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.


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


    Jovine straightened. “


    dare you?”


    you?” she challenged.


    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    am the Empire. What difference is there?”


    your food. Your home. Your money. Your clothing. Your dignity. Your protection. If you are the Empire, you should suffer as they do.”


    you are not the nobles gorging on their wealth. They are not the ones reaping from your negligence. The families in the streets, the impoverished slums you’ve forsaken, they are the ones who need you more than anyone. And, yet, you’ve deserted them. Why? WHY?”


    One last judgment, and it’ll all be over.


    I don’t need you,” he gritted out in a shaky voice. “I don’t need your ignorance or your sympathy.”


    “Just because you can’t understand it doesn’t mean you can move me.”


    dead.”


    will come to regret this,” she simmered. “And when that day comes…I won’t be there to pull you out.”


    I have to leave.


    this time.