Page 2 of The Broken Queen
“Where’s Dad?” I repeated, wishing I could ask how my twin brother was doing. I already knew he wouldn’t tell me, and if he did, he’d somehow reveal all the things I’d been worrying about. That I’d broken him when I chose to punish Presley. I ruined the only shot we’d ever had at having her together, and now she was about to marry someone else.
Gio finally cleared his throat and took off down the front steps. “He’s in your garden.”
The garden I hadn’t touched in months.
The one I couldn’t even stand to look at now that Presley wasn’t here. I’d once asked her to tend to it for a year and a half, not realizing how painful that would have been without me here. I didn’t blame her for allowing it to die. I didn’t deserve that happiness. I had a feeling Gio felt the same about tracking stars and solar systems.
Without her, what was the point?
Walking down the steps, I tipped my head back and watched as the sky turned white with little strips of gray. Snow wouldn’t fall, but the boards I’d been pulling out would be stiff and cold. Didn’t matter, I’d still pull and yank until they all came free. I’d worked through the humid, hot summer months and toiled during the brisk autumn. Winter was no different, even as we edged closer to spring.
Our stride through the frozen field was long; our conversation subdued. I thought back through the past year and how insignificant it felt, yet so much time had passed. It took us six months to infiltrate the motorcycle club and discover our father’s sister, who had somehow gotten tangled up with them. October, we’d rushed back home and found Presley here, helping our aunt after our property had been breached.
The shock of seeing her left both my brother and me practically speechless. Gio couldn’t help but try to go to her, but he was shut down just as I was. We had tried to get her attention all throughout dinner, even as our eyes lingered on her bare finger, curious where her engagement ring was. The next morning, she was gone.
It had been nearly four months since then and a total of nine since we’d fucked her, and acted as if we couldn’t have cared less that she’d chosen to give us her virginity. Nine months since that day when we watched Adrian whisk her away, out of our lives, and suddenly, the insatiable need to push down the rage burst from my brother and I in the form of destruction.
Frenzied hearts often did reckless things, and once ours lackedthe tether to the only person who ever made our worlds make sense, we indeed becamereckless.
She blocked our numbers and hadn’t reached out. Her parents and Scotty traveled to see her often. Scotty remained there regularly, but not a single person ever told us how she was doing. Not if she’d married Adrian yet… We would ask, but we had removed the possibility of knowing anything when we declared war against the family.
The peace was tentative, so we never dared bring her up, knowing her existence was a trigger.
Gio’s boots crunched some dead branches behind me, and it made me want to ask him where he’d been sleeping. Neither one of us lived in the manor anymore, and if we were around, we spent time on the farm. I had moved into the barn so I could spend every waking hour on the farmhouse, but I had no idea where Gio had been.
“You talk to Dad recently?” I tossed the question over my shoulder, and when my brother’s gaze met mine, pain twisted around my heart. He wasn’t doing well. I could sense it; it made me nervous because of how dark things got for him when we were in Mexico. There were places his mind would go that were too vast and deep for me to understand.
“I go over for dinner every now and then.”
Irritation burned under my skin as we drew closer to the manor. Red brick four stories tall loomed ahead, the roof was black, and from here I could make out the iron railing that led from our side of the house to Presley’s.
“Ever consider inviting me?” I joked, but my brother would be able to pick up on the seriousness of my tone. Gio had abandoned me, and while I had mostly understood it all these months, it hurt.
My twin’s head remained dipped, his eyes on the ground. He ignored me, and I decided to ignore him too as we neared our part of the manor and my small garden came into view. Our dad stood amongst the weeds and frozen soil, wearing his chino pants and a black turtleneck, brown loafers on his feet.
I greeted my father with a nod.
He turned, narrowing that assessing gaze on me. Sometimes the guilt over how badly we’d fucked up dug inside me so deep that I worried I’d never recover. Our father was disappointed in us, but it went deeper than that. We’d taken the dangerous thing he’d inherited and had successfully used for good and broken it. Twisted it once more and made it bend to our demands, and now we were its leaders.
Reluctantly and begrudgingly.
“Kingston, thank you for coming up here.”
Gio stepped next to me but kept a wide berth. I felt like I was stuck in a bad dream. One where my brother hated my guts, and my father couldn’t stand the sight of me. Except this was real.
“What’s going on?” I flicked my eyes over the garden. Nothing had grown here in so long it was difficult to even make out that it was once a thriving plot. Flashes of small fingers digging into dark soil and a dimpled smile ran through my mind, going back in time to when Presley would help me grow things.
Dad stepped closer. “Your mother and I are considering leaving. We think it might be time for our family to start over.”
My chest ached, heavy and blunt. The worry felt like a rock.
“Where would you go?”
My gaze slid to my twin. Thankfully he looked just as taken aback by the news as I was.
Dad kept our gaze. “Chicago, maybe Texas. We aren’t sure yet.”
“Alex is going with you?” Gio asked.
