Chapter 0284

Julian was angry, that much was clear, though I couldn’t exactly fathom why. Yes, it would be irritating to be excluded from Nichola s’s confrontation of the King and Queen, but Julian usually handled irritation with cutting humor and sarcasm, not outright anger.

“Your presence wouldn’t have made any difference,” Nicholas said.

“Oh? You don’t think the person who has been investigating the underground organization. wouldn’t have had evidence and knowledge to help your case?” Julian scoffed.

Nicholas sighed. He ran a hand over the back of his neck. “It wasn’t personal, Julian.”

“Like hell, it wasn’t. I was the one who helped find the evidence, and I even have some of my own. You should have looped me into your plans. Aren’t we a trio in this? When did you decide that you’d rather do everything alone?”

Nicholas shook his head.

I didn’t necessarily want to take a side here. I could see the situation from both angles. But the fact was Nicholas hadn’t told me his plans either. He simply left me before I had woken up. He’d apologized, I was no longer hurt. But I could understand Julian’s upset.

Still, I decided to stay out of their conversation, mostly because it felt deeper than this one. singular argument. This issue may have been the one that finally brought them into an open. conflict, but underneath the surface, this resentment had likely been festering for a long time.

“Admit it,” Julian said, a sharp edge in his voice. “You purposefully excluded me. You genuinely do not believe that I am capable.”

Nicholas crossed his arms. He didn’t deny it.

“Nicholas…” I whispered, feeling pity for them both.

“You’re such an as shole,” Julian said.

“You may be capable, Julian, when you want to be, but you aren’t reliable. You have been a foolhardy play boy since our youth,” Nicholas said. “You may be doing the right thing right now, but I can’t trust you to always make the best choices.”

“You think I would have, what, stood in front of our father and then sided with Terry?”

“I don’t know what you would have done,” Nicholas said. “You are unpredictable. Your whims are fleeting. You do whatever you want without worry of the consequence.”

out a laugh too short and loud to be genuine. “That you honestly believe that tells me you don’t know me

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doesn’t mean it like that,” I

what he’s saying,” Julian

at Nicholas, expecting him to take back some of the harsher things he’d said, or at least clarify them so they weren’t so

Nicholas kept his mouth

that I wasn’t privileged to. These two had a lifetime of history, memories upon memories where their capability and reliability were

was such a cad, something terrible must have happened to implant

snorting. “He’ll never see me as anything but a nuisance, and honestly,

me in goodbye, then turned

I said when Julian had gone. “There’s no need to be so

honest, Piper,” Nicholas said, voice flat, void of emotion. “He

two brothers, or if

agree,”

for two brothers to

head. “What would be unhealthy is to pretend everything is fine between him and me. My expectations of him

set his jaw. There seemed to be no peaceful end of this conflict, so for now, I simply let

the things that went wrong between them, I could make another, better effort

course of action, was simply

back toward the

to speak

just turned and began walking. The

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Nathan stepped outside the room and closed the door, leaving me

behind a small couch. His back was turned toward the

where to stand, I moved into the center

to

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