I squeeze her hand harder. “We’re very sorry for springing it on you like this, Your Grace. Paravel is fresh and exciting, and we got carried away.”
“Yes, you did, Mr. Rasmussen. I think it’s time you leave. I’d like to speak to my daughter in private.”
“I…” Sachelle begins, but trails off as she watches her father’s complexion change from grey to red to purple. “Dad, please don’t get angry. It’s not good for your heart.”
I hear the click of high heels out in the hall. The Duchess will know how to calm the Duke down, and I want to get Sachelle out of here. “Please excuse us, Your Grace. I’d like to talk to my fiancée for a moment.”
Holding onto Sachelle’s hand, I take her out into the hall and past the Duchess.
“Mr. Rasmussen? Sachelle? What’s going on?”
“You should check on your husband, Your Grace,” I call over my shoulder. “He’s in the living room.”
Duchess Balzac’s eyes widen, and she hurries into the room.
Sachelle tries to pull away from me. “Let me go. I want to talk to my father.”
“You’ve done enough,” I growl, and march her toward the front door. I get her outside and down to the street before she digs her heels in.
“No. Stop. I don’t understand what’s happening.”
I round on her and speak quietly but fiercely. “I’m stopping you from confessing to your father everything that you’ve been up to. What the hell were you thinking? Are you trying to kill him?”
“You’re the one who’s forcing me to do this!”
“Get into my car. We need to talk.” I unlock the vehicle and yank the passenger door open. Sachelle glares at me and doesn’t move. “Get in my car, or I’ll go back in there and show your father what you showed me.”
“I hate you,” she whispers, sliding into the front seat. I stand with my hand on the door, gazing at her. I’m so close to what I want I can taste it. Just a little more maneuvering and it will be checkmate.
She flicks her eyes up to mine. “Don’t you have any conscience?”
I lean down to her. This close, I can see the shards of dark blue, green and aquamarine in her violet eyes. “When it comes to you? Not a shred.”
I reach for her and she shrinks away, but I merely grasp the seatbelt and buckle her safely into the front seat, nice and tight.
As I get in, I reach for the envelope she threw at me in the office. “Let’s take a closer look at these, shall we?”
Sachelle turns away. “I don’t want to see them again.”
Too bad. She is. I upend the envelope, and the photographs slither onto my lap. Dozens and dozens of them. Of Sachelle. Of other people, too, but mainly of her, standing and talking in a dark place. The others seem tall and male, but she’s the only one whose face is identifiable. The men seem to be listening to her as she shouts at them, points at them. Like she’s giving them orders. I can’t make out much of where they are, but it’s some underground or urban place. Maybe an abandoned building or a railway tunnel. There’s graffiti on the walls.
“Care to explain these?” I ask, holding a few out to her.
Her lips press together and she shakes her head. I let the silence stretch unbearably long as I gaze at her, one eyebrow raised.
“No? Nothing to say, my beautiful bride?” I dig my phone out of my pocket, open my cloud storage, and find the sound file that I uploaded to my computer. When I press play, Sachelle squeezes her eyes shut.
“That’s not me.”
“No? It sounds like you. It sounds exactly like your voice.” I play it again. In the recording, Sachelle speaks of bombs and Varga. The quality is poor, but the gist of it is Sachelle giving orders to overthrow Paravel.
“I didn’t say those things. I mean, I said those words, but not in that order. It’s fake.”
“The question is, if I played it to your father, would he believe it?”
Sachelle casts a fearful look at my phone. “How did you do it? Have you been recording me secretly?”
The afternoon is starting to fade into dusk. An engine revs. There’s a grinding of gears, and a truck accelerates down the street toward us.
“All your words pieced together to make you sound like the most dangerous traitor in Paravel,” I say softly, tapping the steering wheel as I stare down the street. Trying to figure out my next move. Trying to keep two steps ahead.
The truck keeps comes down the street, a moving van or delivery van of some sort, and it’s gathering speed. The driver is high up and cast in shadow, but I see two gloved hands on the steering wheel. Determined to stay on his current path.