Page 44 of The Broken Queen
Presley was sobbing as she began moving her hands around whatever was underneath her. I finally looked down and felt my heart sink for an entirely different reason.
Adrian was in a body bag, on our front steps, with a note stapled to his forehead. I slowly got to my knees, next to the girl who once brought me glass jars full of sunlit dirt, and wrapped my hand around hers as she sobbed over her fiancé’s chest.
“I can’t read it, King. You have to read the note.” She hiccupped.
Very carefully, I tugged the note from its place against Adrian’s forehead and winced when I realized there was a bullet hole under the paper. I began reading it to myself just in case it was something she didn’t need to hear right then.
My dearest Presley,
You win. Seems his loyalty was to you and not to this family. So here you go, you can have him. See you soon-
Markos
“What did it say?”she asked, glancing up at me. She hadn’t let go of my hand, and I decided I wouldn’t release hers either.
“It says that Adrian loved you.”
Her tear-stained eyes searched mine as if she were trying to tear apart each word and decipher a different meaning. She gave me asolemn nod before returning to Adrian’s body, smoothing back his hair and pressing a kiss to his blue lips.
She whispered against him, “I’m sorry I couldn’t love you the way you deserved.”
There was a shadow that appeared in the corner of my eye, making me glance over. Scotty stood there, wearing his tactical gear, glaring at the body as if it were a speck of shit on his shoes. Presley continued to cry while she touched Adrian’s face and tried to fix his hair.
“Presley, we need to move the body,” Scotty demanded, sauntering closer.
Anger twisted her features as she snapped her head up; her lips wobbled, but her tone was sharp. “You will not touch him.”
“And you will not sit here and cry over a corpse. Get up. You were trained better than this.” Scotty sneered in reply.
“She’s not one of your fucking dogs,” I roared back at him.
Scotty scowled at me and worked his jaw back and forth while a few of the guards began flanking him.Where the fuck were they when this body had been dropped?
“Kingston, Presley is hysterical, and I can understand her anger. However, you shouldn’t be feeling anything other than joy. Regardless, please consider helping Presley by removing her from the corpse. Even you know this is unhealthy.”
I hated Scotty with every fiber of my being, but he was right. It was freezing outside, fog was increasing around the property, it was the end of February, and she was in just a simple T-shirt, kneeling on concrete steps while hovering over a cold, dead body. I tried to pull my hand free of hers so I could help pick her up, but she squeezed it, so I wouldn’t budge.
“I’m staying,” she gritted out between teeth that chattered from the cold. Her dark hair fell over her brows, and her lips were turning blue, but I was inclined to sit with her. I felt it somewhere down in my soul that something inside of her was splintering. I had assumed Presley was broken before, but the way she stared at me, determinedwith an unfamiliar fire in her eyes, I knew this was different. This was true grief, and it was tearing through her like a storm in the ocean. She was drowning, and regardless of our past, there wasn’t any chance I’d leave her.
There was movement behind us, where Gio stepped through the door. He draped a large blanket over Presley’s shoulders and sank to his knees next to her, grabbing her other hand.
“That’s okay, Elvis. We’ll stay with you.”
And we did. We sat there in the numbing cold, each of us holding one of her hands while she mourned the man who was supposed to become her husband. The man whom I was positive she assumed would set her free from us.
Chapter 17
Presley
Icould hear Gio and Kingston talking to one another.
Their voices were quiet, and they were being gentle with the cadence they used. It was starting to get late, and I knew they hadn’t eaten or done anything other than sit here with me all day while I clung to Adrian’s dead body.
I realized what I was doing was crazy, and perhaps I should consider how I was making everyone around me feel, but I didn’t want to.
If they wanted to leave, they could. I wasn’t forcing them to stay. I just didn’t want anyone to touch Adrian’s body. Not yet. Scotty would probably just dump him in some furnace or bury him without caring at all, and I didn’t want to do that to him. I needed to protect his body and ensure he had the proper respect given to him. At first, I was worried, I’d be the only person who would fight for that, but after having the twins by my side for the entirety of the day, that wasn’t true. Deep down, they were still my best friends.
“What are you guys arguing about?” I finally sat up and wiped at my eyes.
