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8. The Moon

"The next time you talk to her like this or about her like this will be the last time we talk," he warned. His face was impassive but his eyes were furious.

His words were like a dagger to my heart. So I obviously had to hurt him back. "You better keep your word. I will take you up on it soon enough."

His jaw ticked and he looked away, ending this conversation.

William simply shook his head in disappointment and looked away too. Cassandra looked muted as she played with the food on her plate.

"Kate," Felix whispered, squeezing my hand and resting both our hands on his thigh. "That was a bit unnecessary. She was just being nice."

"So?" I gave him a one-shouldered shrug.

"So you should have been nice too."

I couldn't care less about what he thought I should have done. "Be nice to someone because they are nice to you? That isn't how the world works. If it did, no one would ever lie to honest people; terrible things wouldn't happen to good people. But they do." For a moment, I wished that really was how the world worked. Then all of this wouldn't have happened to Alya - she was one of the good ones. Yes, she might have become a princess of some country and might have gained fame as an artist. But I knew that she was staying away from all of us because of a reason. She wouldn't have left me, Jay, and our friends just like that. She was in some trouble. Whatever it was, she didn't deserve it.

I just wanted to go there and look for her. And once I found her, I'd help her out of whatever trouble she was in and bring her home. But I couldn't go there until I got my freaking visa. It would take me an entire month to get a tourist visa for the country. I didn't have that much patience. I had pulled some strings and Penny was supposed to call me tonight.

As if on cue, my phone rang. It was Penny.

"This is important, please excuse me," I said and stood up.

Everyone stopped and looked at me. Dad gave me a disappointed look for interrupting his conversation, and Mother looked at me like she wanted me to sit back down and have dinner like the polite woman she had not raised me to be.

"Do you have to take it, honey?" she asked, her eyes giving warning signals. "We are having dinner with your soon-to-be family. Work can surely wait."

"I'm done with dinner, Mother, just as most of us are. And this won't take me long. I will be back in five minutes," I replied and gave Felix a fake 'I'm sorry' smile, and left the dining room.

I answered the phone once I was alone. "Hello."

"Ms. Van Acker," Penny spoke. "I'm sorry for the late call."

"Don't worry about it. Just tell me what you found." My patience was wearing thin by the second.

"If you apply for the tourist visa, it will take a month or two for the visa to arrive. But if you were to have some business matters you needed to tend to, or if you had an event you were invited to, you could apply for a business visa. You could get it in two weeks," she replied.

"Alright, I'll look into it. Thanks, Penny," I replied and cut the call.

I quickly looked up some information on the Soare-Luna Kingdom. Volkov Corps, which was a company owned by the Royal family, was the biggest company in the country. I could pull some strings, make up a reason and arrange a meeting with them. But preparing for it, convincing them that I had something that would interest them, arranging a meeting, and then getting a visa would be time-consuming. And that didn't even guarantee that I'd get the meeting or the visa. I needed something solid that would get me there as fast as possible.