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Chapter 0284
Julian was angry, that much was clear, though I couldn’t exactly fathom why. Yes, it would be irritating to be
excluded from Nichola s’s confrontation of the King and Queen, but Julian usually handled irritation with cutting
humor and sarcasm, not outright anger.
“Your presence wouldn’t have made any difference,” Nicholas said.
“Oh? You don’t think the person who has been investigating the underground organization. wouldn’t have had
evidence and knowledge to help your case?” Julian scoffed.
Nicholas sighed. He ran a hand over the back of his neck. “It wasn’t personal, Julian.”
“Like hell, it wasn’t. I was the one who helped find the evidence, and I even have some of my own. You should have
looped me into your plans. Aren’t we a trio in this? When did you decide that you’d rather do everything alone?”
Nicholas shook his head.
I didn’t necessarily want to take a side here. I could see the situation from both angles. But the fact was Nicholas
hadn’t told me his plans either. He simply left me before I had woken up. He’d apologized, I was no longer hurt. But
I could understand Julian’s upset.
Still, I decided to stay out of their conversation, mostly because it felt deeper than this one. singular argument. This
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtissue may have been the one that finally brought them into an open. conflict, but underneath the surface, this
resentment had likely been festering for a long time.
“Admit it,” Julian said, a sharp edge in his voice. “You purposefully excluded me. You genuinely do not believe that I
am capable.”
Nicholas crossed his arms. He didn’t deny it.
“Nicholas…” I whispered, feeling pity for them both.
“You’re such an as shole,” Julian said.
“You may be capable, Julian, when you want to be, but you aren’t reliable. You have been a foolhardy play boy since
our youth,” Nicholas said. “You may be doing the right thing right now, but I can’t trust you to always make the best
choices.”
“You think I would have, what, stood in front of our father and then sided with Terry?”
“I don’t know what you would have done,” Nicholas said. “You are unpredictable. Your whims are fleeting. You do
whatever you want without worry of the consequence.”
Julian huffed out a laugh too short and loud to be genuine. “That you honestly believe that tells me you don’t know
me at all, brother. You think I’m some kind of monster. You think I would throw Piper to the wolves.”
+15 BONUS
“He doesn’t mean it like that,” I said.
“Doesn’t he? Because that’s what he’s saying,” Julian said.
I looked at Nicholas, expecting him to take back some of the harsher things he’d said, or at least clarify them so
they weren’t so hurtful. Surely he couldn’t believe that Julian would actually want to see me harmed?
But stubborn Nicholas kept his mouth firmly closed.
I wondered what the stories were that I wasn’t privileged to. These two had a lifetime of history, memories upon
memories where their capability and reliability were displayed and practiced with each other.
For Nicholas to so firmly believe that Julian was such a cad, something terrible must have happened to implant that
conception of him.
“Forget it, Piper,” Julian said, snorting. “He’ll never see me as anything but a nuisance, and honestly, I’m tired of
trying.”
Julian dipped his head to me in goodbye, then turned and left.
“Nicholas,” I said when Julian had gone. “There’s no need to be so cruel.”
“I’m being honest, Piper,” Nicholas said, voice flat, void of emotion. “He can’t be trusted.”
I sighed, unsure how to resolve this rift between the two brothers, or if resolution was even possible at this point.
“You don’t agree,” he said.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmI didn’t. “It’s unhealthy for two brothers to fight like this.”
Nicholas shook his head. “What would be unhealthy is to pretend everything is fine between him and me. My
expectations of him are all the way down on the floor and he still finds ways to go beneath him.”
Nicholas set his jaw. There seemed to be no peaceful end of this conflict, so for now, I simply let it go.
Maybe, someday, if I could discover more of the things that went wrong between them, I could make another,
better effort to help push them to resolution.
But for now, perhaps the best course of action, was simply to keep the two brothers apart.
After lunch, I was walking back toward the room when I was stopped by Nathan.
“The King wishes to speak with you.”
He did not wait for a response. He just turned and began walking. The expectation, I was sure,
+15 BONUS
I was led into a sitting room and ushered inside. After I walked through, Nathan stepped outside the room and
closed the door, leaving me alone with the King.
The King stood behind a small couch. His back was turned toward the room as he gazed out a window.
Uncertain where to stand, I moved into the center of the room.
“You must be curious why I wanted to speak with you, Piper,” the King said.
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