and syndicate upheavals. They had always had something that ensured their safety.
Something worth killing for.
Something worth divorcing a Royal Prosecutor for.
Something worth chasing a bodyguard across the continent for.
"It's much more intriguing than I expected," I admitted, pressing the bridge of my nose. "But there isn't enough information here. Nothing in the royal court records, no corresponding files, no incidents… which suggests the matter may have been considered trivial."
Or intentionally buried.
I lit a cigarette, letting the smoke coil upward like a phantom. Their eyes followed it instead of me—another sign of their uselessness.
"When Diah finally cracked, she confessed to everything. That's how I acquired this document." I exhaled slowly. "And yet she, too, was useless. No wonder the House of Serenity severed ties with her syndicate years ago."
Fear flickered across their faces.
Good.
"So," I said, voice smoothing into calm resolve as I crushed the cigarette into the ashtray, "if I'm to inflate this into a crisis, to turn something insignificant into a fracture point…"
I looked up, eyes hard.
"I need more concrete proof before digging deeper."
Proof hidden in the missing document.
Proof known only by two people.
Serena.
And Frederick.
And Serena was already looking for him.
The choice was clear:
I must secure the pawn before the queen does.