The Alpha King Call Boy
Chapter 221

Alexander

"Thanks for coming on such shot notice," Contad said. "I know you are a very busy man."

I shrugged. "I'll always make time for the business."

Things had been chilly between us all afternoon as we worked together through back-to-back meetings. That was my doing. I was Just still pissed at him, my anger over his deceit and insubordination, and the way he'd hurt Fiona, rose hot ly back to the surface every time I looked at his face.

Our attorneys had just departed from the last meeting of the day.

Conrad closed his office door behind them and crossed the room. He cleared his throat awkwardly while sitting into his desk chair and immediately snatched up a toothpick and started to gnaw on it. I was pacing slowly along the exterior wall of the office, gazing out the glass at the moving shapes of the city below. I was tired of sitting down after doing so for the past hour.

After a minute of tense silence, Conrad asked, "How is she, Alexander? The baby?"

I wheeled to face him.

I really hadn't thought about the fact that Alexis had not yet met her great-uncle. The revelation of his betrayal coincided with her birth-I'd been mad at him for as long as she'd been alive. "She's great." I paced over to the desk and sat across from my uncle. The expression on his face was unreadable. "She's beautiful.

And doing well. As is Fiona."

Conrad nodded. "That's good to hear."

I took my phone out of my pocket and opened up a photo. Maybe we were not in a place right now where it'd be comfortable to introduce Conrad to his grandniece, but I could show him a picture.

I put the phone down on the desk and slid it over to him.Conrad looked down and exhaled heavily. "Wow. She is the spitting image of your mother. But her eyes, they're just like..." Fiona's.

He frowned again, pulling the phone closer to him.

It didn't need to be said aloud, but I knew Contad was thinking about someone else, too. Someone else who, when he was alive, had my daughter's same icy blue eyes.

Maybe my uncle was remembering having looked into blue eyes like those while he drained the life out of them.

Conrad kept staring at the picture. And started to shake his head.

"Alexandra," he whispered. I had never heard my uncle speak so quietly in my life. "Oh, son..." My phone screen, having not been touched for too long, went dark. Conrad looked disappointed. He pushed the phone back across the desk. And hung his head "She would not have wanted me to do what I did," Conrad continued. "I never... I never even thought about that. But this child .. I remember her now. My sweet, kind... forgiving... sister." He swiveled in his chair, facing sideways, and fixed his eyes on the gray sky beyond the glass.

I saw a blue light blinking on the side of his face. A call coming in on his Bluetooth headset.

He pulled the earpiece out and set it down on the desk.

"I have been so angry for so long," my uncle said, his voice still impossibly soft. "Over what happened to her. That anger took precedence over everything. It made me forget something much more important." Finally he turned to square his body to mine again, and lifted his eyes.

"I forgot who she was," he continued. "But I remember now looking at that face. Your mother... she would be ashamed of me, Alexander, if she were here today. Of what I have done in her name. I have not honored my sister with an act of bloody vengeance. I have disgraced her."

Before we parted ways, my uncle insisted that I follow him to his apartment, saying he needed to give me something. I was thrown off by how differently he was acting. I didn't ask any questions. We left the building together and I followed his chauffeured car to his home.

I could have given him a ride. But I don't think either one of us wanted to be alone together in a car right now.

We did not talk while riding up the elevator to his penthouse apartment.

Once inside, Conrad went to work searching for something in his bedroom closet. I waited in the dining room, pacing with my hands in my pockets, wondering what it was my uncle wanted to give me. Something to do with my mother.

Finally Conrad found what he was after and brought it to me.

I didn't let myself look at it too closely yet. At first sight of the precious item, emotion threatened to overtake me. Before it could, I closed the thick white envelope and slid into my jacket pocket and quickly took my leave.

I had been planning to kill Scarlet when I caught her.

And I would catch her. It was only a matter of time.

It had been months since I first came to understand that Scarlet was behind my mother's assassination, and I'd been planning to kill her ever since. And now she'd tried to kill my father, too. Crippled him. And betrayed our nation to a ruthless enemy that was slaughtering our people.

Many a dark and sleepless hour had I spent swept up in murderous fantasies about my stepmother. I had visualized beating her, imagining the sweet satisfaction of feeling her bones breaking under my fist. I'd envisioned choking her to death, watching her struggle and suffer and go blue while she tried in vain to pry my steely hands off her strangled neck. And more.

I felt ashamed of those fantasies now.

It really did something to me, seeing the change that came over Conrad when he looked at that photograph of Alexis. The change in his attitude and countenance had been immediate and extreme. He'd almost looked spooked when he saw my daughter. Like he'd seen a ghost.

A guilt was there in my mind, now. A nagging shame over my own murderous desires. I'd wanted to kill Fiona's father, too. I'd only wanted to wait on it a bit longer, hoping for hard proof or a confession first. And up until this morning, I still had a plan in my mind to end my stepmother's life with my own two hands, as soon as I had the chance.

But now that seemed so selfish. And shameful.

Revenge was something I wanted for my own hateful pleasure.

What would my mother think of me, if she were to look down upon the scene as I enacted my vengeance? It was hard to imagine her being proud of a son depraved enough to abuse and slay a woman-even if it was her own murderer.

And what kind of example would I be setting for Alexis, if she ever found out what I had done?

My precious, innocent daughter. My Heir.

It would break my heart if I ever knew that my sweet baby girl grew up to become a killer. I would not be proud. I would hate myself for having taught her that murder was acceptable when justified. I would not want her to live with the hateful misery of always knowing she had blood on her hands.

I hardly noticed the world passing by as I drove back to the palace.

My body had gone on autopilot while my mind turned over all these thoughts. Suddenly, I was there at the gates.

I finally let myself look at the photograph while I walked in from the parking lot.

It was a black and white image of my mother as a baby, being held by her own mother. The two were standing outside somewhere sunny, with a kind of meadow in the background. My grandmother was holding her free hand up to her face to shade her eyes against the sun. My mother, probably about a year old, was holding a flower close to her nose and smiling.

The picture was printed on heavy photo paper and glued inside a kind of folder or bifold envelope. I closed the envelope before unlocking the door to our bedroom, but kept it in my hand.

"What's this?" Fiona asked when she saw it.

I gave her a kiss hello. "I'll show you in a second. Let's sit down." The bed was the nearest place to sit. Fi walked over and perched on the edge. I joined her and passed her the envelope.

She held it closed and looked up at me, waiting. "Conrad gave that to me. It's a photo of my mother when she was a baby." She flipped it open. "Oh, Alex," she breathed. I saw her blue eyes sparkle while she gazed down at the photograph. "She looks just like her. That's remarkable.