Page 73 of Dewpoint
“Except we know there’s more than that,” Benson warned, holding up the folder I’d been given by the tigers.
Yeah, there was definitely more than that.
18
Sagan
Things were almost a blur over the next week with all the chaos and crazy… And I was at the center of it all, not able to keep up with it no matter how hard I tried.
Honestly, I wasn’t the only one. Treena looked ready to pass out as well the moment we weren’t in front of people, so I felt better. Much,muchbetter.
But there was also a lot of great progress.
Starting with the castle, Michele—theresource management specialist Darren sent—teamed up with one of the tiger interrogators and reinterviewed everyone on staff.Mostof the flight crew and employees connected to the landing strip and planes were cleared. Six were going to prison and four were out because they just couldn’t be trusted.
I understood they were in a difficult position, but they had seen issues and didn’t report them and that led to the deaths of the leaders of a country. Others could have had charges pressed against them, but I was kind and simply fired them because there was no world I would trust them not to do it again.
And one of the media stations actually andimmediatelypraised me. That to show mercy and understanding while dealing with such corruption honestly reminded them of thegrace and goodwill of my mother. The others weren’tquiteso flattering, but they agreed it was the right move.
I’d take it.
She also immediately locked in on the Queen’s Guards with the help of the tiger—Benson and Davian being involved as well. She was more the professional side while they were… Basically, it was my private military. That sort of ranking system and whatnot.
We’d set it up to be someone we knew was dirty already and busted them fast. They were relieved of their positions and a full investigation was ordered to rule out any crimes besides being in the pockets of elders. I really wanted them, not the guards, but I needed to know how deep it was.
Forty percent of the Queen’s Guardsimmediatelythreatened to resign in protest.
Except we knew it was fear of having the same happen to them and that was… A serious fucking problem didn’t cover it. Almosthalfmy protection was dirty.
I had no idea how to announce that or what to do.However, the citizens of Thovudin were outraged to learn there were not only wolf guards for Treena, but now tiger ones sent by their king.
But they weren’t outraged atme.
No, I hadn’t seen that coming either.
I think even the ones who hated me understood that ifanotherleader of Thovudin died, the country would fall into chaos and that wouldn’t be good for them. I honestly didn’t have any faith that it was anything less selfish, but I would still take the outrage because it helped me.
Oh, and it was all our pilots. Yeah, it justhadto be that it was all the pilots, including the ones Benson had reprimanded for listening to an elder’s aide over me when I’d been told about my parents.
So no, I wasn’t shocked about that.
And yes, I’d let the aide out of the dungeon a while ago… With a warning from Benson that he’d be buried under the castle if he tried to get on the media about it or started any more trouble. It did work though because we hadn’t heard from him.
There was absolutely no good way to hire that many guards and not risk someone who actually wanted me dead and wasn’t just corrupt could slip through. It was too vulnerable of a position to be in.
Way too vulnerable.
Maple and Fraser both said they were coming to stay at the castle for the foreseeable future… Basically forcing their private security to act as Queen’s Guards or at least fill in. They knew what was going on, but the money they made off the contracts made them worth not canceling.
But they did get it in writing that we weren’t trying to recruit their people and we promised not to basically declare them Queen’s Guards now and force them. Um, no, that wouldn’t go well for me in the end.
Not. At. All.
However, they were also happy for the extra hours hired because, in a turn of events no one thought a coincidence,allthe dirty guards were the ones who analyzed the video from the funeral feasts and that time period. Apparently, some went so far as to delete videos and they would now be in prison.
Benson made a comment that he was never so grateful that he’d thrown down with Father several years ago so that there was a huge backup of cloud storage no one but him and Father could touch. Or now me with my codes but—glad he was showing people he did deserve his job even with all the mistakes.
Maybe showing himself.
