Page 119 of Savage Throne
All eight screens were tuned to the East’s main news channels and gossip podcasts, their footage looping through clips of Moni from the night before.
Although the screens were muted, the images spoke louder than words.
Moni, standing tall, spilling out the bag of heads with a chilling calm. Her face was unreadable, yet her movements were deliberate and controlled.
The line of my jaw twitched.
She shouldn’t have had to do this all alone. I wish I had been there.
Two of the screens filled with Moni’s face and then spanned out, showing her standing over the bodies of Yan’s men.
Goddamn it, Father. Why would you do that to her?
Some of the more graphic moments had been blurred out, but the message was clear: Moni hadabsolutelyearned the throne.
An hour after the footage had been released and aired all over Paradise City, the East fully accepted her.
There were even videos on social media of many of the earlier protestors we’d seen days ago at the gate. The thirty people who had worn gray monkey masks dripping with red paint and blue tape over the mouth.
Well. . .they no longer wanted to protest.
Over twenty of them had filmed themselves setting the masks on fire along with the signs that had said:
“No More Silence!”
“Free Speech or Death!”
“Down with the Mountain Master and the Grand!”
They’d changed their damn minds, once they saw the death Moni had delivered.
I smirked.
And as those masks and signs burned to ashes, those same foolish protestors cried in front of their phones and begged Moni for her forgiveness.
How quickly things have changed. . .
In front of me, the screens flickered again, showing a clip from the live broadcast at the main Eastern gate. It displayed thousands of people with their heads bowed, each holding an illuminated candle, creating an ocean of tiny flickering flames as they chanted Moni's name.
The sheer number of candles was staggering, and the sight of it left me breathless.
I parted my lips in shock.
This obsession for Moni will definitely be bigger than Mom.
What my father had envisioned had come to pass.
Monique wouldn’t just be the Mountain Mistress now.
She would be a gruesome, threatening force, someone who could silence a room with a single glance, someone whose name would be whispered with the utmost respect or shivering dread.
But at what cost?
The news channels flicked back to the earlier footage of her racing around shooting Yan’s men.
Dear God, Moni. You fucking survived.
I watched her on the screens, her shoulders squared, her head high, her hand raised shooting bullets into heads with cold-blooded precision.
