Chapter 174 BRIELLE IS ALIVE
Chapter 173
Jax’s POV
I retraced my footsteps as I turned back in the direction of the guards.
“We found this!”
I watched as the guard walked slowly toward me. His feet dragged against the floor due to the gun in my hand.
His eyes narrowed at the gun.
He nodded his head, not because he wanted to disobey me, but because of what I held and how fast I had used it.
“Move closer here!” I commanded, my voice rising.
A necklace… and a gold bar.
He managed to drag his feet forward and dropped into my hand a gold bar of about four inches in length and an inch in thickness.
He stepped back, so that the fate that had fallen on the two right before him wouldn’t fall on him.
But that wasn’t my concern. My concern was the necklace. Yes, the necklace.
Not even the gold bar.
I clasped it in my hand like a lost but found possession.
I looked at it for a minute. My mind flashed back to whoever I had seen wearing it.
“Rosa!” I muttered.
“The Queen,” everyone in the room muttered at the same time. The long, empty room echoed her name.
Everyone turned their attention to me, as though I had just revealed an age-long secret.
Again?
No. Never.
This would finally be her end. I swore with everything I had.
I had been patient, waiting to see if she had any connection to this.
Alas.
The truth was finally out.
I took the gold bar and necklace in one palm, and my weapon in the other. Blazing hot air surrounded me.
I marched like a soldier out of the palace, through the corridors, toward her quarters.
Everyone who saw me and wanted to greet me ran away.
They thought I was a mad person. In fact, I was.
“Rosa!”
I shouted from a distance before I even reached her quarters.
“Rosa!!!”
My feet hit the ground like an earthquake was about to happen.
As I approached the quarters, the guards manning her door scattered, not because of anything else but because of the gun in my hand.
They knew their lives weren’t worth a thing if they tried to stop me.
Whispers and echoes of pack members and palace workers filled the distance. The guards were not left out.
I got to her doorstep. The doorknob refused to cooperate, so I launched my foot at the door. The hinges gave way immediately. The door fell with a loud crash.
“Oh my God, Jax!”
Rosa gasped. She sprang up from the couch she was sitting on.
She saw the gun in my hand and dropped to her knees. Her hands rose in surrender.
“I will only ask you one question…”
I paused, intense anger brewing in me, my nose flaring like a dragon’s.
“…and you will give me your answer immediately.”
I circled around her like a group of predators circling a tired and injured prey, ready to be devoured for lunch.
“What business do you have with the Chief Prison Warden?”
“I… I…”
Her lips trembled.
I moved closer, pointing the gun at her forehead.
She closed her eyes, as if waiting for the angel of death.
“I… I…”
“Don’t… know what… you…”
“This…”
I dropped the gold bar and necklace onto the plastered floor right in front of her. The sound clattered through the air.
She opened her eyes and saw the items on the ground. She looked at me in shock.
She reached for the necklace.
“W-where did you get it, my… my king?”
Her lips trembled with shock and excitement. Something shifted in her expression—something I couldn’t place.
“My best necklace!” she said. “I’ve been looking for it…”
“Since last week…”
I watched her reach for it from the floor and take it into her palm.
“My favorite necklace… the one presented to me by my late father on my twentieth birthday…” Rosa let out a dangerous laugh.
“I swear, I’ve been looking for it…”
“You manipulative bitch!” I snapped. “What about this?!”
I kicked the gold bar on the floor. It drifted a few inches away.
“You’re fucking the Chief Prison Warden!”
“Me?!” She clasped her chest.
“Me?!”
Before she could say anything—
Bang!
A hard slap landed on Rosa’s face, strong enough to tilt her from where she knelt.
“I… I… I don’t… know… what… you are talking about…”
Another slap.
Bang! Bang!
Her head snapped to the side. Her cheek turned swollen and reddish, my fingerprints stamped across it.
“You’re the one who sent Brielle to bug my room!”
“Yes or no?”
I clicked my gun.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Rosa fired back.
She sprang to her feet and rushed toward me like a demon ready to suck blood.
She dragged my hand, positioning the gun in my hand to her forehead.
“If you want to shoot me, then do it! What the fuck is stopping you? Shoot me!”
“You barged into my privacy with one of the most important gifts my parents ever gave me, while I was crouched here thinking about how to find it…”
“I was at the orchard farm the other day, just strolling to get some fresh air. By the time I got back, some of my items had been stolen…”
“If you were a good fated mate, if you weren’t so distant like you’ve always been, wouldn’t you be the first person I’d talk to about it?”
“Then you marched into this room like a raging bull, you broke down the door into my room, claiming I was cheating on…” Rosa snapped.
“What is that rubbish you just said now?” paused, turning her attention back at me, “that I was the one who sent Brielle to… do what?”
Rosa let out a dangerous smile.
“Listen, if you’re tired of me in this palace, you don’t need to call any elders. Just let me know. I will leave this place for you…”
I couldn’t say anything.
“Listen, Jax… that we don’t have rapport, that we fight here and there… it doesn’t mean I would hurt you or pray for you to fail… Every time my soul yearns for you, you push me away…”
“Tell me if you don’t want me in the palace now. I will pack my things and get the hell out of here…”
I waited a bit, letting her w
ords sink in.
“Yes. I don’t want you here anymore. Pack your things and get out.”
A shocking interruption:
“My Lord!”
A guard burst in, breathless.
“Brielle… she’s alive.”