“I think we can help each other,” he said.
“I knew you would see,” she said, brightening.
“Yes. I see. I don’t want your body,” he said.
She wrinkled her nose. “Well, that is fine in any case.”
She looked vaguely insulted.
“But I will take a share of what I’m investing in here.” In fact, he would welcome the chance to be rid of that farce he conducted in Hollywood. It had never been a game he’d enjoyed, but lately it had grown more and more tiresome. There was a limit to how much amusement he could extract from fooling the world.
The double life he lived was wearing on him. It offended him. To go and play at rehabbing images and then go off and take down another totalitarian regime.
And all he ever did was make the smallest dent in the world. Rolling a stone up a hill forever.
And here she was, offering him a chance at redemption.
Offering him power.
“I’ll help you, Annick.” And he was formulating an idea of just how she could help him. She wouldn’t like it. He didn’t care. “You don’t need my image. You need to create one of your own. I would be willing to help you with that.”
“Just for money?”
He inclined his head. She didn’t need to know about Stella. That was his business. His wound.
His debt.
“I am skeptical.”
“I will transform you into the leader your country needs. I will cow your enemies. Better yet, you will.”
He straightened as she handed him the whiskey. He swirled the liquid in the glass, doing his part to channel the Maximus King that everyone knew. It was easier. A more comfortable skin for him to act in. Annick had come face-to-face with the soldier. Few people knew of him. Even fewer who had met the soldier now lived to speak of it. But everyone knew this version of Maximus King. The Playboy. The one who took no one and nothing overly seriously. And why would he not take this job? It was a lark, after all.
“And if it is not fixed then? Then what? You leave—” she waved her hand “—and I am back where I was. No. I need more. I need you to stand in. I need you to keep my enemies at bay.”
“Trust me, I will make Aillette into a fortress of wealth and perceived power. I will ensure you are safe, Annick. You have my word on that.”
“I lived for too long, I survived for too long, to lose it all now. You cannot let it happen.”
She faltered, truly faltered, and he could see now that everything Annick had done up until this point had been driven by terror. By fear. And if he were a different man, he might’ve felt some guilt. Might have felt some pity. Instead, he felt anger. Anger was about the only emotion he knew. It was about the only thing he could manage. Otherwise... Otherwise his chest felt hollow. Dead. It was the rage that kept him going.
His grief had burned out years ago. Like the blood that had drained from Stella as he held her in his arms. As she had died. That grief was gone.
Replaced by the poison of hatred. It fueled him. It spurred him on. It had made him lethal. It had made him useful.
The sad thing was, he knew how to play the role of Maximus King so well, because it was who he had spent the first twenty-two years of his life as. A debauched playboy. A debauched playboy who had loved precisely one person in his life more than he loved himself. And she had died in his arms.
He had been Annick’s age then. And it had changed him forever.
And here Annick was, never having been silly or young. She had been a prisoner. And now she was being asked to lead a country.
“I won’t. I’ll protect you.”
And he didn’t need ask anymore why it was his responsibility. It clearly was. Nothing to be done about it.
He wasn’t a good man. And he was nobody’s superhero.
But when he made a promise, he kept it.