The king stares down at his palms. “People demanded I mass produce it and hand it out for free.”

It dawns on me, how these long ago events affected the present. “You didn’t?”

“No,” he says quietly. “I didn’t. I sold it for profit instead. And as the world got sicker, I became richer.”

Montes shoves a hand through his hair. “In the beginning, I didn’t want power, I just didn’t want to lose everything I’d built. But somewhere along the way the line between money and power blurred, until I became king of it all.”

All those people that died when they could’ve been saved.

I cover my mouth with my hand and scramble out of bed, no longer caring that I’m exposing myself. My entire body is shaking.

“I should never have saved you,” I whisper.

A muscle in Montes’s cheek ticks. It’s the only sign that my words affect him.

He pushes himself out of bed and stalks towards me. “You wanted to know what I fear most? Here it is: I fear I will always be alone. That no one who truly knows me will love me. Not even my wife.”

I balk at this. “You’ve made piss poor life choices, and you want me to love you in spite of it? You’re insane.”

I swivel to grab my robe and get the fuck out of here when Montes catches me around the waist.

He tugs me to him, pulling me in close. “I’m not insane, Serenity,” he whispers into my ear. “And you and I both know why you saved my life. It doesn’t matter that you think I’m an evil bastard. You love me.”

Chapter 27

Chapter 27

Serenity

“Here they are,” Nigel Hall, the king’s head advisor on Global Health and Wellness, sets a crate of papers down on the desk between us, “the regional reports you requested. All two hundred and fifty-seven of them.”

Montes made good on his promise to put me in touch with Nigel. That was three days ago, and it takes the king’s advisor that long to collect and deliver all the information on the state of affairs in every corner of the world.

Tossing aside the cardboard top that covers the box, I pull out a handful of folders and begin flipping through them. There are hundreds of locations in need of medical relief. Places where the crime rate is exorbitantly high and the death rate is even higher.

This isn’t just a medical issue; it was simple of me to assume so. I’ll have to take a holistic approach: education, shelter, basic amenities, regional justice systems, health—they all need to be addressed if I want to do this right.

I thumb over the pages. “Who wrote up these reports?”

“The committees on health and wellness, environmental sustainability, regional economic …”