Rise of a Queen: A Dark Billionaire Romance (Kingdom Duet Book 2) Read online

  Just when I’m about to voice that thought, a man in a striped suit walks towards us like he owns the cemetery and all the damned souls in it.

  Lord Sterling.

  Both James and Father tense at his view, but I glare at him, my mind filled with all the ways I’m going to destroy the fucker.

  “I’m late,” he speaks in his over-the-top posh accent. “I couldn’t say goodbye to Anna.”

  “Leave,” James snarls at him.

  “Public property.” He stares down his nose at Father. “Maybe now she’ll realise she made a mistake by choosing you.”

  “Piss. Off.” James starts to push him, but Father stops him.

  “No can do. In fact…” He grins, baring uneven teeth. “You should expect a visit from the bank in a few days. I’m confiscating the house you love so much, Gregory. Maybe I can still smell Anna in it.”

  It’s my turn to tower over the lord’s tiny, round frame. “I’ll destroy every bone in your body before you’ll be able to do that.”

  “Show me what you’ve got. Though I’m sure it’s not a lot.” He makes a cross at Mother’s grave. “Rest in peace, Anna.”

  And with that, he leaves.

  I keep glaring at his back as he disappears. Fucker. I’m going to ruin him and everything he’s ever cherished. I don’t care if it’s his home, his business, or even his damn family.

  I will destroy him.

  A thud sounds behind me as something large hits the ground. I freeze, my breathing stopping for a second.

  “Father!” James’s voice booms in the empty cemetery.

  I turn around and life as I know it ends.

  My father is on the ground, clutching his heart, face blue, and he’s not breathing.

  As James yells and curses and tries to bring him back without any success, I vow one thing.

  Lord Sterling will be eradicated in the ugliest way possible.

  Everything he cares about will be taken, just like everything was taken from me.

  He ended my family and I’ll end his.

  Or what remains of it.

  Jonathan

  Present

  When something bad happens, I feel it beforehand.

  It’s one of the additional senses I have aside from predicting monetary income and international markets’ values.

  No one believed me when I told them decades ago that the Chinese and the Russians were the future. It’s due to that very reason that I have the strongest partners in said countries.

  The moment I left the company, I sensed something was wrong. I checked on Levi and Aiden — by checking, I mean, Harris confirmed that my son was in a class at university and my nephew was at a football practice.

  Yes, I do have people following my heirs around to ensure their safety. I always have since they were toddlers. I’ve lost enough family members for a lifetime and I will not be taken off guard again.

  I step into the silent house. Its eerily calm atmosphere is almost like the cemetery from that day at the exact moment before my father had a cardiac arrest and passed away. On the day of my mother’s funeral.

  He died of anguish, of fear of losing this house his father left him and the last reminder of Mother’s presence.

  Persian carpets extend in my vision and Greek marble flooring shines under my feet. The vaulted ceilings and the handmade ornaments decorating the entrance and the rest of the house’s doors weren’t something we could afford when my parents were alive.

  I did this.

  I returned this house to its initial glory from when my grandfather was alive. Gregory and James King didn’t protect the family legacy, I did.

  After everyone started doubting our position, I’m the one who transformed the King name into something people respect and speak of in a hushed tone, either due to awe or fear.

  Coming this far wasn’t done through pleasantries or being nice. The only reason I get to sit on the throne is because I’ve slaughtered everyone who looks at it, let alone dares to approach it.

  I’ve seen grown men tremble and nearly piss their pants when I acquisitioned their companies. I’ve had them throw lawsuits at me, just so I would crush them in court and take everything they have — and more. I’ve had men offer me their wives and their daughters if I would leave their companies alone, and I took pleasure in erasing their names from the business world.

  Compromise and mercy are terms I abolished from my dictionary the day my father dropped dead over my mother’s fresh grave.

  If I want something, I take it. Fuck the world and its weak people. If they’ve chosen to be in a position I can explore, that’s exactly what I do.

  If I find a chance to grow the King name, consequences be damned.

  Only one thing matters: my family.

  So why the fuck have I been thinking about Aurora ever since this ominous feeling gripped me?

  She’s not family. Far from it.

  Still, I spend more time with her than I ever did with Aiden and Levi.

  Her face is the only one I wake up to every day and fall asleep staring at every night.

  She’s the one whose black strands I stroke when her pupils move beneath her lids and she’s struck by a nightmare.

  That’s when she’s most vulnerable and can’t put up her walls or hide from me. I get to witness her bare.

  The more I see, the more I want.

  The more I dig my fingers into her, the deeper I want to go.

  It might have started with her body, but it’s her mind that I want to invade and conquer.

  Which shouldn’t happen, because I make it my mission to not get interested in any other human being.

  I didn’t sign up for being consumed by Aurora, and I’ll put an end to it…eventually.

  I check the notifications on my phone. Since Harris, the COO, and I spent the entire day locked in my office going through possible companies to add to our arsenal, I didn’t have time to send her the occasional email that usually implies how I’ll fuck her that night.

  Besides, she’s the one who wanted a date, so I thought she would be the one to get in touch.

  There’s only a missed call from her in the morning.

  It doesn’t add up, considering she never calls me when she’s at work.

  Something tells me she’s not home, either. Otherwise, there would be some music playing in the hall. She does that a lot, especially when her black belt friend is around.

  “Dinner, sir?”

  I lift my head from my phone and shift my attention to Margot. She stands with her hands intertwined in a respectful pose over her white apron.

  “We’ll eat outside.” I slip the phone back into my pocket. “Have you seen Aurora?”

  “She didn’t come home, sir.”

  Huh. It’s past seven. She couldn’t have stayed at work this late — especially since she insisted on a date.

  “If there’s nothing you need…” She nods.

  “Where’s Tom?” He’s a decent butler, but he’s usually hanging on to her robes, waiting for an order. I’ll send him to Aurora’s flat and Moses will go to her work since she has no other place to go.

  But there’s also Layla’s family restaurant. Harris will go there. She better not be spending time with Layla’s brothers, or the night will take a dramatic turn that will end with my handprint on her arse.

  I have no tolerance for other people in her surroundings, not even people I trust, like Harris and Moses. It doesn’t matter that she’s known Layla’s brothers for a long time, as she likes to remind me. They didn’t come into her life first — I did.

  “Tom stepped out for an errand, sir. Is there anything I can do on his behalf?”

  “Have him find me as soon as he’s back.”

  “Yes, sir.” As Margot disappears, I retrieve my phone and call Aurora again. She’s still not answering.

  I type an email.

  From: Jonathan King

  To: Aurora Harper

  Subject: Where Are You?


  Must I remind you of who demanded a date tonight? My time is gold, Aurora, so answer your fucking phone.

  As soon as I hit Send, the screen lights up with a call from Harris.

  “You’re just in time. I want you to go to —”

  “We have a situation,” he cuts me off. Harris never cuts me off, which means this is serious.

  “And?”

  “I just got updated when we left the meeting. Maxim Griffin is giving an interview for the first time since his capture.”

  “What?”

  Harris’s voice continues in a grim tone, “From what I’ve seen, he’s accusing his daughter, saying it’s time she’s brought to justice, too. There’s an uproar from the victims’ families and the media about this. It’s not looking good.”

  Fuck!

  “Where’s Aurora?”

  “What?”

  “She must’ve seen it and that’s why she disappeared. Find her. Now.” I head out. Moses is stepping out of the car, but when he sees the expression on my face, he slides back in.

  “I’ll get in touch with my men. Give me ten minutes.”

  “You have five, Harris. I don’t fucking care what you have to do to find her. I need a location sent to Moses immediately.”

  I hang up without hearing his reply. There’s no way in fuck I’m going to let her slip between my fingers now.

  Aurora Harper sold her soul to the devil. It goes without saying that she’ll never be able to escape me.

  3

  Aurora

  Disappearing isn’t easy.

  I tried it before and it was like pulling my own teeth from my mouth. It’s not about changing names and going blonde for a few years. It’s not about cutting my hair and picking a different clothing style. It’s not even about losing my northern accent.

  Those are the easiest parts of disappearing. Everything else that’s hard to change is the problem.

  It’s about altering the way I walk so people don’t recognise me from afar.

  It’s forcing myself to become a right-handed person after living for sixteen years as a left-handed person. That’s why my handwriting is rubbish, and when I’m exhausted, I switch back to my left hand without realising it.

  It’s stopping myself from eating the food I like the most so that I’m not recognised through it. Over time, I’ve lost all joy in eating altogether and it’s become a chore.

  It’s about erasing my habits and everything I used to take for granted, one by each bloody one.

  Disappearance is about rebirth.

  When I first escaped the Witness Protection Program, I kept watching over my shoulder and under every bed I slept on. I searched the wardrobes and installed three locks on my doors. I never slept with my window open, even if it meant drowning in my own sweat due to summer’s heat. For a few months, I moved from one motel to the other and covered my tracks in case anyone from back home was following me.

  I stopped being Clarissa and threw everything about her life behind me. I stopped believing in superheroes and in love. I stopped dancing and singing in the shower.

  I stopped living.

  So when I find myself at the site of my rebirth again, I’m not surprised.

  After watching the snippet of Dad’s interview, being attacked by Sarah, and hearing the message Alicia left about her own death, I had no actual presence of mind to think.

  I still can’t.

  My fingers shake, my knees, lips, and palms sting. I haven’t stopped for a bathroom break and I survived on a bottle of water through the entire four-hour drive here.

  I’ve returned to where I was born and reborn.

  The cottage in the middle of the forest.

  Dad’s site of murder.

  On the internet, there are articles about how this place is haunted and many curious teenagers film themselves inside it to prove they’re fearless.

  A few years ago, I gave up ownership of our house in town. I signed it over to a charitable association and they’re now using it as a centre for disabled children. I had my solicitor make all the arrangements so that no one would know I was behind it.

  However, I didn’t give up this cottage. One, it’s not really worth much, and just like back then, it’s as if a part of my soul is still trapped in there, along with those dead women’s bodies.

  It’s black outside except for the silver moon. Its ghostly fingers creep between the stilled branches and the silent, black earth. The silence is like that in a cemetery, long and deafening in its uninterrupted quiet.

  A shiver claws up my spine as I watch the place where many lost their lives without being heard. Death reeks from every pebble and every tree. From the sky and the night. They stand witness to the time everything started and ended.

  The moonlight casts a shadowy silver light on the old architecture that Dad built with his own hands. He was so good with them, his hands.

  He knew how to snap necks, then fix me breakfast. He knew how to set traps for helpless animals, then brush my hair as if he was the most doting father on earth.

  It’s been eleven years, but it’s almost as if I saw Dad dragging a dead woman across the ground only yesterday.

  Time is…immeasurable in this place. It has its own metrics and its own haunted memories.

  It’s been a few hours since I arrived, but I haven’t left my car. My fingers keep tracing my watch, back and forth, as if that will fill me with the needed courage. I told myself I would get out when I could control the trembling of my limbs, but that hasn’t happened.

  My hand is still quivering as I open the door and step outside. I follow the moonlight’s trail, my unsteady heels crunching against the pebbles.

  My ankle pulses with pain; I probably twisted it when Sarah pushed me to the ground.

  I limp my way to the cottage, then stop in front of the door. The need to destroy it — or better yet, burn it — rushes to the forefront of my brain.

  But that won’t bring back the women who died. It won’t bring back my life or everything I lost that day.

  I do a detour and hobble to behind the cottage. When I came here eleven years ago, this place was circled by police tape. All eight graves were opened up and the corpses were taken for autopsy, and eventually the women had a respectful burial. However, only seven corpses were found — including the woman I saw that day. She was the last addition to Dad’s collection.

  The eighth grave was empty. He was already hunting for someone to fill it and I reported him before he could.

  Now all the graves are closed. The black dirt is even darker under the silver moonlight. The eerily quiet atmosphere doesn’t suggest that the earth was flipped upside down to hide murders.

  I limp to where I remember the graves to be. Eleven years ago, I stood over each one and said their names. I apologised for not setting them free sooner and promised to shed everything I had in common with Maxim Griffin. Name, habits — everything down to any type of food we ever shared. That’s why I barely eat anymore.

  I do the same now. My limbs struggle to keep me standing as I stop over the first grave and speak in a low, brittle tone, “I’m sorry, Marissa Loyd. I didn’t know you, but I know you had a bright future ahead of you. I’m so sorry he’s making you flip in your new grave by doing that interview. If anyone should be buried here, it’s him.”

  I drag my twisted ankle to the next grave and the next and the next. By the time I say all their names, exhaustion plays on my nerve endings and I’m about ready to collapse.

  Being here is like reliving the past and allowing it to creep into the pores of my skin.

  I’ve never forgotten the victims’ names. Marissa, Giselle, Caroline, Selena, Mari-Jane, Hope, and Nora.

  They’re engraved in my mind like indelible ink.

  I may be able to forget my own name, but I’ll never forget the names of the defenceless women whom my father buried in nameless graves as if they were nobodies, erasing their existence.

  My feet come to a halt in front of the eig
hth grave, and my heart jolts as needles form on my skin.

  It’s open. The grave that should be closed like all the others is open.

  Oh, fuck.

  Oh, shit.

  Why…why is it open? It shouldn’t be. It’s like eleven years ago, when —

  A rustle comes from behind me and I whirl around.

  It’s too late, though.

  The last thing I see is a black mask before something slams into my face.

  I fall backwards into the grave.

  Just like back then. Just like when I was nearly buried alive.

  I might’ve been able to escape that time, but it’s different now.

  It’s finally over.

  The world darkens as a tear slides down my cheek.

  Why, Daddy? Just why?

  Aurora

  Eleven years ago

  Sweat trickles down my spine as I step over the yellow signs.

  The flashlight that’s gripped tightly in my hand outlines a clear path on the black dirt. The distant hoots of an owl echo in the otherwise silent night.

  It’s been a few months since the discovery of the murders, so the police eventually lowered the security around the crime scene. Currently, it’s almost as if nothing happened here.

  Almost.

  Now that Maxim Griffin has been sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison and the victims’ families were able to give them proper burials, there’s nothing left here.

  Nothing except for the yellow ‘Do Not Cross’ tape.

  I do cross it, not because I’m bent on breaking the rules, but because if I don’t do this now, I won’t be able to in the future.

  My hair sticks to my face underneath the baseball cap I’m using to cover my identity. I went from one bus to another to finally get to where I am now.

  The few hundred pounds I have from my savings will be able to get me a motel room and a plane ticket so I can fly outside of England. Not far, though. Maybe Northern Ireland or Scotland. Since I’ll be seventeen soon, I’ll have to figure out a way to forge the new identity I was given in the Witness Protection Program.