𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐎𝐑 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔 ▸ After his restoration, the unthinkable happens - Dimitri tells Rose that loves fades and his has. To add insult to injury, Queen Tatiana ends up murdered with Rose's stake. Dimitri had asked Rose to give him tim...
"What do you mean, charged?!" Janine snapped at Abe, struggling to take in what her daughter's father was saying. When Abe had called her at Lord Szelsky's rural Pennsylvanian house and asked her to come to Court urgently, this wasn't what she expected to hear. "For killing Tatiana? You can't be serious?"
"I'm afraid so," Abe replied, his voice dark and ominous. "There's more to it, Janine," he admitted, loathe to admit what he'd heard from Croft after the initial interview with Rose, and what witnesses had reported. "Yesterday Belikov told her he no longer loved her, and by all accounts Rose was distraught. She went to Adrian and broke up with him, then hours later they found Tatiana dead, with Rose's stake in her chest. It's regicide, Janine. Unless they can prove her innocent, Rose will hang."
Janine covered her mouth with her hand, a faint bleat of horror escaping her lips. "You don't think she's guilty?" she checked, her hazel eyes meeting his brown.
"Of course not!" Abe barked. "Of course not," he repeated, more softly. "But it isn't looking good. They took Ambrose in for questioning, along with two of Tatiana's ladies' maids who had keys to the Royal apartment, however with Rose's outspoken comments about the age decree, and the murder weapon being a very distinctive stake from Russia, I doubt anyone will look for other suspects."
"Can't we do something? We can't let our daughter be put to death for a crime she didn't commit!" Janine was becoming more distressed by the second.
"It won't come to that," Abe vowed, his dark eyes glimmering in a manner that brought to mind his eponym. "I don't care if I have to break her out of Tarasov itself, I won't let anything happen to our little girl."
Tasking Janine with gathering as much information as she could from her Guardian colleagues, including those working the case, before sending her on her way, Abe poured himself a large glass of Glenfiddich before regarding his long time Guardian and confidant, Pavel.
"Since it was with her stake, it's personal. It's likely to be someone she knows," Pavel said, voicing what Abe had already concluded. "Someone she trusts."
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"Hathaway? Your lawyer, Abe Mazur, is here to see you." The sneer with which the guard said her name, then Abe's, made it clear his opinion of them both. "You have fifteen minutes."
"Baba!" Rose said in a shaky voice as she stood to greet her father as he stepped inside her cell. That she was calling him father and not 'old man' showed just how worried she was.
"Rose, we don't have much time," Abe cautioned quietly, leading Rose to sit beside him on the vinyl-padded, concrete based bed, which was the only furniture in the room other than a metal toilet and handbasin. "Did you do it?"
"No!" Rose shouted, getting ready to give it to her father with both barrels.
"I believe you—I just had to ask," Abe said, moving his hands in a conciliatory gesture. "If it wasn't you, then it's likely to be someone who knows you. Someone who knows you well. Are you currently on good terms with your friends?"
