Page 46 of Ruthless Prince
I frowned, racking my brains for my deepest, darkest secret. It was still very difficult for me to concentrate under the mind-numbing effects of the scopolamine, and nothing obvious was springing to mind. I’d done a few slightly embarrassing things in the past, but none of it was worthmentioning.
“What about the anxiety thing I shared earlier?” I asked, looking up. “I wouldn’t want the whole world to know about that. It’s not that I’m ashamed of it; it’s more that other people might try to use it againstme.”
“Sorry, that won’t do. Don’t take this personally, but in a few years, no one is going to care that the president—or ex-president—has a daughter with mental health problems. A lot of people have anxiety or other psychological issues, and there isn’t as much stigma about it these days. Even if we revealed your diagnosis to the world tonight, you’d probably see an outpouring of support from thepublic.”
My brows dipped in a frown. He had apoint.
“Keep thinking,” the man added. “It might take a while for it to come to you. And just remember—as long as you never reveal our secrets, we’ll never reveal yours, no matter what it is or how bad itis.”
“Okay,” I murmured, frowndeepening.
With the drug still coursing through my system, my instinct was to tell the truth. But which truth? What secrets did my mind hold, dark and shameful enough to please theOrder?
I closed my eyes. My whole life started playing in my mind’s eye at warp speed, and I watched the memories flash by, making me dizzier by the second. It felt like a dream, like the whole room was suddenly spinning, and all I wanted to do was liedown.
All at once it felt as if a huge chasm had opened beneath me and I needed to grab something tightly to stop myself from slipping into oblivion. Through the drugged haze and woozy exhaustion, clarity had finally arrived… but I couldn’t shareit.
Notthis.
I couldn’t even think it. It was tooterrible.
“I might have something,” I mumbled anyway. My brain was telling me to stay quiet, but my mouth wasn’tcooperating.
“Yes?”
“I… I can’t…” I stopped and rubbed my eyes. The wooziness was getting worse. I felt completely drunk. Under aspell.
“In your own time,Willow.”
“I’m not sure if this will even count,” I finally said. “It’s not something I did or something I know. It’s just something I’ve found myself worrying about every so often. ButI…”
I trailed off again. I shouldn’t say it. I couldn’t. And yet, I was about to do just that. My mind had been seized by the drugs, and it felt like someone was standing behind me with a spear at my back, urging me forward.Tell them or something terrible willhappen.
“It’s okay.” The interviewer’s voice was gentler now. “Just sayit.”
I took a deep breath. Then I finally blurted it out, words spilling so rapidly from my lips that they all seemed to run together. “Sometimes I wonder if my mother had something to do with Theodore Rutherford’sdeath.”
A collective gasp echoed throughout theroom.
“Could you please repeat that? A bit slower this time,” the interviewer said. There was a slight waver in hisvoice.
I gritted my teeth. My mind was screaming for me to shut up, but I couldn’t help it. I had to keep talking.Hadto.
“Sometimes I think my mother might’ve had something to do with President Rutherford’s death,” I said. “I know it sounds crazy, and I know I’m a terrible daughter for thinking it. I know it’s probably not true, either. It’s just a….” I hesitated and shook my head slightly. “Just a vague suspicion. The vaguest. In fact, it’s not even a suspicion. More like a tiny, tinyconcern.”
I was backtracking now, and everyone knew I was totally full of it. I could tell by the way the shadowy figures had all leaned forward, hanging onto my everyword.
“What made you have that suspicion, Willow?” the interviewer asked. His tone was calm and measurednow.
I closed my eyes again as my mind flashed back to an evening in May. My mother’s birthday party. I’d forgotten a lot of that night for various reasons, but the early hours of it were still clear as day in mymind.
“I overheard my mother talking to her Chief of Staff about five months ago,” I explained. “Jamie Torrance. At the time, he was a senior advisor to PresidentRutherford.”
“What did youhear?”
I replayed the events in my head, hearing every word so clearly that it seemed as if I’d actually traveled backward intime.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but it’s not looking good,” Jamie said. “I organized the exploratory committee like youasked—”
