All Chapters of Puck Me, One More Time: Chapter 181 - Chapter 190

Lord Jones's POVThe cell was smaller than anything I had occupied in my entire life.I had spent decades in rooms built for authority … rooms where the furniture alone communicated that the person sitting in it was not to be taken lightly. Now I had four walls, a narrow bed, and a window positioned at exactly the wrong height to see anything worth looking at.But I had not stopped thinking.That was the thing about people who underestimated me … they always assumed that removing me from a comfortable room was the same as removing me from the game. Unfortunately for them, it was not. It had never been. I had been planning from inside worse situations than this one, and I was not finished.The guard who passed my door at the shift change was a young man named Dario. I had identified him within the first 48 hours … the specific restlessness of someone carrying more debt than their salary could manage. And so, I had requested a brief word with him on the third morning, during the window

Liam's POVI did not sleep well that night.As the face at the gate stayed with me through the night … sitting in the back of my mind with the specific persistence of something that had not been resolved and was not going to let itself be forgotten until it was. I lay in the dark and ran through what I had, the same way I had always run through situations that required action but not yet — identifying the pieces, looking at how they connected, and then deciding what the next move was before I made it.By 5 in the morning I had decided what I needed to do first.You know, Captain Oscar had said he would run a quiet check on the guard rotation. I needed to see what that check had produced, and I needed to see it before the palace day started properly and people began moving through corridors and conversations became harder to have privately.And so, I dressed and went to find him.*****He was already at his desk when I arrived at the security office … the specific early-morning presenc

Liam's POVI did not go far.The roof access was two floors up from the east wing … a maintenance door that I had found during my first week in the palace when I had been mapping exit routes out of habit. Let's say, it was the same habit that had kept me safe in places considerably less secure than this one. I pushed through it and stepped out into the evening air and sat down on the flat section near the parapet and looked at the city spread out below.The palace grounds were directly beneath me … the courtyard, the gate where I had seen the familiar face two days ago, the service entrance where the misdirected delivery had arrived. From up here it all looked orderly and still, the way things looked when you had enough distance from them.I sat with the argument.Not replaying it to find where Ken had been wrong … because Ken had not been wrong, and I knew it, although pretending otherwise was not something I was capable of for very long. I sat with it the way I sat with difficult th

King Ken's POVThe palace had been on lockdown for two hours by the time the full picture started assembling itself.I was in my chamber with Liam, Jenny, and Captain Oscar … the four of us around the table that usually held my morning briefing materials, now holding something considerably more serious. The compromised guard had been detained at the venue and had started talking within the first 30 minutes of questioning, which Captain Oscar said was not surprising."He was not a true believer," Captain Oscar said, setting his tablet on the table with the documented timeline open. "He was paid. When it became clear that the operation had failed and that we had him, the calculation changed quickly.""What did he give us?" I asked."Everything," Captain Oscar said. "The Apex agency connection. The recruitment process. The specific instruction to create the gap in Your Majesty's security during the vehicle transfer." He paused. "And the source of the instruction … was a letter received f

King Ken's POVLiam was standing by the connecting door when I finished getting ready, and the expression on his face said he already knew what I was going to say before I said it."I am coming with you," he said."No," I said."Ken…""Liam." I turned to face him properly. "The last time I attended that session, two members used the question of you specifically … who you are, where you come from, what our relationship represents — as the foundation of their argument against my reign." I held his eyes. "If you walk into that room with me today, I will hand them the same argument again. Everything becomes about you and me rather than about the law, the constitution and whether my coronation was valid." I paused. "I need this to be about me. Just me."He looked at me for a moment."I do not like it," he said."I know," I said. "Wait for me here."He held my gaze for one more second. Then he stepped back from the door."Do not let them take anything from you in there," he said."I have no