Royal Disaster

the disastrous competition

a.n. :-))

"Leland Luther, a notorious human trafficking marshall of one of the largest organizations in the black market, has just been taken into American custody. The Singaporean officials that had been on his tail for the past two years had tried to sneak him out of the country, but were intercepted by federal officials before they could take him. He is now in protective custody, awaiting interrogation.

"A source has told us that he had been housed in an old estate in Monterey Bay, when the Singaporean officials found and captured him. He had been staying in the U.S. for the past year, apparently staking out more possible victims, but when the Feds searched the property found only empty cells. However there are signs that several of them had been full just recently; trays of barely molding food had been scattered about the cells, along with traces of dried blood.

"Singaporean officials are working with the FBI to investigate the fifty-one year old's business here in the states--" I shut off the TV and shook my head, throwing the remote to the other side of the couch and clenching my hands in my lap.

It had been a few days since I woke up. In that time, Arthur's parents and their authorities, who they'd flown in just before North and Arthur came to rescue us, had attempted to fly Luther to Singapore so that they could charge him and lock him up. (Arthur told me that, really, they were going to charge him with capital punishment, but didn't want the US government to intervene. They still hadn't told the Feds all of Luther's crimes.) However, someone had snitched on them and they were all now, begrudgingly, at D.C. trying to deal with everything.

Well, not all of them.

"I told you not to watch the news," Arthur chastised me as he handed me a fresh glass of water and my painkillers. I took both, rolling my eyes, before tossing back the pills and chugging down the water. It was refreshing with the hot wind blowing in through the open windows. "They're just going to repeat whatever I told you."

"If you told me everything," I replied, handing the empty glass back to me and moving back to the kitchen to refill it.

Arthur let out an annoyed groan from deep in his throat as he walked away. "I told you I wasn't going to lie to you anymore. Why won't you believe me?"

"For the precise reason you had to promise me you wouldn't lie to me anymore," I quipped, crossing my arms and watching him as he walked back. I adjusted the pillow that was propped behind my back.

While I reached to my side to grab Betsy, Arthur placed my glass on the coffee table and nudged my legs to the side to make room for him to sit. Then he reached over for the bowl of chips and started tossing them into his mouth.

As he watched me pluck at the strings and fiddle with random chords, he asked me, "What could I do to make you trust me?"

"Go away," I said, stubbornly.

He rolled his eyes. "Come on, Kaia."

I ignored him, pursing my lips and focusing my gaze more on the strings.

"Kaia, come on. I said I was sorry for everything," he began, one hand hovering over the bowl in his lap before it fell onto the couch. I felt him turn to me, but I didn't look up at him. "I couldn't--I wouldn't tell--Kaia, I was in a tight stop. I mean, spot."

He ran a hand through his hair, messing it up even more. My gaze fell again when his gaze returned to me. "Can you at least look at me? I'm trying to be sincere here."

"Key word being 'trying'," I muttered under my breath. He heard it, though, sighing in aggravation.

He plopped the bowl back on the table and then I yelped when I felt my legs being lifted, before being plopped across his lap. He propped a throw pillow on top of my legs and his arm on top. The sudden movement didn't hurt; he was being gentle when he lifted them up, but I was still annoyed because Betsy almost slipped from my lap.