Page 64 of The Broken Queen

Father, on the other hand, scared the shit out of him. I found that out pretty quickly.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Kyra’s been stalking me, man. What the hell did you do to her? She’s acting like a lost fucking puppy who has a broken heart.”

Of course he would come into my room saying that shit, trying to make me out to be the bad guy. Mostly because Slade broke things off with Kyra because of me. The two of them got into a heated conversation and I decided that was my time to leave. Even though it was my room, being in there with that asshat was not happening.

I left them in the room and took off down the hall. Sad thing was I didn’t have a whole lot of friends outside of Slade. Girlswere too petty and jealous of my “lifestyle” and “friendship” with Slade to want to be close to me. If they wanted to be my friend, they would use me to get ahead. I had to close myself off to the world because too many people took advantage. This life, this secluded way of living Father forced me into was the worst possible way to live.

Something churned in my gut when I’d somehow made my way to the library. I stood in front of the closed door, just staring at it as if it would open on its own. I hadn’t been in here since the day of her murder. At one point, it was my favorite place to come, but when it happened, it tainted any good memory I had.

I wasn’t sure what, but something was calling me, tempting me to go back into that room. Maybe there was some clue I was missing from Mother’s death. The murder had never been solved, and I wondered if it ever would be.

With a shaky breath, I reached out and put my hand on the knob. The door swung open and I walked into the dusty room. Cobwebs were on the lamps, dust on the tables, books had gone untouched and that would’ve broken any reader’s heart.

Even with all the dust, the library was still as beautiful as I remembered. Being Mother’s and my favorite place, it was a hard pill to swallow. Her not being here to enjoy it anymore ripped me up inside. I never in my life thought I would miss someone as much as I missed her. It’s hard to function sometimes thinking about all the things she’ll end up missing.

There was a desk near the window that had sunlight streaming inside, and I went over to it. When I used to come in here, I never touched the desk. I wondered if there may be some clues on it so I could find out what happened.

What I really needed was to get into Father’s desk at some point. Yeah, as if that was going to fucking happen.

I rumbled through the messy stack of papers and of course, didn’t find anything useful. But then, I came across a letter.

To my beautiful and strong willed daughter,

If you’re reading this, it means I have left you and I’m so sorry for that. Leaving you alone in this world was never my intention.

I wanted to get my thoughts down on paper before something happened to me, so you knew what to expect.

My eyes were glued to the letter, wanting to devour it, but I heard footsteps coming down the hall, so I quickly stuffed it into my pants. I went to leave but ran into Elijah.

There was something about him that never really sat right with me. ”Can I help you?”

He smirked. “Yeah, watch yourself Queen.”

I rolled my eyes. Another one of his stupid riddles. “I don’t have time for this Elijah.”

We’d done this dance many times, but I never in my life expected what he was going to do next.

He came at me so fast that I didn’t see it coming. I was tackled to the ground with a loud bang, my head hitting the floor with a violent thud. One of his hands gripping my throat and the other trying to move under my shirt.

This couldn’t be happening.

“You may be a bitch, but you sure are a hot one. Maybe if I defile you now, Slade won’t want you anymore.” His fingers glided up my stomach and bile rose in my throat.

I wasn’t going to let this happen. I couldn’t let this happen.

I fought him, kicking, scratching and biting to get him off of me, but nothing worked.

I opened my mouth and screamed bloody murder at the top of my lungs.

Where the fuck was Slade? Why wasn’t he around to stop Elijah?

Panic continued to rise within me, but he was torn off me and thrown against the wall. I laid there for a minute, trying to catch my breath. I’d been put in horrific situations again and again, but I had never been in a situation where I had to worry about someone defiling me.

I slowly rose to my feet, dusted myself off and tried to fix the clothes he was messing with. I looked up and saw our bodyguard Markus standing over Elijah with a death glare on his face. He wanted to rip him apart, but instead he said, “Get the fuck out of here. If you ever come near her again, I’ll rip your fucking head off.”

Elijah ran out of the room like his ass was on fire.

Markus looked back at me, concern dripping on his face. “Are you okay?”

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