Renouncing the Emperor's Heart

One Last Chance

His smug air of victory vanished.

"What is the meaning of this?" Richard asked darkly, scanning the bound records.

Jovine clenched her teeth, thinking of all the horrid accounts she had read from the files she forced out of a sleep-disheveled Maximus in the dead of night. "As if it wasn't enough to be a faithless lecher...you've become a thief as well."

Richard's brows twitched, a quirk she always knew preceded his temper. "Careful, Jovine. You would be wise to stop there."

A hysterical laugh lodged at the base of her throat. She could have burst out in mania right then and there. Jovine slammed another folder in front of him. "Haven — sold." Another file. "Reports of famine — ignored." Another stack pummeled forcefully onto her husband's desk. "Counterfeit expenditures from the Imperial Inventory — hidden." One after the other, Jovine listed out every source of corruption. "Payments to nobles. Shortage of food. Unaccounted market cornering. Increasing indentured servants. Bartered properties."

By the end, Jovine's breaths came out in harsh staggers. "You have truly gone and made yourself a crook."

"Stop," Richard gritted out.

"Do you see what you've done to this Empire?" Jovine seethed, her voice rising in fury. "You've left it to rot. You've abandoned your people. You've —"

"STOP IT," Richard bellowed, striking his fists against the wooden table until the horde of his transgressions cluttered to the ground. He stood, leaning over the desk until his fuming eyes met her fire. By the look on his face, she had now crossed a line she never toed, but Jovine would not back down. Not this time.

With their faces inches apart, she whispered in a scathing tone, "Your stars have extinguished."

Taken aback by her tangent words, he frowned. "What?"

"'My father says stars are the eyes of an Emperor," Jovine began. "'As far as the skies go, so should our eyes watching over the people. The cities. The homes and families.'" She echoed the words he had once spoken to her in the past. The words his father had said to him.

Richard's eyes widened, and she swore a flinch worked its way into his gaze.

"You are now a lightless sky," Jovine taunted.

As if she physically struck him, he abruptly withdrew and turned his back to her. All she saw were his swelling shoulders.

Jovine straightened. "Years of diligence into your parent's legacy," she continued, glaring at the back of his head. "One moment in your hands, and you burn it all down."

She watched as he clenched his trembling fists.

Although the rage never settled, she picked apart his every movement. She counted each breath and tracked every twitch. She was here for one thing — the only thing that could set her on the path she had to take.

She needed to push him further.

"How could you?" she condemned. "How dare you?"

The switch was instant.

His body stilled. His breaths stopped heaving, his hands relaxed, and his shoulders lifted. But nothing was more chilling than the small laugh he released. With a sudden manner of casual composure, Richard ambled over to the small, round counter holding his heavy liquors. He unstoppered a large crystal glass and poured himself two fingers of amber liquid.

A frown indented her wary eyes.

"How dare I..." he mused as he languidly sipped. Another soft chuckle touched the air. When he finally faced her again, all traces of his previous distress were wiped away. "Everything I do, I do for the good of the Empire."