Ruthless Empire: A Dark Enemies to Lovers Romance (Royal Elite Book 6)

There are right days and wrong days.

Today is the latter.

I know the right days — or rather, I discovered them over the past couple of weeks.

Right days start with Silver’s face opposite mine before I wake her up with my tongue inside her cunt, and her muffling her screams into the pillow so no one hears.

Right days include leaving hickeys all over her tits and stomach and even her neck, then spying on her as she secretly stares at them in the mirror with a smile.

Those days include sneaking behind everyone’s backs whenever we have dinner, and fucking her against the bathroom’s counter until her orgasm face is the only thing visible in the mirror.

Those days can also be spent in the club, where we watch people have sex until she becomes so hot and bothered and starts to touch me. Where I’m fucking her then and there until my name comes out of her mouth in a stifled moan.

Right days end with me slipping into her room and fucking her before hugging her to sleep, only to wake her up in the middle of the night to fuck her again.

That’s the problem with Silver… It’s impossible to get enough of her. I have no pause or stop button when it comes to her. The moment I think I’m done, she’ll moan in her sleep or absentmindedly stroke my chest, and all I want to do is own her again.

The resistance never really withers away from her. It doesn’t matter that she comes undone around me, or that she still goes behind my back to threaten any girl who comes close to me. After every time I take her, every single orgasm, and every single kiss, she doesn’t fail to murmur that she hates me.

Her body might open to me willingly and without any resistance, but she still has her heart and mind under lock and key.

On right days, I couldn’t give a fuck about that. The only thing that matters is that she’s mine. So what if no one knows? I’m still the only one she comes for, begs for, and whose name she moans.

I’m the only one who sees the hickeys and the only one who puts them there. I’m the only one who witnesses the rolling of her eyes and the ‘O’ on her lips when she orgasms. The only one who feels the shaking of her legs around me and hears that small satisfied noise she makes when she’s spent.

But on wrong days, like today, I want to grab her by the throat and kidnap her the fuck out of here.

Out of this city. This country. This world.

Since we’re at school and have many witnesses, I can’t actually do that. So I watch her like I always have.

When we’re here, Silver pretends I don’t exist as she goes on about her day. I’ve told her a thousand times over that the more she acts like a bitch towards me or anyone else — the more she fakes her life — the harder I’ll fuck her that night.

I think she’s doing it on purpose. Her eyes will shine with both excitement and fear whenever I corner her, then she’ll flip her hair and tell me she’s not scared of me.

She is sometimes. Or she’s probably scared of the depth of her desire for me.

Whenever I sneak into her room at night and find her in one of those oversized T-shirts, she jumps in bed, realising just how much she’s fucked.

I tie her down most of the time, and she comes harder than any other type of sex.

As soon as we finish practice, Silver decides to have a one-on-one with Aiden near the pitch.

Recently, after Elsa nearly drowned in the pool, she broke it off with Aiden. Silver is using that chance to stake her claim again, and Aiden is doing it to make Elsa jealous and go back to him.

Silver’s smile is fake at best. I know her genuine smiles, and they’re usually reserved for her parents and home. She offers them whenever she compliments Mum’s food, or when she kisses her dad good morning and tells him she loves him.

They also come out when she sleeps wrapped around me. But she’ll never admit that.

At every reminder that we’re siblings, she physically pushes away from me. If she’s sitting across from me, she’ll squirm. If she’s somehow beside me — which is rare as hell — she’ll inch away.

The fact that I can’t be with her in public used to be fine at the beginning. I used to like knowing that she’s a bitch on the outside but turns into a willing submissive whenever I touch her. That I’m the only one who sees that side of her.

On wrong days, like fucking today, it isn’t fine.

Aiden can be with her, can touch her, can even fucking marry her and get everyone’s blessings. The fact that I can’t has been worsening the chaos that’s been in my head since they got engaged when we were fifteen.

It’s not like I can say to Mum, ‘Hey, you got your fun with Sebastian, now leave him.’

Not only is that selfish, but I also care too much about Mum’s well-being to ever do that to her.

Doesn’t mean I don’t think about it.

“Whoa. Look at them go.” Ronan clutches my shoulder as I stand by the bench and pretend to drink from a water bottle.

Resisting the urge to glare at him, I feign nonchalance. “Look at who?”

“What?” Xander runs towards us, panting. “Who? Drama?”

“Captain is pretending he doesn’t care about King and Silver.”

Why should I? They’re both playing a game. But I don’t say that in front of these two fuckers or they’ll use it as a chance to think I care.

“I don’t think Silver likes King.” Xander shrugs. Finally, someone seeing the truth. “I don’t think she likes or cares about anyone, actually. Everyone calls Elsa Frozen, but Silver is pure metal.”

She’s not. She does care. Silver calls her mum five times a day and makes sure her dad stays hydrated and Mum stays focused whenever she has a deadline. She watches Kim’s disintegration from afar with a sad expression that she wipes away before anyone can see it.

The reason Silver seems like an uncaring, self-centred bitch is because she doesn’t show her concern. She considers it a weakness and does everything to smother it.

“Nonsense.” Ronan points at himself. “She likes me.”

“She likes no one,” Xander says.

“Except for moi.” Ronan grins. “Everyone likes me.”

“Not me,” I taunt.

“Me neither most of the time,” Xan agrees.

“Fuck you both, connards. I’m really filing a report for neglect.” Ronan switches to a dramatic tone. “My abandonment issues are coming back to me. I need therapy.”

Xan raises a brow. “Party tonight?”

“Fuck yes.” Then Ronan goes on about the ladies who will be available to him and how he’ll forget our betrayal with them.

I tune him out, even though I still get the gist of his words.

All I can focus on is the look in Silver’s bright blue eyes. The way they lighten under the hint of the sun. The way they sparkle with excitement whenever her father wins a poll, or Derek hands her the bag of mini Snickers bars she still uses as comfort food.

Or when I step into her room every night.

Look at me, I speak to her in my head. Not him. Fucking look at me.

I stand there for a few seconds, counting, waiting for the moment she realises she’s not supposed to be talking to Aiden.

That I’ll find her in Ronan’s party, drag her to that room where I first tied her, and do it again.

I know that’s exactly why she’s putting on this show. She loves the thrill, the slight fear, and even the forbidden aspect of it. She gets wet when I ask her if she’s scared someone will walk in.

But the fact she’s not looking at me, not even a glance, is fucking with my head.

It doesn’t help that this is the most wrong day of all.

She, of all people, should know that.

I leave Ronan and Xander in the middle of their usual bickering, take a quick shower, and head to my Jeep.

Instead of going to Sebastian’s house, I drive back home.

My original home that Mum still keeps.

I go straight to where my mind has been living for the past ten years. I drop my messenger bag on the chaise lounge and stand at the edge of the pool, placing both hands in my trousers’ pockets.

The water is blue; I know that. But all I see is red. Deep, dark red and blank eyes and a hand.

Ever since that night, I haven’t been able to swim in this pool. I swim in other pools, and I never imagine their colours changing.

This one is different.

Even now, the water is turning a murky red. A hand will come out from there. He’ll gurgle words.

I still don’t remember the last words he said. Which is ironic for someone with an excellent memory.

Were they even words?

I do remember the first part, though. I’ll never forget it. Maybe that’s why I can’t recall the rest.

You’re a monster.

My monster of a father called me a monster. How ironic is that?

Not ironic enough apparently, because I can’t get it out of my mind. It’s like an old, distorted disc that plays in my head on repeat.

I can’t forget the blood or the hand or the gurgled words he said before he stopped speaking altogether.

Today is the anniversary of William Nash’s death. Ten years later, I’m still standing at the edge of the pool as if I’m that small kid.

I still wonder why I extended a hand to get him out.

Why I didn’t want him to drown, even though he deserved it.

I still wonder why I didn’t scream and yell and cry when I couldn’t reach him. When he floated in the bloody water. Why did I turn around and leave? That’s not how kids my age should respond to seeing their father drowning in his own blood.

I should’ve gone to Mum. I should’ve at least had a reaction.

I didn’t.

It was…nothingness. It’s there, but you don’t feel it, see it, or smell it.

Slender arms wrap around my waist from behind. Her flowery perfume envelops me as her pale, manicured hands grab each other at my stomach.

For a second, I close my eyes and cut my connection with the bloody water.

Silver is my chaos. She’s the first person I saw after all that blood, and for that reason alone, she’s associated with it.

She’s not supposed to be my calm. And yet, when her head falls on my back and her warmth mingles with mine, I realise she’s the only calm I’ve ever had in my life. Even books don’t compare — and that says something.

Silver is the beauty and the ugliness.

The calm and the chaos.

“How did you get in?” I don’t attempt to face her.

“I asked Helen for the code. I figured you’d come back home for the anniversary.” Her voice catches. “I wanted to tell you this at the funeral, but you were being mean, so I didn’t.”

“Tell me what?”

“I’m so sorry for your loss, Cole. You were too young to lose a parent.”

“Or maybe I was old enough to realise it’s better I lost that parent.”

She lifts her head from my back but doesn’t release me. “What do you mean?”

“My father was abusive. He hit me and Mum, especially Mum, whenever he was drunk.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that.”

“No one did. Mum and I are great actors.” I don’t know why I’m telling her this — her, of all people. It must be because it’s a wrong fucking day. I get weird on wrong days.

“I don’t think you wanted him dead, though.” Her voice softens.

“Maybe I did.”

“If you did, you wouldn’t come to stand here on every anniversary.”

“How do you know that?”

Silence. Her hands tighten around me, but she doesn’t answer.

I untangle them and spin around to face her. “You’ve been watching me?”

She’s staring at the ground, kicking imaginary pebbles. “Maybe.”

I lift her chin with two fingers until her huge blue eyes are trapped with mine. “What makes you think I come here to pay tribute? Maybe it’s because I feel guilty.”

“It doesn’t look like guilt.” Her voice is gentle, emotional. “It looks like you want to grieve but can’t. It was the same at the funeral, right?”

I have no words to say, so I remain quiet, letting her interpretation soak in. How could she know me so well?

“It’s a black day to me, too, Cole. My parents decided to split up on this day ten years ago. People say it gets better, but it never has. I still feel that loss and it hurts, but I grieved. Why don’t you try it?”

How can you try something you’ve never felt? I don’t even know what grief means.

A crazy idea hits me and I voice it before thinking about it. “Jump with me, Butterfly.”

“Jump with you where?”

“In the pool.”

“Now?” She stares between me and the water. “But it’s freezing.”

“Are you a coward?”

“No.”

“Then do it.”

“Fine —”

Before she can finish her reply, I grab her by the arm and we both jump. The splash of the water mixes with Silver’s gasp before we go under.

Down…

In blood.

The water is blood.

Red engulfs me in his clutches. A black hand pulls at my ankle, yanking me to the bottom. I don’t fight it. I can’t. If I do, he won’t let me go. If I do, he’ll just grab me tighter. He’ll tell me I’m a monster and that I should —

Two hands touch my cheeks — soft, tender hands — and guide me to the surface.

Silver.

Her golden hair is wet, sticking to her temples, and her frantic, bright eyes search mine. Her palms are still around my cheeks as her body moulds to mine under the water. Only our heads are on the surface level.

The water’s still bloody, but it’s slowly returning to that blue colour. There’s no hand pulling me under into nowhere.

“What is wrong with you? You scared the shit out of me, Cole.” She pants. “Are you okay?”

I wrap my hand around her nape and take claim of her lips. I kiss her in gratefulness. I consume her as my form of thanks.

Silver wrenched me from the water, not only now, but also ten years ago.

My chaos.

My damnation.