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

TWENTY-TWO YEARS AGO

I’ve never liked funerals.

Especially when it’s my mother’s.

The pretentiousness and the fake sympathy, or even the real tears, are all useless. Why cry for someone who will never come back? They can’t hear you, so the whole point behind crying is selfishness.

People don’t cry for the dead. People cry because of the uncontrollable rush of their own emotions.

The grey clouds condense in the distance, forming one thick layer over the other until the air is nearly black. Looks like the sky might start weeping, too.

But why would it? Did it even know the woman lying in the casket?

The people surrounding it, throwing her favourite tulip flowers didn’t know her either. They pretend they did, because she spent her entire life running between charities and spending money we didn’t have.

Not that Gregory, my father, would’ve told her to do otherwise. He cared for her wellbeing enough to swallow the knife with its blood.

I take a sip of my small stash of whiskey that I stole from my brother, James, and let the burn soothe my throat. He’ll probably kill me, but I don’t need him drunk on this day, of all days. At least I’m in full control of my actions and myself.

Father is about to fall apart and if James does, too…well, fuck if I can carry them both.

I sit at the back of the cemetery, in front of a grave that appears a few decades old. Layers of dust cover the stone and the writing has been erased by the hands of time. Birds’ waste clings to it like a second skin. One of the forgotten dead.

“There you are.”

I don’t lift my head as my best friend, Ethan, sits beside me. He’s wearing a black suit and his light hair that he usually leaves haphazard is styled and neat.

At least he dressed up for the occasion. It took a funeral for that.

For a moment, he remains silent, his shoulder not far from mine as we both stare at the forgotten grave with its unpleasant appearance and the birds’ waste.

It’s me who breaks the silence, “Do you think her grave will be like this one twenty years from now?”

“Not if you have a say in it.”

“True that.”

“Are you going back there?” He hesitates, his voice taking a sympathetic turn. “Your father and James aren’t doing so well.”

“When have they ever?”

“They need you, Jon.”

“They need false promises and a machine to go back in time. I have neither of those.”

“So you’re just going to stay here?”

“For the moment, yes. Screw off if the company bores you.”

“Fuck you.” He snatches my drink and takes a long pull. “I would never leave you on a day like this.”

“Leave the sappy for Agnus.”

“Fuck you again. I’ll give you a pass for being a dick today.”

“As if I would need your pass.” I scoff as I yank back my bottle and down the liquid, revelling in the burn that coats my throat before settling in my empty stomach.

I’ve barely eaten today and that was only because I needed the energy to remain standing tall. For me, eating and physical activity aren’t things that I enjoy, but I do them religiously anyway because I don’t need my health to get in the way of my brain’s plots.

“It’s okay if you show emotions, Jonathan. You don’t have to trap it all in.”

“What do you do with emotions?” I tilt my head to the side, watching him. “Do you profit from them?”

His light eyes soften at the corners. “She was your mother.”

“Is showing emotions going to bring her back? Should I go through an episode like James and trash the whole house, or should I collapse like my father so it’s written in some record that I mourned her?”

“I get it. You want to be strong for them.”

“It’s not a choice, Ethan. I have to. My father can’t plan his fucking day without her and James has always been a mama’s boy. If I fall with them, nothing will bring us up again. The bank will take the house as collateral if none of us gets our shit together.”

“Damn. Want me to help?”

“I have a plan.”

He grabs the bottle and takes a sip. Ethan and I have never found trouble in sharing things. It’s our modus operandi. “What type of plan?”

“You know Lord Sterling?”

“The one who holds a grudge against your father because your mother didn’t choose him?”

“Yes, that one. Mother abandoned him at the altar and he still feels the humiliation to this day. That’s why he’s after everything Father’s built, from the company to the house and even the summer home in Wales.”

“Sorry fuck. What do you intend to do?”

“Find his weakness and hit him where it hurts so he backs the fuck off.”

My father’s heart condition isn’t doing well. Ever since Mum fell sick, it’s like he’s aged ten years every day.

The doctor told me and James to try to keep him as far away from stressful situations as possible. I couldn’t do anything about today, but the future is different.

I’m taking things into my own hands, and I’ll force everyone who’s brought my family down to pay. In blood if I have to.

“I like that.” Ethan grins. “I’m in.”

“No one invited you.”

He wraps an arm around my shoulder and squeezes. “I invited myself and you can’t kick me out. You’re stuck with me for life, Jon.”

“Is this my punishment?”

“Fuck you, mate.” He stands up and offers me his hand. “Come on.”

I take it, staggering to my feet and dusting the dirt off my trousers and jacket.

After downing one last swig from the small bottle, I let Ethan throw it away.

“Go first,” I tell him. “I’ll be there in a bit.”

He tightens his grip on my shoulder one final time in an obvious show of comfort before he releases me and disappears to the other side of the cemetery. James probably needs Ethan’s consoling more than I do. My brother’s the type who feels too much, sort of like my parents.

I’m like our grandfather. It’s not that I don’t feel, it’s that I find it hard, even impossible, to show those feelings.

Ever since Father’s company started to struggle, I’ve known I don’t have a choice in being who I am. I might’ve not finished university yet, but the courses of action I suggested have worked more than what Father has been doing for years.

He can be soft when it comes to business, and that’s his biggest mistake. If you’re not a wolf, you’ll be eaten by wolves.

James couldn’t care less about affairs. He’s content with being a rugby star and spending his youth drinking and shagging his way through the female population.

I cross the distance from the forgotten grave to where Mother’s burial is happening. I mourn her alone, not in front of people. I mourn the way she was too naïve for this world, the way she thought giving to others was her purpose of being, to the point she forgot about us sometimes.

There was no misconception about who was Mother’s favourite between me and James. She always looked at me with a furrow between her brows whenever I hit her with facts she didn’t appreciate, like how Father couldn’t sponsor her charitable events anymore.

She couldn’t relate to me, and we remained that way. However, she loved me, I guess. Like anyone would love the child whose morals they doubted.

Mother thought I was too cruel, when I was just too realistic for her liking.

Today, I’ll be the rock James and Father need, and then I’ll protect the house Grandpa left us.

I will protect the King legacy.

My feet come to a halt at a low weeping sound. I stand by the tree, half-camouflaged by the trunk, and tilt my head to the side.

A woman in a black dress and a matching veil covering her eyes kneels in front of what seems like a new grave, tears falling down her cheeks.

Her black hair is pulled into a conservative bun that doesn’t go well with the designer clothes and shoes she’s wearing.

Beside her stands a little girl no older than five years old. She’s also wearing a long black dress that swallows her small body. A veil similar to the woman’s, though sheerer, covers her eyes as well. Her ebony hair is tied in pigtails, falling on either side of her face.

As the woman — her mother, I assume — cries, the little girl fiddles with the veil, nose scrunching and lips thinning in a line. Someone doesn’t like that veil.

When she finally manages to shrug it off, she bunches it in her small hands, hides it behind her back, then drops it to the ground.

I smile at the mischievous look in her dark eyes. From this distance, I can’t tell if they’re brown or blue, or a mixture of both.

As soon as she finishes her mission of getting rid of the veil, she leans over the woman and wipes her eyes with the back of her tiny hands.

“Don’t cry, Alicia. She’ll be reight,” the little girl says in a brittle voice with a northern accent. Yorkshire dialect? “Our mummy is happy in heaven.”

That only makes the older woman cry harder, her sobs echoing in the air like an opera gone wrong.

So they’re siblings, not mother and daughter. The age difference is too large, though. The older one must be at least twenty, if not more.

The little girl wraps her tiny arms around the woman’s neck and squeezes her. “I love you, Alicia.”

“I love you, too, Claire.” The woman, Alicia, manages to say between hiccoughs, her arms caging the small girl against her chest.

They remain like that for a second before the girl, Claire, pulls away. “Hey, Alicia. I’m gonna make ya happy.”

“Really?” Alicia ruffles her hair, a sad smile on her lips. Her tone and voice are more sophisticated than the younger girl’s, hinting at a more refined upbringing. “How?”

“I’m gonna dance for ya.” She points a thumb at herself. “I’m the best dancer in town.”

“You are.”

“Aye. That’s right.” She grabs her sister by the wrist. “Come on, lemme show ya. Not here, cuz I don’t want ghosts to see.”

“Okay, okay.” Alicia staggers to her feet and follows the small girl’s lead.

Claire discreetly looks back, and I think it’s at the grave, but then she kicks something on the ground. The veil — she’s trying to bury it.

Her eyes meet mine, and she freezes. The colour of her irises are blue, a deep dark one like the undiscovered bottoms of oceans. A mischievous smile pulls at her lips as she places an index finger to them.

I wink at her and her grin widens before her sister drags her out of sight.

After they’re gone, I cut the distance to the grave they were visiting. Smiling, I crouch and take the tiny veil that’s half-buried in the dirt. My smile vanishes when I read the name on the tombstone.

Lady Bridget Sterling

Beloved Wife and Mother

I couldn’t miss that name even if I wanted to. She was Lord Sterling’s wife — the one who committed suicide not so long ago.

My gaze trails to the path the two girls took. One of them is Alicia Sterling, the only offspring Lord Sterling ever had.

In that case, who was that small one? She called Lady Bridget her mother, so is she perhaps illegitimate? The northern accent fits in that theory if Bridget had a lover in the North.

She doesn’t matter, though. The one who shares Lord Sterling’s blood does.

Alicia.

I commemorate the name to memory for later, shove the veil in my pocket, and join the burial of my mother’s.

People are everywhere like flies, their heads bowed. Some are sniffling, others are feigning sympathy they don’t feel.

I come to a halt at the scene in front of me. James is patting the back of my rigid father, whose face is paler than Mum’s skin is as she rests in her coffin.

Taking a deep breath, I join them, standing on the other side of Father. Gregory King has a slim built and his hair has been slowly balding over the years. His grey eyes and straight nose are the only things he shares with me and James.

My older brother is buffer than me with wide rugby shoulders and a build to match. He also has a charming presence that instantly makes him the more approachable of the two of us, even though I’m three years younger.

“You’re late,” my brother hisses at me under his breath. “They closed her casket.”

“I’m here now.” Not that I wanted to say goodbye. I already did that at the hospital, then kissed her forehead and covered her again with the sheet.

I don’t know how to say goodbyes. Not when Grandpa passed away, and certainly not now.

“Well, you could’ve come earlier,” James snaps.

“Or I could’ve just come now.”

“Do not fight in front of your mother. You know she loathes that,” Father reprimands, his eyes not leaving the casket as it’s being swallowed by the ground while the priest says a few words.

Dust to dust.

Ironic.

The start is always the end, isn’t it?

We remain long after she’s six feet under. Everyone slowly says their condolences and leaves. Soon enough, it’s only the three of us.

What remains of the King family, anyway.

Ethan says he’ll wait for us by the car. I’m ready to go home and start taking action on how we should go from here.

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.