7
Elsa
Kim and Knox find me outside running down the street from Ronan’s house. They decide to call it a night, too.
I’m thankful Kim doesn’t ask questions and just stays by my side in the back seat as Knox drives us home.
Once I’m in front of my house, Kim switches places to the passenger seat and rolls the window down. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay the night? We can watch some cheesy rom-com?”
“Kir needs you more than me.”
She winces, then smothers it with a smile. “Text me?”
“You bet.” I bend to meet Knox’s gaze. “Thanks for everything, Knox, and I’m sorry.”
“You did nothing wrong.” He winks and the car revs to life.
I stand at the threshold, crossing the coat over my chest until Knox’s Range Rover disappears down the road.
“I’m back,” I say to no one as I step into the door.
The house is empty and… cold.
As usual when Aunt and Uncle aren’t here.
Maybe I should’ve been selfish and asked Kim to stay the night.
For some reason, I don’t want to be alone tonight.
Once in my room, I remove my coat and throw it on the desk’s chair, open the balcony, then drop on my bed headfirst.
Since I left the party, there’s been this crushing weight on my chest. It’s suffocating my air and making me feel claustrophobic in my own skin.
I won tonight.
Not only did I stop Aiden, but I also humiliated him in front of the entire school like no one did before.
He’s the king after all. No one would dare to look him in the eye for more than five seconds, let alone disrespect him while the entire student body is in earshot.
But I did.
I won.
Then how come I feel no sense of victory? If anything, it’s a bit emptier inside.
Rolling on my back, I stare through the balcony at the rain.
It’s barely a drizzle, but I feel it in my bones. The scent of the earth after rain fills my nostrils and a sigh rips from me.
I pull my phone and type in Google’s search bar, Alicia King’s death.
Several articles come by. All of them state that Alicia died in a car accident. Her crashed car was found at the bottom of a cliff. The coroner’s report says that it took her several hours to die. Since the place is desolate and it was raining that day, it took people some time to find her.
I swallow, my fingers hovering on the screen of the phone.
How did she feel during those hours as she slowly and painfully died in her car?
It hurts to even imagine it.
Some reporters speculate that she had suicidal tendencies and King Enterprises is just camouflaging it as an accident.
They also speculate that James King, Jonathan’s eldest brother and Levi’s father, who was reported to have died from an accident four years ago, actually died from an overdose.
If that’s true, then Jonathan does a lot of media play to make his family appear so mighty and without weaknesses.
I flip back to Alicia’s articles and stare at her pictures. She was petite with dark brown hair and pitch-black eyes. Even her features are so tiny, they’re distinguishable.
She’s like those maidens in period films. Sophisticated, elegant, and with a mysterious smile.
“What exactly happened to you, Alicia?” I whisper to her image. “How did you end up with a man like Jonathan?”
Except for the small beauty mole at the side of her right eye, Aiden looks nothing like her. He’s definitely a carbon copy of his father.
Even after seeing her images, it brings nothing to memory.
My eyes skim over the article, and I pause. The date of Alicia’s accident was one day before the fire that took my parents’ lives.
No.
It must be a coincidence.
Alicia died in London. We were in Birmingham.
There’s no way my parents killed her as Jonathan told Silver.
I type my mother and my father’s names in the search bar, John Steel and Abigail Steel.
No photos or articles come out. Even the article I read a few weeks ago about the domestic fire has completely disappeared.
That’s… weird.
Well, my parents weren’t as important as Alicia King or James King.
I scroll through my phone’s gallery and find a picture I took of an old polaroid of Mum and Aunt.