Rise of a Queen: A Dark Billionaire Romance (Kingdom Duet Book 2)
Rise of a Queen: Chapter 4

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.

I’ll figure it out. I have to. It’s the only way I’ll be able to escape the hell I’ve been living through during the last couple of months.

It’s the only way I’ll be able to start anew.

I wrap the coat around my body when a shiver goes through me, and I clutch the flashlight tighter. The graves in which Dad buried the women are still open.

Tears stream down my cheeks as I talk to them and apologise as I did to their families.

That’s all I’ve been doing during the trials — apologising. No matter how much I do it, it doesn’t seem to be enough.

Sometimes, when they hit or throw insults at me, somewhere in my brain, I feel like I deserve it. I’m the one who smiled and laughed and danced with the monster who ended the lives of their daughters, wives, and mothers.

I’m the one who didn’t see the devil, even though he was right in front of me.

If I’d searched before, looked before, maybe I would’ve noticed it. Maybe I could’ve stopped him.

But it’s useless now. It’s already done, so all I can do is apologise.

When I reach the empty grave, I kick dirt in it. My stomps are fuelled with the rage and the injustice I’ve been living through. The lie. The smoke and mirrors.

“I hate you, Dad!” Stomp. Kick. “I hate you so much! I wish you’d killed me first. I wish you’d never let me see you like that. I wish I was never your daughter.”

My throat burns with the force of my words, but the tears won’t stop soaking my cheeks and slipping into my mouth, making me taste salt.

I throw my head back and stare into the night, just like I did that day I begged for all of this to be a lie. A shooting star crosses the moonless sky, and instead of replaceing the beauty in it, a wave of grief hits me again. My sister loved shooting stars, but now, she’s no longer here to enjoy them. Alicia used to tell me to make a wish whenever we saw one, but I said those don’t come true, because Dad never let me believe in illusions. He never let me believe in Father Christmas or in the bogeyman or in the Tooth Fairy.

He forced me to live in reality and told me that actual monsters are scarier.

However, he made me believe in him — my superhero without a cape. Then he pulled the carpet from underneath my feet and left me as this shell of a person with nothing behind or in front of me.

I don’t know what to believe in anymore. My own sense of self is starting to fade and I don’t even have Alicia to talk to.

There’s Jonathan and Aiden…

I shake my head frantically at the thought. I won’t bring my baggage into my nephew’s life. And Jonathan is scary — he’d probably be the one who’d chase me off.

As my tantrum against Dad withers away, only a bitter taste remains — the fact that I’m truly on my own in the world now.

The sound of the crunching of leaves echoes behind me. At first, I think it’s one of the night animals who roam around here, but then I hear it again.

In the days when I used to hunt with Dad, he taught me how to recognise the noises animals make. We were marvellous stalkers and could replace prey in no time.

Now that I know why he was that way, I want to bleach those memories out of my head.

There’s something uneven about the sound coming from the bushes. It’s a bit like…hesitation.

Sure, it could be an animal, but an animal’s frantic movements would follow a pattern. If it were scared, it would’ve run by now. This one isn’t running. It’s more like he’s…stalking. Similar to when Dad and I used to do it in the past. If anything, he’s getting closer.

A shadow passes between the trees at lightning speed. I step back, my old sneakers crunching against the pebbles.

It can’t be the police since they would’ve already caught me for trespassing on a crime scene. Or worse, sent me back to the Witness Protection Program, where I heard the officers discussing me in an unfavourable way.

I don’t trust them.

I trust no one. Just like Dad always insisted I shouldn’t. It’s ironic that I’ve come back to his words now.

This leaves only a couple of other possibilities. The most probable one is that it could be a victim’s family member. Or maybe one of the many people who sympathised with the victims and made the trial period a nightmare.

I inhale deeply and slowly, letting my ears capture their movements. They’re behind the tree. But the thing is, my ears aren’t reliable with the amount of ringing in them.

Wait. Could I be imagining the noises?

For months, I don’t remember sleeping a full night. One, I’ve been scared they’ll attack me in my sleep. Two, whenever I close my lids, all I can see are the victims’ faces, duct tape, vacant eyes, and blood.

So much blood.

Sleep deprivation toys with the brain. Sometimes, I worry that either Dad or the families will come after me.

Tonight, it could be the latter.

I aim the flashlight in the direction of the trees where I suspect the shadow is lurking. “Who are you?”

No answer.

“If you want to take a jab at me, come out. You’re neither the first nor the last.” I’m proud of how my words are steady and confident.

I’m sure as shit not confident right now.

Those people and the hatred in their eyes frighten me. I always feel as if they want my head on a stick or wish I was buried six feet under like those victims.

“I’m here!” My voice rises. “I’m over here, so if you want to —”

My words cut off when the shadow runs towards me at supersonic speed.

I lift both my arms to protect my face. That’s what they go for the most — the face. It’s as if they want to erase anything that resembles his face. Mainly the eyes. The fact that I have my father’s eyes has made me a monster just like him.

Something crunches against my ribcage. At first, I stare with stupefaction, expression frozen, not sure what’s happened.

Then pain explodes in my side and hot liquid spills from me, soaking my coat, and when I look up, I see the shadowy form of a masked man snatching a knife away. A trail of blood flows from the wound and drips onto the dark ground. The dim glow from my flashlight turns the view gruesome, haunting even. The blood is nearly black — like a demon’s.

Unable to carry my weight, my legs stumble and I twist my foot as pain spreads across my nerve endings and shoots straight to my brain.

Then I’m falling.

To keep myself from going down, my fingers dig into his mask and I pull, my nails scratching his skin.

I make out a tattoo on the side of his bald head. A dragon.

He hits my hand, and the flashlight slips from my trembling fingers. I follow soon after. My energy fails me and I drop backwards.

Straight into the eighth grave.

My head hits the dirt, and a metallic taste fills my mouth before blood gurgles out from it.

The dark shadow stands over my grave, the light from the flashlight forming a halo around him. His black-gloved hands rest over each other, the blood on the knife he still holds glinting under the moonlight.

He’s watching me so intently, as if he’s my father and I’m one of the victims he suffocated to death. He doesn’t move, doesn’t make a sound. He just…watches.

My eyes roll back, slowly closing. The last words I hear are Dad’s.

When I see you again, either I kill you or you kill me.