Chapter 3 - The Secret Broadcast
The air inside the Privy Chamber grew suffocatingly quiet. Prince Alexander looked like he was about to collapse, his hands trembling as he stared at me with desperate, pleading eyes.
"Emily," Alexander stammered, taking a step toward me. "Please. You can't do this. If you expose her now, the scandal will destroy our family. It will destroy the monarchy! The press will tear us apart piece by piece. Can't we handle this quietly? A settlement? A private apology?"
I looked at the prince—the man my sister had traded her soul to marry—and felt a cold surge of absolute clarity.
"Quietly?" I repeated, my voice steady and ice-cold. "For two years, my sister didn't just distance herself from me, Alexander. She systematically erased me. She told elite society that I was mentally unstable. She forged government documents. She looked me in the eye over a white-tablecloth dinner in New York and told me that my life, my service, and my uniform didn't 'fit her image'."
I stepped closer to him, the gold buttons of my Navy uniform catching the dim light of the chandeliers.
"When you sign up for the military, you learn one fundamental truth: character isn't what you show the cameras when the world is watching. It's who you are when nobody is looking. Rachel traded her character for a tiara. And now, the bill has come due."
King Leopold watched our exchange with a calculating, approving glint in his eye. He turned to Captain Vance.
"Is the media feed to the grand banquet hall and the global broadcast networks prepared?"
"Yes, Sire," Vance answered sharply. "We have redirected the primary broadcast control room. At your command, we can override the wedding reception live stream and feed our own secure signal directly to every television screen, tablet, and jumbotron inside and outside the cathedral."
May you like
"Do it," King Leopold commanded.
He turned back to me, offering a polite, dignified nod. "Commander Carter, you are an officer of the United States. But today, under the laws of this realm, you are also an invited guest of the Crown. Let us go greet your sister."
